“My dear, you were a baby at the time I knew your mother. I think you were just able to toddle across the drawing-room the day I bade her good-bye, before I went to Scotland with Lochinvar—our last journey, poor dear man. He died the following winter.”
The butler announced luncheon, and they went into an ideal dining-room, purely Oriental, with hangings of a dull pale pink damask interwoven with lustreless gold, its only ornaments old Rhodes salvers shining with prismatic hues, its furniture of cedar inlaid with ivory.
“I am quite alone to-day,” said Lady Lochinvar. “My nephew is driving to Monte Carlo by the Cornice, and will not be back till dinner-time.”
“I am very glad to be alone with you, Lady Lochinvar. I feel myself bound to tell you that I had an arrière-pensée in seeking your acquaintance, pleasant as it is to me to meet any friend of my mother’s youth.”
Lady Lochinvar looked surprised, and even a little suspicious. She began to fear some uncomfortable story. This sad-looking woman—such a beautiful face, but with such unmistakable signs of unhappiness. A runaway wife, perhaps; a poor creature who had fallen into disgrace, and who wanted Lady Lochinvar’s help to regain her position, or face her calumniators. Some awkward business, no doubt. Lady Lochinvar was generous to a fault, but she liked showing kindness to happy people, she wanted smiling faces and serenity about her. She had never known any troubles of her own, worse than losing the husband whom she had married for his wealth and position, and saw no reason why she should be plagued with the troubles of other people. Her handsome countenance hardened ever so little as she answered,
“If there is any small matter in which I can be of service to you—” she began.
“It is not a small matter; it is a great matter—to—to a friend of mine,” interrupted Mildred, faltering a little in her first attempt at dissimulation.
Lady Lochinvar breathed more freely.
“I shall be charmed to help your friend if I can.”
The butler came in and out, assisted by another servant, as the conversation went on; but as his mistress spoke to him and to his subordinate only in Italian, Mildred concluded they understood very little English, and did not concern herself about their presence.