“You seem to have forgotten Miss Leigh,” she remarked.  “Did you not travel together from Quebec?”

Dutton, somewhat staggered by her correct information, shot a swift inquiring glance at his cousin.

“To be sure—­so it is Miss Leigh.  I thought last night I knew the face—­”

“Why don’t you go and speak to her?”

“I am shy—­perhaps she won’t remember me.”

“Miss Leigh, Mr. Dutton thinks you have forgotten him.”

Bluebell bowed stiffly, very much on her guard; for she saw that Lord Bromley was an attentive observer, and his strange behaviour in the morning had given rise to an uncomfortable suspicion that he might (though how, she could not imagine) be cognizant of the tryst in the West Wood.  Harry moved to a seat near, and began an indifferent conversation with her, that the whole room might have heard.

“Can it be all—­kid,” thought Kate, “or was there really nothing between them?”

At that instant Sir Robert lounged up, and threw himself in a familiar manner on the other side of Bluebell.

Dutton’s face darkened.  He had taken an antipathy to this man, who commenced a sort of condescending flirtation with his wife.  He called her “Gertrude,” too, and poured out compliments on her acting, describing his despair at being unable to find her among the dancers afterwards.

Harry was boiling, Kate exultant.  “I knew I was right,” she thought.

Bluebell was summoned to the piano.  Sir Robert followed.  It was a semi-grand, and he leant on the other end, opposite to her.

“Where is the music?  Oh! you play without.  So much the better.  One sees the eyes flashing.”

It was not the only pair, for Dutton’s were fixed upon Sir Robert with a ferocious expression, apparent even to his obtuseness, and somewhat surprised, he returned it with a slight stare and elevation of the eyebrows.  That night, in the smoking-room, the antagonism between the two was more pronounced than ever.  Sir Robert explained it by a conjecture that “Dutton was sweet on the little governess, and d—­d jealous.”  He was not particularly popular among the other men:  but all agreed that Dutton “had been very rough on Lowther, and was not half such a cheery, pleasant fellow as he used to be.”

What would not Kate have given for an incident that befell Lady Geraldine one day!  She had been much puzzled by Harry’s manner since his return:  for, though his appreciation of her was more heartily manifested than before, she was conscious of a difference,—­or rather, perhaps, analyzed it more truly now.  Her adorers had not been so numerous as to disturb the impression of the first man who had ever appeared to care about her; but she could scarcely deceive herself longer—­there was evidently now nothing warmer than liking left.