"Lady Blythe—Miss Armitage."
Lady Blythe turned white to the lips. Her dark eyes opened widely in amazement and fear—she put out a hand as though to steady herself. Her husband caught it, alarmed.
"Maude! Are you ill?"
"Not at all!" and she forced a laugh. "I am perfectly—perfectly well!—a little faint perhaps! The heat, I think! Yes—of course! Miss Armitage—the famous author! I am—I am very proud to meet you!"
"Most kind of you!" said Innocent, quietly.
And they still looked at each other, very strangely.
The men beside them were a little embarrassed, the Duke twirled his short white moustache, and Lord Blythe glanced at his wife with some wonder and curiosity. Both imagined, with the usual short-sightedness of the male sex, that the women had taken a sudden fantastic dislike to one another.
"By jove, she's jealous!" thought the Duke, fully aware that Lady
Blythe was occasionally "moved that way."
"The girl seems frightened of her," was Lord Blythe's inward comment, knowing that his wife did not always create a sympathetic atmosphere.
But her ladyship was soon herself again and laughed quite merrily at her husband's anxious expression.