“Why shouldn't we?” he demanded.
But she was not to be led into casuistry.
“I've been reading the biography you recommended,” she said.
He continued to look at her a moment, and laughed as he sat down beside her. Later he walked home with her. A dinner and bridge followed, and it was after midnight when she returned. As her maid unfastened her gown she perceived that her pincushion had been replaced by the one she had received at the ball.
“Did you put that there, Mathilde?” she asked.
Mathilde had. She had seen it on madame's bureau, and thought madame wished it there. She would replace the old one at once.
“No,” said Honora, “you may leave it, now.”
“Bien, madame,” said the maid, and glanced at her mistress, who appeared to have fallen into a revery.
It had seemed strange to her to hear people talking about him at the dinner that night, and once or twice her soul had sprung to arms to champion him, only to remember that her knowledge was special. She alone of all of them understood, and she found herself exulting in the superiority. The amazed comment when the heir to the Chiltern fortune had returned to the soil of his ancestors had been revived on his arrival in Newport. Ned Carrington, amid much laughter, had quoted the lines about Prince Hal:
“To mock the expectations of the world,
To frustrate prophecies.”