“Already?  Their pony must have seven-leagued boots, to have caught you up in this time.”

“Oh!  I was overtaken by Undershaw, and he kept me talking.  He told me the most extraordinary thing!  You’ve no idea what’s been happening at the Tower.  That old brute Melrose!  But I say—!” He made a dash across the room.

“What’s the matter?”

“I must go and put those pictures away, in case—­”

A far door opened and shut noisily behind him.  He was gone.

“In case he asks her to go and see his sitting-room?  This is all very surprising.”

Lady Tatham sat on at the tea-table, her chin in her hands.  It was quite true that she had brought up her son with unconventional ideas; that she had unconventional ideas herself on family and marriage.  All the same, her mind at this moment was in a most conventional state of shock.  She knew it, perceiving quite clearly the irony of the situation.  Who were the Penfolds?  A little artist girl?—­earning her living—­with humble, perhaps hardly presentable relations—­to mate with her glorious, golden Harry?—­Harry whom half the ambitious mothers of England courted and flattered?

The thought of defeating the mothers of England was however so pleasant to her sense of humour that she hurriedly abandoned this line of reflection.  What had she been about? to be so blind to Harry’s proceedings?  She had been lately absorbed, with that intensity she could still, at fifty, throw into the most diverse things, in a piece of new embroidery, reproducing a gorgeous Italian design; and in a religious novel of Fogazzaro’s.  Also she had been watching birds, for hours, with a spy-glass in the park.  She said to herself that she had better have been watching her son.

Meanwhile she was quite aware of the slight sounds from the hall which heralded the approaching visitors.  The footman threw the door open; and she rose.

There came in, with hurrying steps, a little lady in widow’s dress, her widow’s veil thrown back from her soft brown hair and childish face.  Behind her, a tall girl in white, wearing a shady hat.

The little lady held out a hand—­eager but tremulous.

“I hope, Lady Tatham, we are not intruding?  We know it isn’t correct—­indeed we are quite aware of it—­that we should call upon you first.  But then we know your son—­he is such a charming young man!—­and he asked us to come.  I don’t think Lydia wanted to come—­she always wants to do things properly.  No, indeed, she didn’t want to come.  It’s all my doing.  I persuaded her.”

“That was very kind of you,” said Lady Tatham as she shook hands first with the mother, and then with the silent daughter.  “Oh, I’m a dreadful neighbour.  I confess it in sackcloth and ashes.  I ought to have called upon you long ago.  I don’t know what to say.  I’m incorrigible!  Please will you sit down, and will you have some tea?  My son will be here directly.”