"To be sure I did. That is why I appear in my true character. I suppose"—his voice changing perceptibly—"that Miss Mollie and her father and my friend the humourist are well?" But Moritz did not look at Althea as he put this question, and so did not see the little smile on her lips.
"They were quite well when Waveney went home on Sunday. She said Mollie was a little pale and tired; but then, she had been taking too long a walk. She spent a night here on the evening of our girls' entertainment. It was quite amusing to see how they all admired her. She was the May Queen in one of the tableaux. It was the prettiest thing imaginable."
"I wish I had seen it;" and Lord Ralston's eyes were dark and bright. If Althea had not guessed his secret long ago, she would have guessed it now. With one of those sudden impulses which were natural to her, she put her hand gently on his arm.
"Moritz," she said, in her sweet, womanly way, "does Gwen know. Have you made her your confidante?"
Just for a moment Moritz drew himself up a little stiffly—as though he resented the question; but the kindness in Althea's eyes disarmed him, and perhaps his need of sympathy was too great.
"There was no need to tell her," he returned, in a low voice; "she found it out for herself. Gwen is very acute about such things."
"And she approves?"
"Oh, we have not come to that point yet"—speaking in his old, airy manner—"but she was very much interested, and as good as gold. She laughed at me a little for what she called my fantastic chivalry; but, all the same, she seemed to like it."
"But, Moritz, why are you so afraid of appearing in your true colours? I do not see that Viscount Ralston is a less interesting person than Mr. Ingram."
"Perhaps not," he returned, drily; "but we all have our whims. I am an Idealist, you must remember that, and I have a wish to stand on my own merits as a man, and not to make myself taller by posing on my pedestal of thirty thousand a year. It may be a foolish whimsie, but it is a harmless one, and affords me plenty of innocent amusement."