[Illustration:  She spread out all her finery]

“And, pray, whom did you see there, my dear? and what were they talking about?”

“Of all people, grandmother, I saw Lady Susan Rye and the rest of her sort; and they talked of nothing else but the coming mask at Ranelagh’s.  Cousin, I bespeak you for my service.  I am going as a gypsy, for it will give me the opportunity of telling the truth.  In my own character, I rarely do it:  nothing is so impolite.  But I have a prodigious regard for truth; and at a mask I give myself the pleasure of saying all the disagreeable things that I owe to my acquaintances.”

Katherine was almost ignored; and Hyde did not feel any desire to bring even her name into such a mocking, jeering, perfectly heartless conversation.  He was content to laugh, and let the hour go past in such flim-flams of criticism and persiflage.  He remembered when he had been one of the units in such a life, and he wondered if it were possible that he could ever drift back into it.  For even as he sat there, with the memory of his wife and child in his heart, he felt the light charm of Lady Arabella’s claim upon him, and all the fascination of that gay, thoughtless animal life which appeals so strongly to the selfish instincts and appetites of youth.

He had a plate of roast hare and a goblet of wine, and the ladies had chocolate and rout cakes; and he ate and drank, and laughed, and enjoyed their bright, ill-natured pleasantry, as men enjoy such piquant morsels.  Thus a couple of hours passed; and then it became evident, from the pawing and snorting outside, that Mephisto’s patience was quite exhausted.  Hyde went to the window, and looked into the square.  His orderly was vainly endeavoring to soothe the restless animal; and he said, “Mephisto will take no excuse, cousin, and I find myself obliged to leave you.”  But he went away in an excitement of hope and gay anticipations; and, with a sharp rebuke to the unruly animal, he vaulted into the saddle with soldierly grace and rapidity.  A momentary glance upward showed him Lady Capel and Lady Suffolk at the window, watching him; the withered old woman in her soiled wrappings, the youthful beauty in all the bravery of her white and gold poudesoy.  In spite of Mephisto’s opposition, he made them a salute; and then, in a clamour of clattering hoofs, he dashed through the square.

“That is the man you ought to have married Arabella,” said Lady Capel, as she watched the young face at her side, which had suddenly become pensive and dreamy:  “you would have been a couple for the world to look at.”

“Oh, indeed, you are mistaken, grandmother!  Sir Thomas is an admirable husband—­blind and deaf to all I do, as a good husband ought to be.  And as for Dick, look at him—­bowing and smiling, and ready to do me any service, while the girl he nearly died for is quite forgotten.”

“Upon my word, you wrong Dick.  His love for that woman is beyond everything.  I wish it wasn’t.  What right had she to come into our family, and spoil plans and projects made before she was born.  I should clearly love to play her her own card back.  And I must say, Arabella, that you seem to care very little about your own wrongs.”