"Some of them."
And straightway she raised her fierce black eyes to his, and the man before her understood, as plainly as any one need understand, that, whoever else Miss Boyce might like, she did not like Lord Wandle, and wished for no more conversation with him.
Her interrogator turned to Aldous with smiling aplomb.
"Thank you, my dear Aldous. Now let me retire. No one must monopolise your charming lady."
And again he bowed low to her, this time with an ironical emphasis not to be mistaken, and walked away.
Lady Winterbourne saw him go up to his wife, who had followed him at a distance, and speak to her roughly with a frown. They left the room, and presently, through the other door of the library which opened on the corridor, she saw them pass, as though they were going to their carriage.
Marcella rose. She looked first at Miss Raeburn—then at Aldous.
"Will you take me away?" she said, going up to him; "I am tired—take me to your room."
He put her hand inside his arm, and they pushed their way through the crowd. Outside in the passage they met Hallin. He had not seen her before, and he put out his hand. But there was something distant in his gentle greeting which struck at this moment like a bruise on Marcella's quivering nerves. It came across her that for some time past he had made no further advances to her; that his first eager talk of friendship between himself and her had dropped; that his acceptance of her into his world and Aldous's was somehow suspended—in abeyance. She bit her lip tightly and hurried Aldous along. Again the same lines of gay, chatting people along the corridor, and on either side of the wide staircase—greetings, introduction—a nightmare of publicity.
"Rather pronounced—to carry him off like that," said a clergyman to his wife with a kindly smile, as the two tall figures disappeared along the upper gallery. "She will have him all to herself before long."