“You can dine without me, mamma,” she said, walking upstairs to the new rooms.  The dowager stared, and followed her.  There was an indescribable something in Maude’s manner that she did not like; it spoke of incipient rebellion, of an influence that had been, but was now thrown off.  If she lost caste once, with Maude, she knew that she lost it for ever.

“You could surely take a little dinner, Maude.  You must keep up your strength, you know.”

“Not any dinner, thank you.  I shall be all right to-morrow, when I’ve slept off my fatigue.”

“Well, I know I should like mine,” grumbled the countess-dowager, feeling her position in the house already altered from what it had been during her former sojourn, when she assumed full authority, and ordered things as she pleased, completely ignoring the new lord.

“You can have it,” said Maude.

“They won’t serve it until Hartledon arrives,” was the aggrieved answer.  “I suppose he’s walking up from the station.  He always had a queer habit of doing that.”

Maude lifted her eyes in slight surprise.  Her solitary arrival was a matter of fact so established to herself, that it sounded strange for any one else to be in ignorance of it.

“Lord Hartledon has not come down.  He is remaining in London.”

The old dowager peered at Maude through her little eyes.  “What’s that for?”

“Business, I believe.”

“Don’t tell me an untruth, Maude.  You have quarrelled.”

“We have not quarrelled.  We are perfectly good friends.”

“And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?”

“He sent the servants with me.”

“Don’t be insolent, Maude.  You know what I mean.”

“Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent.  I can’t tell you more, or tell it differently.  Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the servants did.”

She spoke sharply.  In her tired condition the petty conversation was wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the mortifying consciousness that he had not come down with her, chafing her temper almost beyond repression.  Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she felt this.

“Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?” asked the countess-dowager after a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter’s face.

“It would be early days to be on any other.”

“Oh,” said the dowager.  “And you did not write me word from Paris that you found you had made a mistake, that you could not bear your husband!  Eh, Maude?”