She rose from her chair and crossed to the sofa on which were piled many red flannel cloaks. On a table lay pound packages of tea, and a small basket holding gills of gin discreetly covered with a white napkin. These were her particular gifts to her own people, to be bestowed presently, coram publico, before tea was served on the lawn beneath the approving eyes of the doctor, parson, and such of the local gentry as might “drop in.”
As she rose, glancing at the neat piles of books and letters, a sigh escaped her. Nobody knew how much her work perplexed and bothered her. If her smile disarmed criticism, it was partly, perhaps, because pathos informed it. At times it seemed to say: “I want to please people, but it’s horribly difficult.” No business training had been vouchsafed her, except such knowledge as had come from dealing with servants and tradesmen. In the management of a large estate her husband had never consulted her. And yet—a tremendous tribute—he had left her everything during her lifetime, scorning to impose any conditions should she marry again. Possibly he knew that she would not do so.
As she stood beside the sofa, plump and prosperous, erect mentally and physically, an intelligent child might have proclaimed her to be what she was, a superb specimen of the English châtelaine. Obviously a gentlewoman, courteous alike to the Lord-Lieutenant of her county or to the humblest of her many dependents, exacting respect from all and affection from many, she had just passed her fifty-fifth birthday. But her face remained free from wrinkles, smoothly pink as if glowing autumnally after a sunny summer; and her features were on the happiest terms with each other, firmly but delicately modelled, prominent, but not aggressively so.
She wore clothes of no particular mode that became her admirably. Her butler entered the room.
“Well, Stimson, what is it?”
Her voice was very pleasant and articulate. At the mere sound of it the austere face of the old retainer relaxed. Deprecatingly, he informed his mistress that Mr. Goodrich had arrived.
Lady Selina frowned slightly. Her guests had been invited for four. It was not yet half-past three.
“Show Mr. Goodrich on to the lawn. Tell him, with my compliments, that I will join him there in a few minutes.”
“Very good, my lady. Mr. Goodrich expressed a wish to see your ladyship before the others came.”
Lady Selina retorted sharply: