"Yes, ma'am, it is. Shall I ring?"
Miss Davenal pushed forward and rang herself, an imperative peal. What right had they, she was mentally asking, to venture on so expensive a house as this must be? A footman flung open the door.
"Does Mr. Cray live here?"
"Yes," said the footman with a lofty air: as of course it was incumbent as him to put on to anybody so dead to good manners as to call at that early hour. "What might your business be?"
None could put down insolence more effectually than Bettina Davenal. She gave the man a look, and swept past him.
"Show me to your mistress, man."
And somehow the man was subdued to do as he was bid, and to ask quite humbly, "What name, ma'am?"
"Miss Davenal."
He opened the door of a room on the right, and Miss Davenal, never more haughty, never more stately, stepped into it. She saw it was of good proportions, she saw it was elegantly furnished; and Caroline, in a flutter of black ribbons on her pretty morning toilette, was sitting toying with a late breakfast.
She started up with a scream. Believing that the lady before her was safe at Hallingham, perhaps the scream was excusable.