“Now then,” said Miss Field, rising at last, “I think you have the carte du pays—­and there they are, coming back.”  She pointed to Meadows and Lady Dunstable, crossing the lawn.  “Whatever you do, hold your own.  If you don’t want to play games, don’t play them.  If you want to go to church to-morrow, go to church.  Lady Dunstable of course is a heathen.  And now perhaps, you might really rest.”

“Such a jolly walk!” said Meadows, entering his wife’s room flushed with exercise and pleasure.  “The place is divine, and really Lady Dunstable is uncommonly good talk.  Hope you haven’t been dull, dear?”

Doris replied, laughing, that Miss Field had taken pity on what would otherwise have been solitary confinement, and that now it was time to dress.  Meadows kissed her absently, and, with his head evidently still full of his walk, went to his dressing-room.  When he reappeared, it was to find Doris attired in a little black gown, with which he was already too familiar.  She saw at once the dissatisfaction in his face.

“I can’t help it!” she said, with emphasis.  “I did my best with it, Arthur, but I’m not a genius at dressmaking.  Never mind.  Nobody will take any notice of me.”

He quite crossly rebuked her.  She really must spend more on her dress.  It was unseemly—­absurd.  She looked as nice as anybody when she was properly got up.

“Well, don’t buy any more copper coal-scuttles!” she said slyly, as she straightened his tie, and dropped a kiss on his chin.  “Then we’ll see.”

They went down to dinner, and on the staircase Meadows turned to say to his wife in a lowered voice: 

“Lady Dunstable wants me to go to them in Scotland—­for two or three weeks.  I dare say I could do some work.”

“Oh, does she?” said Doris.

* * * * *

What perversity drove Lady Dunstable during the evening and the Sunday that followed to match every attention that was lavished on Arthur Meadows by some slight to his wife, will never be known.  But the fact was patent.  Throughout the diversions or occupations of the forty-eight hours’ visit, Mrs. Meadows was either ignored, snubbed, or contradicted.  Only Arthur Meadows, indeed, measuring himself with delight, for the first time, against some of the keenest brains in the country, failed to see it.  His blindness allowed Lady Dunstable to run a somewhat dangerous course, unchecked.  She risked alienating a man whom she particularly wished to attract; she excited a passion of antagonism in Doris’s generally equable breast, and was quite aware of it.  Notwithstanding, she followed her whim; and by the Sunday evening there existed between the great lady and her guest a state of veiled war, in which the strokes were by no means always to the advantage of Lady Dunstable.