"We agreed, did we not--at Glacier--on what was to be done next to our friend? Oh! don't dispute! I laid it down--and you accepted it. As for me, I have done nothing but pursue that object ever since--in my own way. And you, Madam?"
As he stood over her, a lean Don Quixotish figure, his long arms akimbo, Elizabeth's fluttering laugh broke out.
"Inquisitor! Good night!"
"Good night--but--just a word! Anderson has done well here. Your public men say agreeable things of him. He will play your English game--your English Imperialist game--which I can't play. But only, if he is happy--if the fire in him is fed. Consider! Is it not a patriotic duty to feed it?"
And grasping her hand, he looked at her with a gentle mockery that passed immediately into that sudden seriousness--that unconscious air of command--of which the man of interior life holds the secret. In his jests even, he is still, by natural gift, the confessor, the director, since he sees everything as the mystic sees it, sub specie æternitatis.
Elizabeth's soft colour came and went. But she made no reply--except it were through an imperceptible pressure of the hand holding her own.
At that moment the ex-Viceroy, resplendent in his ribbon of the Garter, who was passing through the hall, perceived her, pounced upon her, and insisted on seeing her to her carriage. Mariette, as he mounted the staircase, watched the two figures disappear--smiling to himself.
But on the way home the cloud of sisterly grief descended on Elizabeth. How could she think of herself--when Philip was ill--suffering--threatened? And how would he bear the news of Anderson's hastened departure?
As soon as she reached home, she was told by the sleepy butler that Mrs. Gaddesden was in the drawing-room, and that Mr. Anderson was still upstairs with Philip.
As she entered the drawing-room, her mother came running towards her with a stifled cry: