And Hector was too preoccupied to enlighten her.

“Is mother coming to lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, by her own request.  I had not meant to ask her—­Oh, well, you know, she is never very pleased at your having new friends, and I thought she might fix Mrs. Brown with that stony stare she has sometimes, and we would be happier without her; but she was determined to come.”

“It is just as well,” he said, “because she will have to get accustomed to it.  I shall ask my friends the Browns down to Bracondale on every occasion, and as she is hostess there the stony stare won’t answer.”

“Manage her as best you may,” said Anne.  “But you know how she can be now and then—­perfectly annihilating to unfortunate strangers.”

Hector’s finely chiselled lips shut like a vise.

“We shall see,” he said.  “And who else have you got?  None of the Harrowfield-Devlyn crew, I hope—­”

“Hector, how strange you are!  I thought you and Lady Harrowfield were the greatest friends, so of course I asked her.  No one in London can make a woman’s success as she can.”

“Or mar it so completely if she takes a dislike!  Have you ever heard of her doing a kindness to any one?  I haven’t!” he said, irritably.

Then he walked to the window and back quickly.

“I tell you I am sick of it all, Anne.  Last night, whoever I spoke to had something vile to impute or insinuate about every one they mentioned; and Lady Harrowfield, with a record of her own worse than the lowest, rode a high horse of virtue, and was more spiteful than all the rest put together.  I loathe them, the whole crew.  What do they know of anything good or pure or fine?  Painted Jezebels, the lot of them!”

“Hector!” almost screamed Lady Anningford.  “What has come over you, my dear boy?”

“I will tell you,” he said; and his voice, which had been full of passion, now melted into a tone of deep tenderness.  “I love a woman whose pure goodness has taught me there are other possibilities in life beyond the aims of these vile harpies of our world—­a woman whose very presence makes one long to be better and nobler, whose dear soul has not room for anything but kind and loving thoughts of sweetness and light.  Oh, Anne, if I might have her for my own, and live away down at Bracondale far from all this, I think—­I think I, too, could learn what heaven would mean on earth.”

“Dear Hector!” said Anne, who was greatly moved.  “Oh, I am so sorry for you!  But what is to be done?  She is married to somebody else, and you will only injure her and yourself if you see too much of her.”

“I know,” he said.  “I realize it sometimes—­this morning, for instance—­and then—­and then—­”

He did not add that the thought of Lord Wensleydown and the rest swarming round Theodora drove him mad, deprived him of his power of reasoning, and filled him with a wild desire to protect her, to be near her, to keep her always for himself, always in his sight.