"Poor Aunt Sophia had a mere dog-hole last Christmas," sighed Lady Waterbury.
"Well, didn't she bring her dog?"
"Poor darling; she never goes anywhere without Ponto: and, of course, she is a shade tiresome, and it is rather sweet of Joe to put up with her. Mrs. Bellenden may pass this time."
"Did I hear somebody talking of me?" cried a crystal clear voice, and a woman as lovely as a midsummer dawn came with swift step across the velvet turf towards the stone bench where Claude Rutherford and his host and hostess were seated.
They had strolled into the Italian garden, after an abundant tea that had welcomed the first batch of guests, a meal at which Mrs. Bellenden had not appeared, preferring to take tea in her dressing-room, while she watched her maid unpack, and planned the week's campaign; the exact occasion for every frock and hat being thought out as carefully as the general in command of an army might consider the position of his forces. It was to be a visit of five days and evenings, and none of those expensive garments which the maid was shaking out and smoothing down with lightly caressing fingers, was to be worn twice. All those forces had to be reviewed. Not a silk stocking not a satin slipper must be reported missing. Silken petticoats that rustled aggressively; petticoats of muslin and lace that were as soft and noiseless as the snow whose whiteness they imitated; fans, jewels, everything must be put away in perfect condition, ready for a lady who sometimes left herself the shortest possible time for an elaborate toilette, and yet always contrived to appear with faultless finish.
And this evening, as she came sailing across the garden, having changed her travelling clothes for a mauve muslin frock of such adorable simplicity that a curate's wife might have tried to copy it with the aid of a seamstress at eighteenpence a day, she was a vision of beauty that any hostess might have been proud to number among her guests.
She took her seat between Sir Joseph and his wife with careless grace, and held out her hand to Claude Rutherford without looking at him.
"Lady Waterbury told me that you and Mrs. Rutherford were to be here," she said. "Is she resting after her journey?"
"I am sorry to say she was not able to come with me."
"Not ill, I hope?"