“My dear, there are so few things a gentlewoman can do.”

“When I think of those ten years,” said Nora, pacing up and down the length of the room, “having to put up with every unreasonableness!  Never being allowed to feel ill or tired.  No servant would have stood what I have.  The humiliation I’ve endured!”

“You’re tired and out of sorts,” said Miss Pringle soothingly.  “Everyone isn’t so trying as Miss Wickham.  I’m sure Mrs. Hubbard has been kindness itself to me.”

“Considering.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘considering.’”

“Considering that she’s rich and you’re poor.  She gives you her old clothes.  She frequently doesn’t ask you to have dinner by yourself when she’s giving a party.  She doesn’t remind you that you’re a dependent unless she’s very much put out.  But you—­you’ve had thirty years of it.  You’ve eaten the bitter bread of slavery till—­till it tastes like plum cake!”

Miss Pringle was distinctly hurt.  “I don’t know why you say such things to me, Nora.”

“Oh, you mustn’t mind what I say; I——­”

“Mr. Hornby would like to see you for a minute, Miss,” said Kate from the doorway.

“Now?”

“I told him I didn’t think it would be very convenient, Miss, but he says it’s very important, and he won’t detain you more than five minutes.”

“What a nuisance.  Ask him to come in.”

“Very good, Miss.”

“I wonder what on earth he can want.”

“Who is he, Nora?”

“Oh, he’s the son of Colonel Hornby.  Don’t you know, he lives at the top of Molyneux Park?  His mother was a great friend of Miss Wickham’s.  He comes down here now and then for week-ends.  He’s got something to do with motor cars.”

“Mr. Hornby,” said Kate from the door.

Reginald Hornby was evidently one of those candid souls who are above simulating an emotion they do not feel.  He had regarded the late Miss Wickham as an unusually tiresome old woman.  His mother had liked her of course.  But he could hardly have been expected to do so.  Moreover, he had a shrewd notion that she must have been a perfect Tartar to live with.  Miss Marsh might be busy or tired out with the ordeal of the day, but as she also might be leaving almost immediately and he wanted to see her, he had not hesitated to come, once he was sure that the Wickham relatives had departed.  That he would find the late Miss Wickham’s companion indulging in any show of grief for her late employer, had never entered his head.

He was a good-looking, if rather vacuous, young man with a long, elegant body.  His dark, sleek hair was always carefully brushed and his small mustache trimmed and curled.  His beautiful clothes suggested the fashionable tailors of Savile Row.  Everything about him—­his tie, his handkerchief protruding from his breast pocket, his boots—­bore the stamp of the very latest thing.

“I say, I’m awfully sorry to blow in like this,” he said airily.