"By which road do you return to Beaulieu, Baron?" inquired Gerald.
"The afternoon is so fine and the distance so short, that I purpose walking back through the park."
"Then, with your permission, I will walk with you as far as the corner of the wood."
"Need I say that I shall be charmed?"
Mrs. Brooke gave the Baron her hand. He bent low over it. For once the ramrod in his back found that it had a hinge in it.
"You will not be gone long?" said Clara to her husband.
"Not more than half an hour.--We will go this way, Baron, if you please."
"Are all diplomatists like the Baron Von Rosenberg, I wonder?" mused Mrs. Brooke. "If so, I am glad Gerald is not one. His politeness is so excessive that it makes one doubt whether there is anything genuine at the back of it. And then the cold-blooded way in which he looks you through out of his frosty eyes! Could any woman ever learn to love a man like the Baron? I am quite sure that I could not."
She seated herself at the piano, and had been playing for a few minutes when she was startled by the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside. She turned her head and next moment started to her feet "George! You!" she exclaimed; and as she did so, the colour fled from her cheeks and her hand went up quickly to her heart.
At Mrs. Brooke's exclamation, a tall, thin, olive-complexioned young man, with black eyes and hair and a small silky moustache, advanced into the room. He was handsome as far as features went; just now, however, his expression was anything but a pleasant one. A something that was at once furtive and cruel lurked in the corners of his eyes, and although his thin lips were curved into a smile, it was a smile that had neither mirth nor good-nature in it. A small gash in his upper lip, the result of an accident in youth, through which one of his teeth gleamed sharp and white, did not add to the attractiveness of his appearance. In one hand he carried a riding-whip, and in the other a pair of buckskin gloves.