At that moment her husband passed her without perceiving her. Lady Brancewith was on his arm, evidently delighted to be seen in the company of so physically handsome a person. The little diamonds sewn on her priceless lace flashed in Delicia's eyes like sparks of light; the faint, sickly odour of patchouli was wafted from her garments as she moved; the hard lines which vice and self-indulgence had drawn on that fair face were scarcely perceptible in the softened light, and her little low laugh of coquettish pleasure at some remark of Lord Carlyon's sounded musical enough even to Delicia, who, though she knew and detested the woman's character, could not refrain from looking after her half in wonderment, half in aversion. Within a few paces of where she sat they stopped,—Lord Carlyon placed a chair for his fair companion near a giant palm, which towered up nearly to the roof of the conservatory, and then, drawing another to her side, sat down himself.
'At last in my wretched life I am allowed a moment's pleasure!' he said, conveying into his fine eyes a touch of the Beautiful Sullenness expression which he generally found answer so well with women.
Lady Brancewith laughed, unfurling her fan.
'Dear me, how very tragic!' she said. 'I had, no idea you were so wretched, Lord Carlyon! On the contrary, I thought you were one of the most envied of men!'
Carlyon was silent a moment, looking at her intently.
'The only man in the world to be really envied is your husband,' he said morosely.
Delicia, hidden by the protecting curtain, kept herself quite still. A smile of disdain came on her proud mouth as she thought within herself, 'What liars men are! I have heard him say often that Lord Brancewith ought to be hounded out of the clubs for allowing his wife to dishonour his name! And now he declares him to be the only man in the world to be really envied!'
But Carlyon was speaking again, and some force stronger than herself held her there motionless, an unwilling listener.
'You have never been kind to me,' he complained, the Beautiful Sullenness look deepening in his eyes. 'Lots of other fellows get a chance to make themselves agreeable to you, but you never give me the ghost of one. You are awfully hard on me—Lily!'
He paused a moment before uttering Lady Brancewith's Christian name, then spoke it softly and lingeringly, as though it were a caress. She, by way of reply, gave him a light tap on the cheek with her fan.