At last the final trick was won, the score reckoned up, and the players rose.
Deerehurst pushed back his chair, and looked about him speculatively.
"It feels late!" he said. "What is the time, Lady Diana? My conscience begins to trouble me!"
Lady Diana smiled a little conventionally.
"I think it is about half-past two," she answered.
"Oh, Lady Diana, how wicked of us!" Mrs. Bathurst affected a charming penitence.
Mansfeldt looked genuinely uncomfortable and distressed.
"We owe you an apology!" he said. "We have kept you from your rest."
But Lady Diana graciously waived all apologies aside.
"It is nothing!—nothing!" she assured them. "We are not so rustic as all that. Lord Deerehurst, you and Mr. Mansfeldt will find George in the smoking-room." She gave the suggestion with her usual hospitable warmth; but the smile that accompanied the words was not the smile she had given to Clodagh the evening before—or that morning at breakfast.