And it was signed “Tancred”—­not “Tristram.”

She gave a little quiver as she read it, and then asked and found his lordship had already gone down.  She was to breakfast later with the non-shooters.  She would not see him, then, for the entire day.  And that odious woman with whom he was so friendly would have him all to herself!

These thoughts flashed into her mind before she was aware of it, and then she crushed them out—­furious with herself.  For of what possible matter could her husband’s doings be to her?  And yet, as she started, she found herself hoping it would rain, so that the five ladies who intended joining the guns in the farmhouse, for luncheon at two, would be unable to go.  For just as she had come into the saloon where some of the party were writing letters that morning she had heard Lady Highford say to Mrs. Harcourt, in her high voice, “Yes, indeed, we mean to finish the discussion this afternoon after luncheon.—­Dear Tristram!  There is a long wait at the Fulton beat; we shall have plenty of time alone.”  And then she had turned round, and seemed confused at seeing her—­Zara—­and gushed more than the night before.

But she did not get the satisfaction of perceiving the bride turn a hair, though as Zara walked on to the end of the room she angrily found herself wondering who was this woman, and what had she been to Tristram?  What was she now?

Lord Elterton had already fallen in love.  He was a true cavalier servant; he knew, like the financier, as a fine art, how to manipulate the temperaments of most women.  He prided himself upon it.  Indeed, he spent the greater part of his life doing nothing else.  Exquisite gentleness and sympathy was his method.  There were such heaps of rough, rude brutes about that one would always have a chance by being the contrast; and husbands, he reasoned, were nearly always brutes—­after a while—­in the opinion of their wives!  He had hardly ever known this plan to fail with the most devoted wife.  So although Lady Tancred had only been married a week he hoped to render her not quite indifferent to himself in some way.  He had seen at once that she and Tristram were not on terms of passionate love, and there was something so piquant about flirting with a bride!  He divided women as a band into about four divisions.  The quite impossible, the recalcitrant, the timid, and the bold.  For the impossible he did not waste powder and shot.  For the recalcitrant he used insidious methods of tickling their fancies, as he would tickle a trout.  For the timid he was tender and protective; and for the bold subtly indifferent:  but always gentle and nice!

He was not sure yet in which of the four divisions he should have to place his new attraction—­probably the second—­but he frankly admitted he had never before had any experience with one of her type.  Her strange eyes thrilled him:  he felt, when she turned the deep slate, melting disks upon him, his heart went “down into his bloomin’ boots,” as Jimmy Danvers would have described the sensation.  So he began with extreme gentleness and care.