Mrs. Shorne, Mrs. Melville, Miss Carrington, and many of the guests who observed Evan moving from place to place, after the exposure, as they called it, were amazed at his audacity.  There seemed such a quietly superb air about him.  He would not look out of his element; and this, knowing what they knew, was his offence.  He deserved some commendation for still holding up his head, but it was love and Rose who kept the fires of his heart alive.

The sun had sunk.  The figures on the summit of Parnassus were seen bobbing in happy placidity against the twilight sky.  The sun had sunk, and many of Mr. Raikes’ best things were unspoken.  Wandering about in his gloom, he heard a feminine voice: 

‘Yes, I will trust you.’

‘You will not repent it,’ was answered.

Recognizing the Duke, Mr. Raikes cleared his throat.

’A-hem, your Grace!  This is how the days should pass.  I think we should diurnally station a good London band on high, and play his Majesty to bed—­the sun.  My opinion is, it would improve the crops.  I’m not, as yet, a landed proprietor—­’

The Duke stepped aside with him, and Raikes addressed no one for the next twenty minutes.  When he next came forth Parnassus was half deserted.  It was known that old Mrs. Bonner had been taken with a dangerous attack, and under this third blow the pic-nic succumbed.  Simultaneously with the messenger that brought the news to Lady Jocelyn, one approached Evan, and informed him that the Countess de Saldar urgently entreated him to come to the house without delay.  He also wished to speak a few words to her, and stepped forward briskly.  He had no prophetic intimations of the change this interview would bring upon him.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE HERO TAKES HIS RANK IN THE ORCHESTRA

The Countess was not in her dressing-room when Evan presented himself.  She was in attendance on Mrs. Bonner, Conning said; and the primness of Conning was a thing to have been noticed by any one save a dreamy youth in love.  Conning remained in the room, keeping distinctly aloof.  Her duties absorbed her, but a presiding thought mechanically jerked back her head from time to time:  being the mute form of, ‘Well, I never!’ in Conning’s rank of life and intellectual capacity.  Evan remained quite still in a chair, and Conning was certainly a number of paces beyond suspicion, when the Countess appeared, and hurling at the maid one of those feminine looks which contain huge quartos of meaning, vented the cold query: 

‘Pray, why did you not come to me, as you were commanded?’

‘I was not aware, my lady,’ Conning drew up to reply, and performed with her eyes a lofty rejection of the volume cast at her, and a threat of several for offensive operations, if need were.

The Countess spoke nearer to what she was implying ’You know I object to this:  it is not the first time.’