Ancoats's quick eyes ran over the group.
"He thinks we have been talking about him," was Betty's quick reflection, which was probably not far from the truth. For the young man's face at once assumed a lowering expression, and, walking up to Lady Tressady, whom as yet he had noticed no more than civility required, he asked whether she would like to see the "houses" and the rose-garden.
Letty, delighted by the attention, said Yes in her gayest way, and Ancoats at once led her off. He walked quickly, and their figures soon disappeared among the trees.
Madeleine Penley gazed after them. Betty, who had a miserable feeling that the girl was betraying herself to men like Harding Watton or Lord Cathedine,—a feeling which was, however, the creation of her own nervous excitement,—tried to draw her away. But Lady Madeleine did not seem to understand. She stood mechanically buttoning and unbuttoning her long gloves. "Yes, I'm coming," she said, but she did not move.
Then Betty saw that Lord Naseby had approached her; and it seemed to the observer that all the young man's vivid face was suffused with something at once soft and fierce.
"The thorn-blossom on the hill is a perfect show just now, Lady Madeleine," he said. "Come and look at it. There will be just time before lunch."
The girl looked at him. The colour rushed to her cheeks, and she walked submissively away beside him.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Letty and Ancoats pursued their way towards the greenhouses and walled gardens. Letty tripped along, hardly able to keep up with her companion's stride, but chattering fast all the time. At every turn of the view she overflowed with praise and wonder; nor could anything have been at once more enthusiastic or more impertinent than the questions with which she plied him as to his gardeners, his estate, and his affairs, in the intervals of panegyric.
Ancoats at first hardly listened to her. A perfunctory "Yes" or "No" seemed to be all that the situation demanded. Then, when he did sufficiently emerge from the tempest of his own thoughts to catch some of the things she was saying, his irritable temper rebelled at once. What had Tressady been about?—ill-bred, tiresome woman!