A shadow fell on Rachel's face, as on the face of one who suddenly discovers, not for the first time, an old enemy advancing upon him under the flag of a new ally.
"I shall always love him," gasped Lady Newhaven, recovering herself sufficiently to recall a phrase which she had made up the night before. "I look upon it as a spiritual marriage."
CHAPTER VIII
A square-set man and honest.
—TENNYSON.
"Dick," said Lord Newhaven, laying hold of that gentleman as he was leaving Tattersall's, "what mischief have you been up to for the last ten days?"
"I lay low till I got my clothes," said Dick, "and then I went to the Duke of ——. I've just been looking at a hack for him. He says he does not want one that takes a lot of sitting on. I met him the first night I landed. In fact, I stepped out of the train on to his royal toe travelling incog. I was just going to advise him to draw in his feelers a hit and give the Colonies a chance, when he turned round and I saw who it was. I knew him when I was A.D.C. at Melbourne before I took to the drink. He said he thought he'd know my foot anywhere, and asked me down for —— races."
"And you enjoyed it?"
"Rather. I did not know what to call the family at first, so I asked him if he had any preference and what was the right thing, and he told me how I must hop up whenever he came in, and all that sort of child's play. There was a large party and some uncommonly pretty women. And I won a tenner off his Royal Highness, and here I am."
"And what are you going to do now?"