Madeleine Alcot rested her thin cheek on a still frailer hand and looked pensively out into the darkness of the cedars.  Her tone was neither patronizing nor unkind; rather, the shade of ironic tenderness which it expressed suited the subject, and that curious intimacy which had of late sprung up between herself and Darrell.  She had begun, as we have seen, by treating him de haut en bas.  He had repaid her with manner of the same type; in this respect he was a match for any Archangel.  Then some accident—­perhaps the publication by the man of a volume of essays which expressed to perfection his acid and embittered talent—­perhaps a casual meeting at a northern country-house, where the lady had found the man of letters her only resource amid a crowd of uncongenial nonentities—­had shown them their natural compatibility.  Both were in a secret revolt against circumstance and their own lives; but whereas the reasons for the man’s attitude—­his jealousies, defeats, and ambitions—­were fairly well understood by the woman, he was almost as much in the dark about her as when their friendship began.

He knew her husband slightly—­an eager, gifted fellow, of late years a strong High Churchman, and well known in a certain group as the friend of Mrs. Armagh, that muse—­fragile, austere, and beautiful—­of several great men, and great Christians, among the older generation.  Mrs. Alcot had her own intimates, generally men; but she tired of them and changed them often.  Mr. Alcot spent part of every year within reach of the Cornish home of Mrs. Armagh; and during that time his wife made her round of visits.

Meanwhile her thin lips were sealed as to her own affairs.  Certainly she made the impression of an unhappy woman, and Darrell was convinced of some tragic complication.  But neither he nor any one of whom he had yet inquired had any idea what it might be.

“By-the-way—­where is Lady Kitty?—­and are there many people here?”

Darrell turned, as he spoke, to scrutinize the house and its approaches.  Haggart Hall was a large and commonplace mansion, standing in the midst of spreading “grounds” and dull plantations, beyond which could be sometimes seen the tall chimneys of neighboring coal-mines.  It wore an air of middle-class Tory comfort which brought a smile to Darrell’s countenance as he surveyed it.

“Kitty is at the Agricultural Show—­with a party.”

“Playing the great lady? What a house!”

“Yes.  Kitty abhors it.  But it will do very well for the party to-morrow.”

“Half the county—­that kind of thing?”

“All the county—­some royalties—­and Lord Parham.”

“Lord Parham being the end and aim?  I thought I heard wheels.”

Mrs. Alcot rose, and they strolled back towards the house.

“And the party?” resumed Darrell.

“Not particularly thrilling.  Lord Grosville—­”

“Also, I presume, en garcon.”