"You quite understand, Tommy; no one else."
"Yes, auntie, I quite understand."
And Tommy had been waiting there an hour, but still there was no sign of Captain Kynaston's return; he was getting very tired and very hungry by this time, for he had had no tea. He had heard the dressing-bell ring long ago in the house—it must be close upon their dinner hour. Tommy could not guess that, by an unaccustomed chance, the master of the house had gone in by the back-door to-day, and that he had been in some time.
Presently some one pushed aside the long muslin curtains, and came stepping out of the long French window on to the terrace. It was Helen.
She was dressed for dinner; she wore a pale blue dress, cut open at the neck, a string of pearls and a jewelled locket hung at her throat; she turned round, half laughing, to some one who was following her.
"You will see all the county magnates at Shadonake to-morrow. You will have quite enough of them, I promise you; they are neither lively nor entertaining."
A young man, also in evening dress, had followed her out on to the terrace; it was Denis Wilde; he had arrived from town by the afternoon train. Why he should have thrown over several very good invitations to country houses in Norfolk and Suffolk, where there were large and cheerful parties gathered together, and partridge shooting to make a man dream of, in order to come down to the poor sport of Kynaston and the insipid society of a newly married couple, with whom he was not on very intimate terms, is a problem which Mr. Wilde alone could have satisfactorily solved. Being here, he was naturally disposed to make himself extremely agreeable to his hostess.
"You can't think how anxious I am to inspect the élite of Meadowshire!" he said, laughing. "My life is an incomplete thing without a sight of it."
"You will witness the last token of mental aberration in a decently-brought up young woman in the person of Beatrice Miller. You know her. Well, she has actually engaged herself to a barrister whom nobody knows anything about, and who—bien entendu—has no briefs—they never have any. He was staying here for a couple of days; a slow, heavy young man, who quoted Blackstone. Maurice took a fancy to him abroad; however, he was clever enough to save Beatrice's life by stopping a run-away horse. Some people say the accident was the invention of the lovers' own imaginations; however, the parents believed in it, and it turned the scales in his favour; but he has taken himself off, I am thankful to say, and is staying at Lutterton with her uncle. Beatrice might have married well, but girls are such fools. Hallo, Topsy, what are you barking at?"
Mrs. Kynaston's pug had come tearing out of the house with a whole chorus of noisy yappings. The peacocks, deeply wounded in their tenderest feelings, instantly took wing, and went sailing away majestically over the crimson and gold parterre of flowers below.