"Lady Lomond!" announced the footman; and a Scotchwoman, of ready eye and potent tongue, entered. The hand of Lady Anstiss was her own again simultaneously; but she rose to greet the newcomer with an uncomfortable sensation of having been caught and compromised.
Her hope that the situation had escaped Lady Lomond's notice was shattered with the first words.
"Palmistry?" inquired that lady, briefly, with a glance at Mr. Berend.
Lady Anstiss smiled with outward composure, but with inward rage.
"Oh, no!" she said; "this is Mr. Berend, who is learned in Egyptian lore, and doubts the quality of my scarabæus."
But even as she said it, she rebelled against all that her words must imply.
It would seem to Mr. Berend that she was acknowledging his right to have held her hand, to have behaved in fact unpardonably; that she was mitigating, explaining, condoning the offence all in one breath, and leaguing herself, as it were, with him against any insinuations that Lady Lomond might make.
Whether Mr. Berend perceived the situation or not it was impossible to tell.
He handed some tea to Lady Lomond, made one of his subtly inane remarks, and took his leave, saying, as he bowed over Lady Anstiss's hand, which he pressed more closely than the farewell warranted—
"I should like to feel quite certain about that scarabæus. Perhaps you will let me examine it again at leisure another day; it is exceedingly interesting to me."