“She has been turned out of her aunt’s,” interrupted Ermine. “Yes, I’m certain that’s it—she and old Burton have come to blows and Ella’s high spirits or high temper have proved too much for him.”
“Ermine,” said Philip, warningly, “you should really,” and he glanced in Barnes’s direction.
But if Barnes did hear what they were saying he at least appeared so absolutely unconscious that Philip’s remonstrance fell rather flat. The butler had retired to a few paces distance, where he stood awaiting orders with an irreproachably blank expression.
“Is the young—is Miss Ella St Quentin in the library?” asked Sir Philip suddenly.
“Yes, my—I beg pardon—yes, Sir Philip,” Barnes replied. His former master had been a peer, and even after some years of serving a commoner Barnes found it difficult to ignore the old habit.
“Then go and tell her Miss St Quentin; mind you, say it distinctly, no Miss Madelene or Miss Ermine—the young lady is, as you supposed, Miss Ella St Quentin—say that Miss St Quentin will be with her immediately. You’d better go at once, Maddie.”
“She couldn’t have meant to call herself Miss St Quentin—it was just an accident, no doubt,” said Madelene nervously.
“Of course, but it’s just as well from the first to remind her that she is not Miss St Quentin,” said Philip. “Stupid of her aunt to have let her get into the habit. But Madelene—”
“Yes, yes. Ermine, hadn’t you better get some fresh tea?—this will be cold,” said Madelene, touching the teapot. “Philip, hadn’t Ermine better come too?”
No one could have believed it of her—no one ever did believe it possible that the cold, stately Madelene was in reality a martyr to shyness and timidity. But the two or three who knew her well, knew the fact and pitied her intensely, her cousin Philip among them. But he knew, too, the best way to treat it, cruel as it sometimes seemed.