‘Quite well,’ said Picotee.
‘You are quite sure you know between whom the love lies now—eh?’ Ethelberta asked in a sarcastic whisper of Lord Mountclere.
‘I am—beyond a doubt,’ murmured the anxious nobleman; he feared that look of hers, which was not less dominant than irresistible.
Some additional moments given to thought on the circumstances rendered Ethelberta still more indignant and intractable. She went out at the door by which they had entered, along the passage, and down the stairs. A shuffling footstep followed, but she did not turn her head. When they reached the bottom of the stairs the carriage had gone, their exit not being expected till two hours later. Ethelberta, nothing daunted, swept along the pavement and down the street in a turbulent prance, Lord Mountclere trotting behind with a jowl reduced to a mere nothing by his concern at the discourtesy into which he had been lured by jealous whisperings.
‘My dearest—forgive me; I confess I doubted you—but I was beside myself,’ came to her ears from over her shoulder. But Ethelberta walked on as before.
Lord Mountclere sighed like a poet over a ledger. ‘An old man—who is not very old—naturally torments himself with fears of losing—no, no—it was an innocent jest of mine—you will forgive a joke—hee-hee?’ he said again, on getting no reply.
‘You had no right to mistrust me!’
‘I do not—you did not blench. You should have told me before that it was your sister and not yourself who was entangled with him.’
‘You brought me to Melchester on purpose to confront him!’
‘Yes, I did.’