Lady Manfield—the dark little woman talking to Bobby.”
“Bobby who?” Sir Richard queried.
“Bobby Grindells. You’ll come across him later in life if he’s in luck. He’s a youthful barrister—a good sort, and, although I’m not cadging, an odd brief wouldn’t do him any harm. The elderly gentleman in the corner is Doctor Meadows, our local practitioner. That’s every one, I think, except two fellows who are coming over from the barracks and they’re bringing a guest with them—a Russian emigré—Prince something or other… . Ah, here is Félice at last!”
Sir Richard turned toward the great oak staircase, and, although he was rather a hardened old person as regards the other sex, a little murmur of admiration, purely involuntary, escaped him. The appearance of the girl who was slowly descending the wide oak staircase, making what was almost her debut as hostess of Glenlitten, was so entirely unexpected by the majority of her assembled guests that the momentary lull in the conversation which had seemed at first a merely natural effort at politeness, seemed afterwards to lapse into a silence possessed of peculiar and pulsating qualities. They were all used to the sight of beautiful women—their portraits lined both walls of the staircase down which Félice was slowly descending—but about this girl, or child, as she appeared, there were other qualities. She was exquisitely small, with light golden hair of dazzling smoothness. Her brown eyes were deep-set, and looked larger than ever under her dark eyebrows. Her lips were a little parted and the fingers of her right hand clung close to the smooth balustrade. She was rather like a frightened child in her gown of shimmering white and in her obvious nervousness—the single note of possible maturity the exquisite diamonds which flashed upon her throat and neck.
Suddenly her eyes met her husband’s, as he stepped eagerly forward to meet her, and she seemed transformed. The hesitation passed from her movements, brilliant smile answered his. She came gravely forward to be embraced by her sister-in-law, to greet those of the guests whom she had met, and to be introduced by her husband to the others.
“And this, Félice,” the latter concluded, “is one of our great family friends, Sir Richard Cotton. You would have met him before, but he has been in the States for some months. Dick, I hope that you and Félice will be great friends.”
“I do hope so, indeed,” she said, speaking very slowly and with an obvious effort to make her accent as little noticeable as possible. “My husband has spoken of you often, Sir Richard. You are the clever man, are you not, who sends people to prison?”
“Sometimes,” he reminded her, smiling, “I try to keep them out.”
They were all crowding around her now except De Besset, who stood upon the outside of the little circle, watching her with a look purely Gallic in character, the look of a man who can watch without speech or movement. She took a cocktail from the tray and laughed and talked with every one. Once she met De Besset’s eyes and smiled naturally and happily at him.
“You too must drink a cocktail, Comte de Besset,” she begged. “See, it is my first act as hostess—I pass it to you.”
She took one of the richly cut glasses from the tray and handed it across. De Besset accepted it with a bow. He looked over for a moment at his host.
“Madame,” he murmured, “I drink to the great good fortune of the House of Glenlitten.”
Do you know, Lady Glenlitten,” Haslam remarked, leaning over her, “I thought when you appeared upon the stairs just now that a touch of our West African magic had stolen into your veins. You walked as though you were in a trance.”
She looked at him with an appealing little uplift of her eyebrows.
“I was so nervous,” she confessed. “It is the first time that we have received friends. The house is so large. These stairs are so wide, the ceilings so high, those pictures so huge, that I felt smaller than ever. I can scarcely believe that it is really I who am here. In France, the little château where I was brought up was full of quaint, tiny rooms, and my guardian who lived there had not much money, so all the furniture was just Provençal, and homely. I did not see the inside of any other house, and here is something so wonderfully different.”
“You will have to get used to it, my dear,” her husband remarked, resting his hand for a moment caressingly upon her arm. “You’re here for keeps, you know. What about dinner? Is there any one else? Oh, of course, those fellows from the barracks. Here they are, thank God!”
Parkins, the butler, was approaching with his usual smooth, sedate walk, followed by the three expected guests. The two first were of the ordinary British type. The third was obviously a foreigner. He was fair-haired, unusually tall, rather full of feature for the young man he undoubtedly was, and with a drooping line about his clean-shaven mouth which spoiled his otherwise not disagreeable appearance. Glenlitten stepped forward to meet them.
“Fraser and Philipson, isn’t it?” he said, holding out his hand. “So glad the Colonel could spare you both. I see you have brought your friend.”
“Thanks to your kindness, Lord Glenlitten,” the senior of the two men observed. “May I introduce Prince Charles of Suess—the Marquis of Glenlitten.”
Glenlitten shook hands with a pleasant word of greeting. Then he turned around.
“I must present you to my wife,” he said. “This is almost her first appearance down here, and she is, as you may have heard, partly a compatriot of yours.”
For a single second a sense of something unusual throbbed in the atmosphere, which a moment before was gay with light-hearted conversation and chaff. Once more Félice seemed to be fighting against the nervousness which had brought her so timidly down the stairs to greet her guests. She stared past the two men at the tall figure behind, and in her eyes there was an utterly untranslatable light. Then the sound of her husband’s cheery voice dissolved the situation as though by magic.
“My dear,” he said, “I want to present to you two of my officer neighbours from the barracks here— Major Fraser and Captain Philipson. This is their friend too, Prince Charles of Suess. My wife, Lady Glenlitten.”
She was herself again, grave, slower even than usual in her halting speech, but with the ghost of a smile upon her child’s lips.
“I am very glad to have you come to us and to know that we are neighbours,” she said, shaking hands with the two men. “How do you do, Prince Charles. I too am half Russian, but, alas, I was four years old when I left the country, so I fear that we shall not be able to indulge in reminiscences.”
Her fingers rested for a moment in the hand of the young man who towered over her.
“It is perhaps as well,” he said gravely. “There are few things one cares to remember concerning our unhappy country.”
Parkins once more made his dignified appearance.
“My lady,” he announced, “dinner is served.” There was no lack of conversation at dinner time, mostly of the chaffing, good-humoured type common in these days amongst those more or less intimate. Manfield thought that his host was off on a wild-goose chase, trying to kill partridges on the first of September with so much corn standing. Glenlitten chaffed his old schoolfellow about his weakness for big bags and late shooting.
“I like to go after ‘em early, and go often,” he declared. “Leave the cheepers alone, of course, but get at the old ‘uns before they’re wild. My stands aren’t so good for driving as yours.”
The two soldier men, who hoped for invitations from both, sympathized with each point of view. De Besset explained the misunderstood French attitude with regard to the slaying of game, and Prince Charles contributed some anecdotes of bags in Hungary which sounded almost fantastic. Sir Richard Cotton and Manfield succeeded apparently in entertaining and being entertained by their hostess, and Grindells, who was already establishing the reputation of a professional diner- out, was chipping in wherever he thought a word or two useful.
“I’ve got a grudge against you, Sir Richard,” Manfield