"There is no necessity," Lauraine answers, looking at her with calm surprise. "I know you dislike Mrs. Woollffe, and of course you are not bound to acknowledge her niece—
"As Mrs. Athelstone," interrupts Lady Jean. "No, I suppose not—only for Keith's sake——"
She pauses. Lauraine feels the colour mounting to her brow. There is something so irritating in this patronage and she knows that Lady Jean is about the last person who ought to talk of a mésalliance.
"I thought you said just now that she would never be that," she says very coldly. "Your words and opinions seem somewhat inconsistent."
"I shall be very much surprised if she ever is," responds Lady Jean. "All the same, one ought to prepare for the worst."
Good-humoured as is her speech, light as is her laughter, Lauraine feels that there is a covert meaning in both.
She would have known she was right could she have heard the conversation between Sir Francis and herself later on that evening. After the fatigue of the drive to Iffezheim and the excitement of the races the whole party profess to be too tired for anything but a quiet evening of "loo," mingled with music and gossip and cigarettes. Then Sir Francis saunters over to where Lady Jean sits—her dark, picturesque beauty looking its best in the mellow lamp-light.
"What did you mean to-night by your remarks about young Athelstone?" he asks abruptly.
Lady Jean gives him one quick glance of her flashing eyes. "Mean? nothing, of course. What should I mean?"
"That's just what I want to know. You don't think he cares for this girl?"