"I have no orders. This is your expedition, Maude, not mine; and, I assure you, I feel like a man in utter darkness in regard to it. Allow me to see your mother's letter."
Lady Hartledon had put the letter safely into her pocket.
"I would rather not, Percival: it contains a few private words to myself, and mamma has always an objection to her letters being shown. I'll read you all necessary particulars. You must let me have some money to-day."
"How much?" asked he, from between his compressed lips.
"Oceans. I owe for millinery and things. And, Val, I'll go to Versailles this afternoon, if you like. I want to see some of the rooms again."
"Very well," he answered.
She poured out some chocolate, took it hurriedly, and quitted the room, leaving her husband in a disheartening reverie. That Lady Hartledon and Maude Kirton were two very distinct persons he had discovered already; the one had been all gentleness and childlike suavity, the other was positive, extravagant, and self-willed; the one had made a pretence of loving him beyond all other things in life, the other was making very little show of loving him at all, or of concealing her indifference. Lord Hartledon was not the only husband who has been disagreeably astonished by a similar metamorphosis.
The following was the letter of the countess-dowager:
"Darling Maude,
"I have secured the house you write about and send by this post for Hedges and a few of the rest from Hartledon. It won't accommodate a large establishment I can tell you and you'll be disappointed when you come over to take possession which you can do when you choose. Val was a fool for letting his town house in the spring but of course we know he is one and must put up with it. Whatever you do, don't consult him about any earthly thing take your own way, he never did have much of a will and you must let him have none for the future. You've got a splendid chance can spend what you like and rule in society and he'll subside into a tame spaniel.