‘So it happened.’

Mrs. Grancey let a lingering eye dwell maliciously on Beauchamp, who said, to shift the burden of it:  ’The French are not so jealous of military uniforms as we are.  M. de Croisnel lost his portmanteau.’

’Ah! lost it!  Then of course he is excuseable, except to the naked eye.  Dear me! you have had a bruise on yours.  Was Monsieur votre ami in the Italian campaign?’

’No, poor fellow, he was not.  He is not an Imperialist; he had to remain in garrison.’

’He wore a multitude of medals, I have been told.  A cup of tea, Cecilia.  And how long did he stay in England with his relatives?’

‘Two days.’

’Only two days!  A very short visit indeed—­singularly short.  Somebody informed me of their having been seen at Romfrey Castle, which cannot have been true.’

She turned her eyes from Beauchamp silent to Cecilia’s hand on the teapot.  ‘Half a cup,’ she said mildly, to spare the poor hand its betrayal of nervousness, and relapsed from her air of mistress of the situation to chatter to Mr. Austin.

Beauchamp continued silent.  He took up a book, and presently a pencil from his pocket, then talked of the book to Cecilia’s cousin; and leaving a paper-cutter between the leaves, he looked at Cecilia and laid the book down.

She proceeded to conduct Mrs. Grancey Lespel to her room.

’I do admire Captain Beauchamp’s cleverness; he is as good as a French romance!’ Mrs. Grancey exclaimed on the stairs.  ’He fibs charmingly.  I could not help drawing him out.  Two days!  Why, my dear, his French party were a fortnight in the country.  It was the marquise, you know—­ the old affair; and one may say he’s a constant man.’

‘I have not heard Captain Beauchamp’s cleverness much praised,’ said Cecilia.  ‘This is your room, Mrs. Grancey.’

’Stay with me a moment.  It is the room I like.  Are we to have him at dinner?’

Cecilia did not suppose that Captain Beauchamp would remain to dine.  Feeling herself in the clutches of a gossip, she would fain have gone.

‘I am just one bit glad of it, though I can’t dislike him personally,’ said Mrs. Grancey, detaining her and beginning to whisper.  ’It was really too bad.  There was a French party at the end, but there was only one at the commencement.  The brother was got over for a curtain, before the husband arrived in pursuit.  They say the trick Captain Beauchamp played his cousin Cecil, to get him out of the house when he had made a discovery, was monstrous—­fiendishly cunning.  However, Lady Romfrey, as that woman appears to be at last, covered it all.  You know she has one of those passions for Captain Beauchamp which completely blind women to right and wrong.  He is her saint, let him sin ever so!  The story’s in everybody’s mouth.  By the way, Palmet saw her.  He describes her pale as marble, with dark long eyes, the most