He turned now; he was a little angry and nearly flared up, but the sight of her standing there, magnificently attractive, stopped him.  This was merely one of the phases of the game; he should not allow himself to be worsted by such speeches.

“I expect you don’t, but I do,” he said.  “I am quite willing to take you as you are, or will be.”

“Then that is all that need be said,” she answered coldly.  “Arrange with my uncle when you wish me to see your family on my return; I will carry out what he settles.  And now I need not detain you, and will say good-bye.”  And bowing to him she walked towards the door.

“I am sorry you feel you want to go so soon,” he said, as he sprang forward to open it for her, “but good-bye.”  And he let her pass without shaking hands.

When he was alone in the room he realized that he had not given her the engagement ring, which still reposed in his pocket!

He looked round for a writing table, and finding one, sat down and wrote her a few words.

“I meant to give you this ring.  If you don’t like sapphires it can be changed.  Please wear it, and believe me to be

“Yours,

“Tancred.”

He put the note with the little ring-case, inclosed both in a large envelope, and then he rang the bell.

“Send this up to the Countess Shulski,” he said to the footman who presently came.  “And is my motor at the door?”

It was, so he descended the stairs.

“To Glastonbury House,” he ordered his chauffeur.  Then he leaned back against the cushions, no look of satisfaction upon his face.

Ethelrida might be having tea, and she was always so soothing and sympathetic.

Yes, her ladyship was at home, and he was shown up into his cousin’s own sitting-room.

Lady Ethelrida Montfitchet had kept house for her father, the Duke of Glastonbury, ever since she was sixteen when her mother had died, and she acted as hostess at the ducal parties, with the greatest success.  She was about twenty-five now, and one of the sweetest of young women.

She was very tall, rather plain, and very distinguished.

Francis Markrute thought her beautiful.  He was fond of analyzing types and breeds, and he said there were those who looked as if they had been poured into more or less fine or clumsy mould, and there were others who were sharply carved as with a knife.  He loved a woman’s face to look ciselee, he said.  That is why he did not entirely admire his niece, for although the mould was of the finest in her case, her small nose was not chiseled.  Numbers of English and some Austrians were chiseled, he affirmed—­showing their race—­but very few of other nations.

Now some people would have said the Lady Ethelrida was too chiseled—­she might grow peaky, with old age.  But no one could deny the extreme refinement of the young woman.

She was strikingly fair, with silvery light hair that had no yellow in it; and kind, wise, gray eyes.  Her figure in its slenderness was a thing which dressmakers adored; there was so little of it that any frock could be made to look well on it.