Presently Mildred looked through the door from the room beyond and called:  “Freddy and Morella, come and play; we must have two more to make up the numbers.  Uncle Patrick will bring Lord Bracondale presently.”

Josiah and Theodora did not count at all, it seemed!

“What intolerable insolence!” said Hector, through his teeth.  “I shall not play bridge or stir from here.”

And Lord Wensleydown called back:  “Do give one a moment to digest one’s dinner, dear Lady Mildred.  Miss Winmarleigh does not want to come yet, either.  We are very—­interested—­and happy here.”

Morella tittered and played with her fan.  The dull, slow rage was simmering within her.  Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector’s devotion to Mrs. Brown.  He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale.  Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength.  She was like some silent, vengeful beast waiting a chance to spring.

And so the evening wore away.  Sir Patrick drew Josiah into the bridge-room, and made him join one of the tables where they were waiting for a fourth—­Josiah, who was a very bad player, and did not really care for cards!  But luck favored him, and the woman opposite restrained the irritable things she had ready to say to him when she first perceived how he played his hand.

And all the while Hector sat by Theodora, and learned more and more of her fair, clear mind.  All the thoughts she had upon every subject he found were just and quaint and in some way illuminating.  It was her natural sweetness of nature which made the great charm—­that quality which Mrs. McBride had remarked upon, and which every one felt sooner or later.

Nothing of the ascetic saint or goody poseuse.  She did not walk about with a book of poems under her arm, and wear floppy clothes and talk about her own and other people’s souls.  She was just human and true and attractive.

Theodora had perhaps no religion at all from the orthodox point of view; but had she been a Mohommedan or a Confucian or a Buddhist, she would still have been Theodora, full of gentleness and goodness and grace.

The entire absence of vanity and self-consciousness in her prevented her from feeling hurt or ruffled even with these ill-mannered women.  She thought them rude and unpleasant, but they could not really hurt her except by humiliating Josiah.  Her generosity instantly fired at that.

Both she and Hector perceived that Morella and Lord Wensleydown sat there watching them for no other reason but to disconcert and tease them, and it roused a spirit of resistance in both.  While this was going on they would not move.

And Hector employed the whole of his self-control to keep himself from making actual love to her, and they talked of many things, and she understood and was grateful.

Presently, apparently, Morella could stand it no longer, for she rose rather abruptly and said to Lord Wensleydown: