“Ah! how do you do, Mr. Caresfoot?” she said, in that low, rich voice that he remembered so well. “It is some time since we met; indeed, it quite brings back old times to see you, when we were all young people together.”
“At any rate, Lady Bellamy, you show no signs of age; indeed, if you will permit me to say so, you look more beautiful than ever.”
“Ah! Mr. Caresfoot, you have not forgotten how to be gallant, but let me tell you that it entirely depends upon what light I am in. If you saw me in the midst of one of those newfangled electric illuminations, you would see that I do look old; but what can one expect at forty?” Here her glance fell upon Angela’s face for the first time, and she absolutely started; the great pupils of her eyes expanded, and a dark frown spread itself for a moment over her countenance. Next second it was gone. “Is it possible that that beautiful girl is your daughter? But, remembering her mother, I need not ask. Look at her, Mr. Caresfoot, and then look at me, and say whether or not I look old. And who is the young man? Her lover, I suppose—at any rate, he looks like it; but please introduce me.”
“Angela,” said Philip, crossing to the window where they were talking, “let me introduce you to Lady Bellamy. Mr. Heigham—Lady Bellamy.”
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Caresfoot, though I think it is very generous of me to say so.”
Angela looked puzzled.
“Indeed!” she said.
“What! do you not guess why it is generous? Then look at yourself in the glass, and you will see. I used to have some pretension to good looks, but I could never have stood beside you at the best of times, and now—— Your mother, even when I was at my best, always killed me if I was in the same room with her, and you are even handsomer than your mother.”
Angela blushed very much at this unqualified praise, and, putting it and the exclamation her appearance had that morning wrung from Arthur together, she suddenly came to the conclusion—for, odd as it may seem, she had never before taken the matter into serious consideration —that she must be very good-looking, a conclusion that made her feel extremely happy, she could not quite tell why.
It was whilst she was thus blushing and looking her happiest and loveliest that George, returning from his walk, chanced to look in at the window and see her, and, gradually drawn by the attraction of her beauty, his eyes fixed themselves intently upon her, and his coarse features grew instinct with a mixture of hungry wickedness and delighted astonishment. It was thus that Arthur and Lady Bellamy saw him. Philip, who was looking at a picture in the corner of the room, did not see him; nor, indeed, did Angela. The look was unmistakable, and once more the dark frown settled upon Lady Bellamy’s brow, and the expanding pupils filled the heavy-lidded eyes. As for Arthur, it made him feel sick with unreasonable alarm.