“By Jove!” muttered Lord Dunforth to himself, “she understands herself perfectly. The most critical could find no fault with her greeting; and yet to me it is very evident I shall be obliged to hoist a flag of truce before we can come to any terms of peace. I’m glad of it,” he added, his eyes resting admiringly upon the bright face: “it just suits me. My own Meta was not more regal.”
Turning to Adrian, he said, with a suspicious tremble in his voice:
“I heartily congratulate you, my boy. Shall there be peace between us?”
“Certainly, my dear sir, if——”
“I understand you,” he interrupted, “and I find no flaw in her. Indeed, Adrian, I am as proud of your triumph to-night as you can possibly be.”
“Thank you. If you had read the letter I wrote you all unpleasantness might have been avoided, for in it I explained that she is a niece of your—of a Miss Douglas whom you used to know,” Adrian returned.
“I know all about it, my boy,” his lordship said, in a husky voice. “I discovered all the other day when I met your wife at Capel & Armand’s.”
“Yes, she told me you were there.”
“What! did she recognize me?” and the color flew to his face, as he recalled Brownie’s entire self-possession, and how she had ignored his presence.
“Oh, yes; you know she was at Castle Dunforth several weeks since, and it is not likely she would forget you so soon, especially as she already knew so much about you.”