“If Mr. Craven happens to call I will see him. He was here two nights ago. Do you know him by sight?”
“I can’t say I do, my lady.”
“Ah! You were not in the hall when he called the other day?”
“No, my lady.”
“He is tall with dark hair, about thirty years old. Murgatroyd is not in to-day, is he?”
“No, my lady.”
“Then if anyone calls like the gentleman I have described just ask him his name. And if it is Mr. Craven you can let him in.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The footman went out. A clock chimed in the distance, where the piano stood behind the big azalea. It was half past five. Lady Sellingworth made up the fire again, though it did not really need mending; then she stood beside it with one narrow foot resting on the low fender, holding her black dress up a little with her left hand.
Was Fate going to leave her alone? That was how she put it to herself. Or was she once more to be the victim of a temperament which she had sometimes hoped was dying out of her? In these last few years she had suffered less and less from it.