“Of course. Why not?”
“There are those in the administration who are jealous of his record,” she said. “Not every one has his tact in dealing with natives. It is no secret that our relations with the emirs of the interior have been strained almost to breaking point of late——”
A motor stopped outside the house and a bell rang. Lady Hilbury bent forward. Her voice sank to a new note of intense conviction.
“You have been given a great opportunity, Arthur. It may come sooner than you think. Grasp it firmly. Let no man supplant you, and it will carry you far.”
Her ladyship’s manner no less than her earnest words told Warden that there were forces in motion of which he was yet in complete ignorance. It was sufficiently puzzling to find an Under Secretary so well informed as to the identity of certain visitors to Cowes, but when a woman in the position of his hostess—with her wide experience of the seldom–seen workings of the political machine—went out of her way to congratulate him on a “great opportunity,” he was thrilled with a sudden elation.
Thus, when his hand closed on that of Rosamund Laing, there was a flush on his bronzed face, a glint of power and confidence in his eyes, that might well be misinterpreted by a woman startled almost to the verge of incoherence.
When she asked where Lady Hilbury was, and if she were alone, the footman merely announced the fact that a gentleman had called and would make one of the luncheon party. Rosamund entered the boudoir with an air of charming impulsiveness practised so sedulously that it had long ceased to be artificial. For once in her life it abandoned her. Warden’s friendly greeting was such a bolt from the blue that she faltered, paled and blushed alternately, and actually stammered a few broken words with the shy diffidence of a schoolgirl.
The phase of embarrassment passed as quickly as it had arisen. Both the man and the woman were too well–bred to permit the shadows of the past to darken the present. Lady Hilbury, too, rose to the occasion, and they were soon chatting with the unrestrained freedom of old and close acquaintanceship.
Then Warden discovered that the lively impetuous girl who taught him the first sharp lesson in life’s disillusionment had developed into a beautiful, self–possessed, almost intellectual woman of the world. She was gowned with that unobtrusive excellence which betokens perfect taste and a well–lined purse. Certain little hints in her costume showed that the memory of her late husband did not press too heavily upon her. The fashionable modiste can lend periodicity to grief, and Mrs. Laing was passing through the heliotrope stage of widowhood.