"I see that you have no more sleep in you than I have," he said. "Let us make a night of it."
It had rained all day and he was suddenly alive to a sense of physical discomfort. He rang and ordered a servant to make a fire and bring the tea-service.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked Isabel, when they were alone again.
"I felt that you were, but I went first to your room and tapped. I was quite capable of waking you up. Thank heaven I summoned the courage to come down. This is delightful."
The fire was crackling in the grate, the water boiling in the big silver kettle. Isabel made his tea almost black, but diluted her own, lest she should be left alone before she too was ready for sleep.
"You have had a beastly time these last days," he said, for he was genuinely hospitable. "I am sorry you did not happen to come a month earlier. Have you seen anything of Hexam? He was going on to Arcot."
"He rode over, or walked over, every day. We should have fallen a prey to melancholy without him, although you may believe me when I assure you that we thought more of you than we did of ourselves. I am your own blood-relation, so I have a right to feel dreadfully sympathetic—may I have a cigarette?"
"What a brick you are to smoke! I don't mind being sympathized with for a change. I have had to do so much sympathizing with others in the last week that I have not had time to pity myself. Even my mother went to pieces, for she was fond of Zeal, poor old chap, and her conscience scorched her because she was always rather nasty to my grandfather—she likes and dislikes tremendously, you know; although to most people she is merely indifferent. But when she dislikes—" He blew the ashes from the tip of his cigarette with a slight whistling sound.
Flora Thangue had extracted all the particulars of the death and suicide from Lady Victoria—who knew nothing, however, of the tragic cause of both—and imparted them to Isabel, whose mind, in consequence, was free of morbid curiosity. She had also read the newspapers. The speculations and veiled hints of the sensational sheets had not interested her, but she had pondered deeply over leaders in the more dignified organs, which had abounded in comment upon the changed conditions in the meteoric career of the young man who was no longer Elton Gwynne, but a peer of the realm.
"Do you mind it so awfully much?" she asked, after a short silence during which they had both smoked absently and gazed at the fire.