‘You seem afraid of her,’ said Drummond.

‘I am.  I ain’t ashamed to confess it.  She’s a regular viper, my boy!’ said Mr. George.  ’She and I once were pretty thick—­least said soonest mended, you know.  I offended her.  Wasn’t quite up to her mark—­a tailor’s daughter, you know.  Gad, if she didn’t set an Irish Dragoon Captain on me!—­I went about in danger of my life.  The fellow began to twist his damned black moustaches the moment he clapped eyes on me—­ bullied me till, upon my soul, I was almost ready to fight him!  Oh, she was a little tripping Tartar of a bantam hen then.  She’s grown since she’s been countessed, and does it peacocky.  Now, I give you fair warning, you know.  She’s more than any man’s match.’

‘I dare say I shall think the same when she has beaten me,’ quoth cynical Drummond, and immediately went and gave orders for his horse to be saddled, thinking that he would tread on the head of the viper.

But shortly before the hour of his departure, Mrs. Evremonde summoned him to her, and showed him a slip of paper, on which was written, in an uncouth small hand: 

’Madam:  a friend warns you that your husband is coming here.  Deep interest in your welfare is the cause of an anonymous communication.  The writer wishes only to warn you in time.’

Mrs. Evremonde told Drummond that she had received it from one of the servants when leaving the breakfast-room.  Beyond the fact that a man on horseback had handed it to a little boy, who had delivered it over to the footman, Drummond could learn nothing.  Of course, all thought of the journey to Lymport was abandoned.  If but to excogitate a motive for the origin of the document, Drummond was forced to remain; and now he had it, and now he lost it again; and as he was wandering about in his maze, the Countess met him with a ’Good morning, Mr., Forth.  Have I impeded your expedition by taking my friend Mr. Harry to cavalier me to-day?’

Drummond smilingly assured her that she had not in any way disarranged his projects, and passed with so absorbed a brow that the Countess could afford to turn her head and inspect him, without fear that he would surprise her in the act.  Knocking the pearly edge of her fan on her teeth, she eyed him under her joined black lashes, and deliberately read his thoughts in the mere shape of his back and shoulders.  She read him through and through, and was unconscious of the effective attitude she stood in for the space of two full minutes, and even then it required one of our unhappy sex to recall her.  This was Harry Jocelyn.

‘My friend,’ she said to him, with a melancholy smile, ’my one friend here!’

Harry went through the form of kissing her hand, which he had been taught, and practised cunningly as the first step of the ladder.

‘I say, you looked so handsome, standing as you did just now,’ he remarked; and she could see how far beneath her that effective attitude had precipitated the youth.