"And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?"
"He sent the servants with me."
"Don't be insolent, Maude. You know what I mean."
"Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent. I can't tell you more, or tell it differently. Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the servants did."
She spoke sharply. In her tired condition the petty conversation was wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the mortifying consciousness that he had not come down with her, chafing her temper almost beyond repression. Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she felt this.
"Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?" asked the countess-dowager after a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter's face.
"It would be early days to be on any other."
"Oh," said the dowager. "And you did not write me word from Paris that you found you had made a mistake, that you could not bear your husband! Eh, Maude?"
A tinge came into Maude's cheeks. "And you, mamma, told me that I was to rule my husband with an iron hand, never allowing him to have a will of his own, never consulting him! Both you and I were wrong," she continued quietly. "I wrote that letter in a moment of irritation; and you were assuming what has not proved to be a fact. I like my husband now quite well enough to keep friends with him; his kindness to me is excessive; but I find, with all my wish to rule him, if I had the wish, I could not do it. He has a will of his own, and he exerts it in spite of me; and I am quite sure he will continue to exert it, whenever he fancies he is in the right. You never saw any one so changed from what he used to be."
"How do you mean?"