In the drawing-room nobody could be gayer than Lady Maulevrier, as she marked the time of Signor Paponizzi’s saltarello, exquisitely performed on the Signor’s famed Amati violin—­or talked of the latest scandal—­always excepting that latest scandal of all which involved her own husband—­in subdued murmurs with one of her intimates.  In the dining-room the men drew closer together over their wine, and tore Lord Maulevrier’s character to rags.  Yea, they rent him with their teeth and gnawed the flesh from his bones, until there was not so much left of him as the dogs left of Jezebel.

He had been a scamp from his cradle, a spendthrift at Eton and Oxford, a blackleg in his manhood.  False to men, false to women.  Clever?  Yes, undoubtedly, just as Satan is clever, and as unscrupulous as that very Satan.  This was what his friends said of him over their wine.  And now he was rumoured to have sold the British forces in the Carnatic provinces to one of the native Princes.  Yes, to have taken gold, gold to an amount which Clive in his most rapacious moments never dreamt of, for his countrymen’s blood.  Tidings of dark transactions between the Governor and the native Princes had reached the ears of the Government, tidings so vague, so incredible, that the Government might naturally be slow to believe, still slower to act.  There were whispers of a woman’s influence, a beautiful Ranee, a creature as fascinating and as unscrupulous as Cleopatra.  The scandal had been growing for months past, but it was only in the letters received to-day that the rumour had taken a tangible shape, and now it was currently reported that Lord Maulevrier had been recalled, and would have to answer at the bar of the House of Lords for his misdemeanours, which were of a much darker colour than those acts for which Warren Hastings had been called to account fifty years before.

Yet in the face of all this, Lady Maulevrier bore herself as proudly as if her husband’s name were spotless, and talked of his return with all the ardour of a fond and trusting wife.

‘One of the finest bits of acting I ever saw in my life,’ said the court physician.  ‘Mademoiselle Mars never did anything better.’

‘Do you really think it was acting?’ inquired Lord Denyer, affecting a youthful candour and trustfulness which at his age, and with his experience, he could hardly be supposed to possess.

‘I know it,’ replied the doctor.  ’I watched her while she was talking of Maulevrier, and I saw just one bead of perspiration break out on her upper lip—­an unmistakable sign of the mental struggle.’

CHAPTER II.

Ulysses.

October was ending drearily with north-east winds, dust, drifting dead leaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton was glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite.  Her ladyship’s suite was on this occasion limited to three servants—­her French maid, a footman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary signification in her ladyship’s household, neither butler nor steward, but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who was supposed to enjoy more of Lady Maulevrier’s confidence than any other member of her establishment.