"Mother," said the Lady Pearl at this moment.
"My darling! my only child!" replied the Duchess in her deepest bass.
"I think Mr. Van Adam has something on his mind."
The Duchess started, and surveyed her daughter with protruding eyes.
"What makes you think so, my beautiful Pearl?" she queried.
"He never spoke to me all through dinner, and he kept on looking towards Mrs. Verulam. I think the world is full of misery."
"Gout, my beloved one, gout! Carlsbad would make you think very differently," replied the Duchess according to her rule. But she spoke without conviction; and the Lady Pearl did not think it necessary to protest, as usual, that her mental condition was governed by the soul rather than by the body.
Heavily the rainy evening wore on. The statement of the Lady Pearl had added to the Duchess's conviction that some deep-laid plot was brewing between Mrs. Verulam and Chloe. Her Grace's knowledge of the world taught her that Mrs. Verulam must in all probability be a desperate woman to-night. For had she not been whipped by the Countess of Sage in the eyes of the whole world? And let a woman be reckless and wicked as Messalina, her first public scourging does not leave her unmoved; but, on the other hand, it probably does leave her defiant, careless of consequences, ready for any fierce and wild adventure. Was not, perhaps, some fierce and wild adventure afoot to-night? The Duchess felt like a regiment of sentries as she sat brooding by the silent orchestrion, her eyes fixed so furiously on Mrs. Verulam that that wicked little baggage seemed set in mist—seemed blurred as the shining disc is blurred to the subject being hypnotised.
Only when the men came in from the dining-room, and she met again the furtive eyes of her husband, did the Duchess feel painfully that over the watch-dog paradoxically a watch was set.