But, as they were preparing to go to the drawing-room to carry out this performance, a voice reached their ears from the hall with a somewhat excited, anxious tone in it.
"I could not have been more surprised if they had told me the Queen had come: for I expected you all to-morrow. And what have you done with my Philip?" Mrs. Stormont said. She came into the dining-room, followed by Margaret, and came forward to the table, holding out her hands with an air of joyous welcome under which there was a certain restlessness of anxiety. "Oh, fie! this is your London hours, still at breakfast when other people are thinking of their luncheon. But we must forgive you this time on account of your journey; and what have you done with my Philip?" she said again.
"Bless me!" said Margaret, "to think I should have been so far left to myself as to forget all about that. It is true Philip was to have travelled with us to-morrow; but circumstances made it more convenient for me to come away sooner, and I never let him know. But I dare to say," she added, "that he will not be ill-pleased; for to attend upon three women and their boxes is a trial for any man."
Mrs. Stormont shot a keen look at the speaker over the shoulder of Lilias, whom she was just then embracing with great fervour.
"Margaret is always severe upon men, as is perhaps natural enough," she said; "but I would have thought my bonnie Lily would have had more feeling. And so my poor lad is left to kick his heels at the railway station waiting for them that never come? I cannot thank you for that, Margaret. I think you might have had a little more consideration. There was perhaps something due to me—if Philip, poor man, was not grand enough to merit a thought——"
"Indeed I can assure you," cried Miss Jean, anxiously, "there was no want of thought. But, you see, we had serious business to attend to, and Margaret was very much taken up at the end, and we were just hurried away——"
Mrs. Stormont did not make any reply. It was evident that she was anxious underneath the offence, and full of uneasy thoughts. She drew Lilias into a chair by her side, and held her hand, and stroked it tenderly.
"And you have just had a great success, by all I hear. The Lily of Murkley has been blooming in the King's gardens. But I hope it has not turned your little head. For whatever strangers may say, there are no hearts so leal as those are at home."
"You must think me a very silly little thing," said Lilias, "if you suppose that would turn my head. It was never for us; it was just because of——" Here she caught Margaret's eye, and divined by something in it, and perhaps also by a rising something in her own breast which brought the colour to her cheeks, that her intended attribution of honour where honour was due was for the moment unnecessary. "Because of friends," she said, with hesitation and a blush. "Because of him, because of him!" she added to herself in her heart, with an indignant glance at Margaret.
If she were prevented from saying it out, all the more would she maintain it to herself.