"What!" she cried, "is it you? Are you the two people who came in here and ordered luncheon in the middle of our party?"
"I am afraid we are, do you know," said Wentworth, as he came forward. "We didn't know how indiscreet we were being. We'll go somewhere else."
"Not at all, not at all," said Lady Chaloner. "How do you do, Mr. Rendel? I have not seen you for a long time. Of course you must lunch with us, so it all ends happily. Maddy, this is Mr. Francis Rendel—Princess Hohenschreien."
Rendel bowed. He had had one moment, as they came up into the garden and saw there were other people there, before Lady Chaloner had recognised them, to make up his mind as to what he would do. Then he had said to himself desperately that he would risk it. After all, he might be exaggerating the whole thing; Wentworth did not know, and so the others might not. Rendel had felt during the last hour one of those strange sudden lightenings of the burden of existence that for some unexplained reason come to our help without our knowing why. He was almost beginning to think life would be possible again. At any rate, here, at the present moment, he would not try to remember or realise what it was going to be, what it must be. He would sit here on this peerless day with these pleasant friendly people, and this one hour at any rate the sun should shine within and without.
"That's right," said Lady Chaloner, pointing to two places some way down the table at her left; "sit anywhere."
As Wentworth and Rendel stood opposite to the Princess and her attendant cavalier, the door of the house, which faced them, opened, and Lady Adela Prestige appeared in the doorway, with some more people behind her.
"How delightful this is!" Lady Adela cried, as she stepped out into the garden.
"Isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. "Look how amusin'," she continued. "Mr. Wentworth and Mr. Rendel have come to luncheon too, quite by chance."
Lady Adela nodded to Wentworth, whom she was seeing every day, and bowed to Rendel, whom she knew slightly. Then, as Rendel looked beyond her, he saw who was coming out of the house in her wake—Lord Stamfordham, followed by Philip Marchmont. Stamfordham, coming out into the dazzling sunlight, did not at first see who was there. In that hurried, almost imperceptible interval, Rendel had time to grasp that here was the horrible reality upon him in the worst form in which it could have come. He had wild visions of saying something, doing something, he knew not what, instantly repressed by the Englishman's repugnance to a scene. Then he pulled himself together, and simply stood and waited. And as he waited he saw Stamfordham come up to the table with a pleased smile, prepared to sit down on Lady Chaloner's right hand, next the seat into which Lady Adela had dropped. Then Stamfordham suddenly saw the two men still standing on the other side of the table, and recognised in one of them Francis Rendel. A swift extraordinary change came over his face. The genial content of the man who, having deliberately put all his usual cares and preoccupations behind him was now, under the most favourable conditions, prepared to enjoy a holiday in genial society, suddenly disappeared. He involuntarily drew himself up, his face became hard and stern; he again looked as Rendel had seen him look the last time they had met. The mental agony of the younger man during that moment was almost unendurable. What was going to happen next? As in a dream he heard the comfortable voice of Lady Chaloner, who had never in her life, probably, spoken with any misgivings, whose calm confidence in the bending of contingency to her desires nothing had ever occurred to shake.
"Will you sit down there, Lord Stamfordham? We have two new recruits to our party, you see. I don't think I need introduce either of them."