'So sorry to be going!' she murmured. 'I really wish I could have a few minutes' private talk with you! But you are such a busy woman!'
'Yes, I am!' agreed Delicia, smiling. 'However, opportunities for talking scandal always turn up sometime or other—don't you find it so?'
Mrs Lefroy was not quite proof against this delicate home-thrust. She felt distinctly angry. But there was no time to show it. She forced a smile and went—determining within herself that some day she would shake the classic composure of the 'female authoress' to its very foundations, and make of her a trembling, weak, jealous woman like many others whom she knew who were blessed with husbands like Lord Carlyon.
Gradually the 'after-tea' crowd dispersed, and Delicia was left alone with only one remaining visitor—Paul Valdis. The dog Spartan rose from the corner where he had lain peacefully retired from view during the crush of visitors, and advancing majestically, with wagging tail, laid a big head caressingly on the actor's knee. Valdis patted him and spoke out his thought involuntarily.
'One, at least, out of your many friends, is honest, Lady Carlyon,' he said.
Delicia, somewhat fatigued with the business of receiving her guests, had seated herself in a low arm-chair, her head leaning back on a cushion, and now she looked round, slightly smiling. 'You mean Spartan?' she said, 'or yourself?'
'I mean Spartan,' he replied, with a touch of passion; 'A dog may be honest without offence to the world in general, but a man must never be honest, unless he wishes to be considered a fool or a madman, or both.'
She regarded him intently for a moment. Her artistic eye quickly took note of the attractive points of his face and figure, and, with the perception of a student of character, she appreciated the firm and manly lines of the well-shaped hand that rested on Spartan's head, but it was with the admiration which she would have given to a fine picture more readily than to a living being. Something, however, troubled her as she looked, for she saw that he was suppressing some strong emotion in her presence, and her first thought was that the English version of 'Ernani' was going to prove a failure.
'You speak bitterly, Mr Valdis,' she said, after a pause, 'and yet you ought not to do so, considering the brilliancy of your position and your immense popularity.'
'Does a brilliant position and immense popularity satisfy a man, do you think?' he asked, not looking at her, but keeping his gaze on the honest brown eyes of Spartan, who, with the quaint conceit of a handsome dog who knows his own value, went on wagging his tail, under the impression that the conversation was addressed to him alone. 'Though I suppose it ought to satisfy an actor, who, by some folks, is considered hardly a man at all. But if we talk of position and popularity, you far outbalance me in honours—and are you satisfied?'