When at length Lady Holme found herself at the other end of the great hall, she turned and saw her husband coming towards her with a look of fury on his face.
“I wish to go home,” she said to him in a low voice.
She withdrew her hand from Sir Donald’s arm and quietly bade him good-bye. Lord Holme did not say a word.
“Where is the Duchess?” Lady Holme added. “Ah, there she is!”
She saw the Duchess hurriedly going towards the place where the Duke was sitting, intercepted her swiftly, and bade her good-night.
“Now, Fritz!” she said.
She was conscious that a number of people were watching her, and her voice and manner were absolutely unembarrassed. A footman took the number of her cloak from Lord Holme and fetched the cloak. A voice cried in the distance, “Lord Holme’s carriage!” Another, and nearer voice, echoed the call. She passed slowly between two lines of men over a broad strip of carpet to the portico, and stepped into the brougham.
As it glided away into the night she heard her husband’s loud breathing.
He did not speak for two or three minutes, but breathed like a man who had been running, and moved violently in the carriage as if to keep still were intolerable to him. The window next to him was up. He let it down. Then he turned right round to his wife, who was leaning back in her corner wrapped up in her black cloak.
“With the Duke sittin’ there!” he said in a loud voice. “With the Duke sittin’ there!”