“I missed her when we went out on the terrace, and I have not seen her since.”

“Isn’t it very odd, dear Mrs. Delamayn?”

“Our guests at Swanhaven, Lady Lundie, have perfect liberty to do as they please.”

In those words Mrs. Delamayn (as she fondly imagined) dismissed the subject.  But Lady Lundie’s robust curiosity proved unassailable by even the broadest hint.  Carried away, in all probability, by the infection of merriment about her, her ladyship displayed unexpected reserves of vivacity.  The mind declines to realize it; but it is not the less true that this majestic woman actually simpered!

“Shall we put two and two together?” said Lady Lundie, with a ponderous playfulness wonderful to see.  “Here, on the one hand, is Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn—­a young single man.  And here, on the other, is Mrs. Glenarm—­a young widow.  Rank on the side of the young single man; riches on the side of the young widow.  And both mysteriously absent at the same time, from the same pleasant party.  Ha, Mrs. Delamayn! should I guess wrong, if I guessed that you will have a marriage in the family, too, before long?”

Mrs. Delamayn looked a little annoyed.  She had entered, with all her heart, into the conspiracy for making a match between Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm.  But she was not prepared to own that the lady’s facility had (in spite of all attempts to conceal it from discovery) made the conspiracy obviously successful in ten days’ time.

“I am not in the secrets of the lady and gentleman whom you mention,” she replied, dryly.

A heavy body is slow to acquire movement—­and slow to abandon movement, when once acquired.  The playfulness of Lady Lundie, being essentially heavy, followed the same rule.  She still persisted in being as lively as ever.

“Oh, what a diplomatic answer!” exclaimed her ladyship.  “I think I can interpret it, though, for all that.  A little bird tells me that I shall see a Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn in London, next season.  And I, for one, shall not be surprised to find myself congratulating Mrs. Glenarm.”

“If you persist in letting your imagination run away with you, Lady Lundie, I can’t possibly help it.  I can only request permission to keep the bridle on mine.”

This time, even Lady Lundie understood that it would be wise to say no more.  She smiled and nodded, in high private approval of her own extraordinary cleverness.  If she had been asked at that moment who was the most brilliant Englishwoman living, she would have looked inward on herself—­and would have seen, as in a glass brightly, Lady Lundie, of Windygates.

From the moment when the talk at her side entered on the subject of Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm—­and throughout the brief period during which it remained occupied with that topic—­Blanche became conscious of a strong smell of some spirituous liquor wafted down on her, as she fancied, from behind and from above.  Finding the odor grow stronger and stronger, she looked round to see whether any special manufacture of grog was proceeding inexplicably at the back of her chair.  The moment she moved her head, her attention was claimed by a pair of tremulous gouty old hands, offering her a grouse pie, profusely sprinkled with truffles.