Presently she sighed and turned away from the window. A fine place and eight thousand a year and more when Josiah Homewood was laid with his fathers. Well! things might be worse, and the lad himself, she liked him. He was younger than she was by four years, but what did that matter?
She had seen him once or twice, had liked him vaguely, there was little to dislike about him. He was not handsome, she was glad of that, she hated handsome men, nor was he plain. Again she was glad; she disliked anything that was ugly. He was also, despite his parentage, a gentleman. She liked him for that most of all.
"If he had been vulgar like his father, three times the money would not have been enough," she said to herself.
Still, there were memories, memories that rose up out of the past, the memory of a face, of eager, ardent, worshipping eyes, of a lame, halting speech, words disjointed and broken, eager, pleading, yet hopeless words. "I love you, oh! I love you; don't turn from me. I know I am not worthy, Kathleen, but I love you so!"
She laughed suddenly, she felt ashamed and annoyed to realise that there were tears on her lashes and on her cheeks.
"Folly!" she said aloud. "Folly, and it's all dead and gone ten, years ago, ten years—" she laughed, "a lifetime! He's married to someone else; if he's sensible, he will have married someone with money, for he had none, poor fellow!"
Meanwhile at the Club, where the better part of his day and practically the whole of his night was spent, Lord Gowerhurst had looked up a telephone number and was putting a call through.
"Homewood—yes, Sir Josiah Homewood, is he in? Yes, I do, Gowerhurst—Lord Gowerhurst—You'll put him through—then hurry!"
He waited and then came a voice. It was evidently the voice of a stout man in a state of anxiety.
"Yes, it's me, it's Homewood, my Lord——"