And now, after all these somewhat agitating preliminaries, here was the girl established in the Court drawing-room, Aldous more nervous and preoccupied than she had ever seen him, and Lord Maxwell expressing a particular anxiety to return from his Board meeting in good time for luncheon, to which he had especially desired that Lady Winterbourne should be bidden, and no one else!  It may well be supposed that Miss Raeburn was on the alert.

As for Marcella, she was on her side keenly conscious of being observed, of having her way to make.  Here she was alone among these formidable people, whose acquaintance she had in a manner compelled.  Well—­what blame?  What was to prevent her from doing the same thing again to-morrow?  Her conscience was absolutely clear.  If they were not ready to meet her in the same spirit in which through Mr. Raeburn she had approached them, she would know perfectly well how to protect herself—­above all, how to live out her life in the future without troubling them.

Meanwhile, in spite of her dignity and those inward propitiations it from time to time demanded, she was, in her human vivid way, full of an excitement and curiosity she could hardly conceal as perfectly as she desired—­curiosity as to the great house and the life in it, especially as to Aldous Raeburn’s part therein.  She knew very little indeed of the class to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people were strange to her.  She brought her artist’s and student’s eyes to look at them with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them.  At the same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid room in which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine pictures, its combination of every luxury with every refinement, she was distinctly conscious of a certain thrill, a romantic drawing towards the stateliness and power which it all implied, together with a proud and careless sense of equality, of kinship so to speak, which she made light of, but would not in reality have been without for the world.

In birth and blood she had nothing to yield to the Raeburns—­so her mother assured her.  If things were to be vulgarly measured, this fact too must come in.  But they should not be vulgarly measured.  She did not believe in class or wealth—­not at all.  Only—­as her mother had told her—­she must hold her head up.  An inward temper, which no doubt led to that excess of manner of which Miss Raeburn was meanwhile conscious.

Where were the gentlemen?  Marcella was beginning to resent and tire of the innumerable questions as to her likes and dislikes, her accomplishments, her friends, her opinions of Mellor and the neighbourhood, which this knitting lady beside her poured out upon her so briskly, when to her great relief the door opened and a footman announced “Lady Winterbourne.”

A very tall thin lady in black entered the room at the words.  “My dear!” she said to Miss Raeburn, “I am very late, but the roads are abominable, and those horses Edward has just given me have to be taken such tiresome care of.  I told the coachman next time he might wrap them in shawls and put them to bed, and I should walk.”