It was enough for her that Romayne’s secretary was also Romayne’s friend.
Passing by titled and celebrated personages, all anxious to speak to her, she joined the shy, nervous, sad-looking little man, and did all she could to set him at his ease.
“I am afraid, Mr. Penrose, this is not a very attractive scene to you.”
Having said those kind words, she paused.
Penrose was looking at her confusedly, but with an expression of interest which was new to her experience of him.
“Has Romayne told him?” she wondered inwardly.
“It is a very beautiful scene, Miss Eyrecourt,” he said, in his low quiet tones.
“Did you come here with Mr. Romayne?” she asked.
“Yes.
It was by his advice that I accepted the invitation with which Lady Loring has honored me.
I am sadly out of place in such an assembly as this—but I would make far greater sacrifices to please Mr. Romayne.” She smiled kindly.
Attachment so artlessly devoted to the man she loved, pleased and touched her.
In her anxiety to discover a subject which might interest him, she overcame her antipathy to the spiritual director of the household.
“Is Father Benwell coming to us to-night?” she inquired.
“He will certainly be here, Miss Eyrecourt, if he can get back to London in time.”
“Has he been long away?”
“Nearly a week.”
Not knowing what else to say, she still paid Penrose the compliment of feigning an interest in Father Benwell.
“Has he a long journey to make in returning to London?” she asked.
“Yes—all the way from Devonshire.”
“From South Devonshire?”
“No.
North Devonshire—Clovelly.”
The smile suddenly left her face.
She put another question—without quite concealing the effort that it cost her, or the anxiety with which she waited for the reply.
“I know something of the neighborhood of Clovelly,” she said.
“I wonder whether Father Benwell is visiting any friends of mine there?”
“I am not able to say, Miss Eyrecourt.
The reverend Father’s letters are forwarded to the hotel—I know no more than that.”
With a gentle inclination of her head, she turned toward other guests—looked back—and with a last little courteous attention offered to him, said,
“If you like music, Mr. Penrose, I advise you to go to the picture gallery. They are going to play a Quartet by Mozart.”
Penrose thanked her, noticing that her voice and manner had become strangely subdued.
She made her way back to the room in which the hostess received her guests.
Lady Loring was, for the moment, alone, resting on a sofa.
Stella stooped over her, and spoke in cautiously lowered tones.
“If Father Benwell comes here to-night,” she said, “try to find out what he has been doing at Clovelly.”
“Clovelly?” Lady Loring repeated.
“Is that the village near Winterfield’s house?”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE.
As Stella answered Lady Loring, she was smartly tapped on the shoulder by an eager guest with a fan.
The guest was a very little woman, with twinkling eyes and a perpetual smile.
Nature, corrected by powder and paint, was liberally displayed in her arms, her bosom, and the upper part of her back.
Such clothes as she wore, defective perhaps in quantity, were in quality absolutely perfect.
More adorable color, shape, and workmanship never appeared, even in a milliner’s picture-book.
Her light hair was dressed with a fringe and ringlets, on the pattern which the portraits of the time of Charles the Second have made familiar to us.
There was nothing exactly young or exactly old about her except her voice, which betrayed a faint hoarseness, attributable possibly to exhaustion produced by untold years of incessant talking.
It might be added that she was as active as a squirrel and as playful as a kitten.
But the lady must be treated with a certain forbearance of tone, for this good reason—she was Stella’s mother.
Stella turned quickly at the tap of the fan.