“Ah!” exclaimed Lady Meldrum; “of course; I quite understand. A man holding such an important position in the Government as you do can have but little time for leisure. I saw you with Lady Richard Nevill just now. She brought you here, of course.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I go out very little.”
“And she induced you to come here with her. Charming woman! She was the light and soul of our party at Fernhurst.”
And as the wife of the Jubilee knight continued to make claims upon Dudley’s attention, he was prevented from exchanging more than a few words with the sweet-faced girl against whom he had been so strangely warned by the man who for so many years had been one of his closest friends.
This plump wife of the estimable Scotch iron-founder was a recent importation into society. She had, he heard, been “taken up” by Claudia, and owed all her success to her ladyship’s introductions. It is not given to every one to entertain a Grand-Duke for the shooting, and her fame as a hostess had been considerably increased by her good fortune in this respect.
She chattered steadily until the tall, thin-faced Duke of Penarth himself strolled past, bowed on catching sight of her, and stayed to talk for a few moments. Lady Meldrum did not hesitate when it was necessary to choose between a sprat and a whale. She at once turned aside from Dudley, thus giving him a chance to improve the occasion with her ward.
Yes, he decided, she was possessed of a charming ingenuousness; and yet at the same time there was nothing of the school-miss about her.
She had given a very candid and amusing opinion regarding the controversy which had taken place in the House at the time of her visit, and had openly expressed her admiration of the determined and outspoken manner in which he had supported the Government and crushed the arguments of the Opposition.
“I really suspect you to be a politician, Miss Mortimer,” he laughed presently. “You seem well-versed in so many points of our foreign policy.”
“Oh,” she answered with a smile. “I read the papers in preference to novels, that’s the reason.”