“Yes,” she said, and her listlessness began to disappear.  She turned away from the mirror.  “Come, Jenny!” she cried, with a hopeful smile.  She was saying to herself, “I have still a chance.”

Jenny rattled on while she assisted her mistress.  Stella’s face changed with her mood, more than most faces.  Disappointment and fatigue aged her beyond due measure.  Jenny Prask was determined that she could go down to dinner to-night looking her youngest and best.

“I went for a walk this evening with Mr. Marvin.  He’s Colonel Luttrell’s soldier-servant, and quite enthusiastic, he was, madam.”

“Was he, Jenny?”

“Quite!  The men in his company loved him—­a captain he was then.  He always looked after their dinner.  A bit strict, too, but they don’t mind that.”

Jenny was busy with Stella Croyle’s hair; and the result satisfied her.

“There won’t be anybody else to-night, madam,” she said.

“Won’t there, Jenny?” said Mrs. Croyle, incredulously.  “There’ll be Miss Whitworth.”

Jenny Prask sniffed disdainfully.

“Miss Whitworth!  A fair sight I call her, madam, if I may say so.  I never did see such clothes!  And how she keeps a maid for more than a week beats me altogether.  What I say, madam, is those who button in front when they should hook behind are a fair washout.”

Stella laughed.

“I’m afraid that you’ll find, Jenny, that Miss Whitworth will hook behind to-night.”

Jenny went on unaffected by the rejoinder.  She had her little item of news to contribute to the contentment of her mistress.

“Besides, Miss Whitworth is in love with the foreign gentleman.  Oh, madam, if you turn as sharp as that, I can’t but pull your hair.”

“Which foreigner?”

“That Mario Escobar.”  Jenny looked over Stella’s head and into the reflection of her eyes upon the mirror.  “I don’t hold with foreigners myself, madam.  A little ridiculous they always seem to me, with their chatter and what not.”

“And you believe Miss Whitworth’s in love with him.”

“Outrageous, Mr. Harper says.  Quite the talk of the servants’ hall, it is.  Why, even this afternoon she wrote him a letter.  Mr. Harper showed it me after he took it out of the letter-box to post it.  ’That’s her ‘and,’ says he—­and there it was, Mario Escobar, Esquire, the Golden Sun Hotel, Midhurst——­”

“Midhurst?” cried Stella with a start.  She looked eagerly at the reflection of Jenny Prask.  “Mr. Escobar is staying in an hotel at Midhurst?”

“Yes, madam.”

“And Miss Whitworth wrote to him there this afternoon?”

“It’s gospel truth, madam.  May it be my last dying word, if it isn’t!” said Jenny Prask.

The blood mounted into Stella Croyle’s face.  Since that was true—­and she did not doubt Jenny Prask for a moment—­Jenny would have given anything she had to save her mistress trouble, and Stella knew it.  Since it was true, then, that Mario Escobar was staying hidden away in a country hotel five miles off, and that Joan was writing to him, why, after all, she had no rival.