Wareham was met in the hall by Lord Milborough--thanked for coming.
They went up the broad staircase together.
"The first gong has sounded, and there's nobody in the drawing-room,"
his host explained. "You'll find friends here, I hope. Colonel and
Mrs Martyn."
He paused. Wareham did not feel the necessity for speaking.
"Lady and Miss Dalrymple, and half-a-dozen others."
The half-dozen others multiplied before dinner. The great drawing-room
with its fine Gainsboroughs looked cheerfully full. Lady Fanny welcomed
Wareham warmly, and put a dozen questions about her friends.
"You saw them yesterday?"
"And am the bearer of lost property."
"My thimble! Thank you a thousand times. Sad to say, I had never
missed it; but I must not let Millie know that, or I shall be scolded
for my idleness. Oh, if you had only persuaded them to come with you!"
She hoped that Wareham's heart echoed the wish, and would have been
mightily disappointed could she have peeped at it. Where was Anne? Not
yet in the room. Mrs Martyn, however, smiled at him from a sofa, and
he was obliged to seat himself by her side, and to endure a
characteristic greeting.
"I hope you don't object, Mr Wareham; but it almost gave me a shock to
hear you were coming. I knew the sight of you would bring back that
nightmare time at Bergen."
"Did you mind it so much?"
"How can you ask? I tell Lord Milborough he saved my life, for if the
yacht had not been there, I might have hung myself. That poor young
man! You never ought to have told him to come out. It wasn't fair on
us."
Wareham sat mute. She glanced at him, and played with her great fan.
"And now you have arrived, I suppose, to see the next act of the play?"
He inquired what that was to be.
"You don't know? Then I shan't enlighten you. This is a good house,
isn't it? with capabilities. And the pictures are good. There are one
or two smaller and extremely choice in the boudoir opening out of this
room. Ah, Anne is coming from it at this minute."
Anne it was, followed by Lord Milborough; Anne in soft draperies of
white and yellow, here and there flash of diamonds, brilliant as Wareham
had never seen her before. She came towards him, and he rose.
"You are to take me in to dinner," she said smilingly.
"Fortunate I!"
Another man presented himself.
"Not to-night, Mr Orpington. Go and ask Lady Fanny to effect an
exchange between you and Mr Wareham."
"It seems that I am indebted even more than I knew," said Wareham, in a
low voice, as they proceeded to the dining-room.
"It is my rule to resist tyranny. What can be so odious as to be handed
over for two hours to a man with whom you have nothing in common?"
Others noticed the act. As they passed Lord Milborough's chair, he
murmured--
"Queens command."