On the word she rose and confronted him, smiling into his troubled eyes; grace of girlhood and dignity of womanhood adorably mingled in her pose.
"Who was she?" Nevil asked, willingly lured from thoughts of Jane.
"Careless one! Have you forgotten the story of my Wonder-Woman—how a King, loving his Queen with all his soul, bowed himself in ecstasy, and 'took the dust off her feet' in presence of other wives who, from jealousy, cried: 'Shameless one, lift up the hands of the King to your head.' But the Queen stood erect, smiling gladly. 'Not so: for both feet and head are my Lord's. Can I have aught that is mine?'"
The swiftness of transition, the laughing tenderness of her eyes so moved him—and so potent in her was the magical essence of womanhood—that he, Sir Nevil Sinclair, Baronet, of Bramleigh Beeches, came near to taking the dust of her feet in very deed.
CHAPTER VI.
"Qui n'accepte pas le regret, n'accepte pas la vie."
Nevil's fears were justified to the full. Lady Roscoe was one of those exasperating people of whom one can predict, almost to a word, a look, what their attitude will be on any given occasion. So Nevil, who shirked a "scene"—above all when conducted by Jane—put off telling her the unwelcome news as long as he dared, without running the dire risk of its reaching her "round the corner."
Meantime he was fortified and cheered by a letter from Cuthbert Broome—a shrewd, practical letter amounting to a sober confession of faith in Roy the embryo writer, as in Roy the budding man.
"I don't minimise the risk," he concluded, with his accustomed frankness (no relation to the engaging candour that dances a war-dance on other people's toes), "but, on broad lines, I hereby record my conviction that the son of you two and the grandson of Sir Lakshman Singh can be trusted to go far—to keep his head as well as his feet, even in slippery places. He is eager for knowledge, for work along his own lines. If you dam up this strong current, it may find other outlets, possibly less desirable. I came on a jewel the other day. As it's distinctly applicable, I pass it on.