She seemed servile enough to some of her friends.  ‘Carinthia’ would have had—­a pleasanter sound.  He folded the letter.

’Why give me this?  Take it,’—­said he.

She laid it on the open pad.

Henrietta entered and had it restored to her, Livia remarking:  ’I found it in the blotter after all.’

She left them together, having to dress for the drive to the coach office with Henrietta.

‘Poor amusement for you this time.’  Fleetwood bowed, gently smiling.

‘Oh!’ cried Henrietta, ’balls, routs, dinners, music—­as much music as I could desire, even I!  What more could be asked?  I am eternally grateful.’

‘The world says, you are more beautiful than ever.’

‘Happiness does it, then,—­happiness owing to you, Lord Fleetwood.’

‘Columelli pleases you?’

‘His voice is heavenly!  He carries me away from earth.’

‘He is a gentleman, too-rare with those fellows.’

‘A pretty manner.  He will speak his compliments in his English.’

’You are seasoned to endure them in all languages.  Pity another of your wounded:  Brailstone has been hard hit at the tables.

‘I cannot pity gamblers.—­May I venture?—­half a word?’

’Tomes!  But just a little compassion for the devoted.  He wouldn’t play so madly—­if, well, say a tenth dilution of the rapt hearing Columelli gets.’

‘Signor Columelli sings divinely.’

‘You don’t dislike Brailstone?’

‘He is one of the agreeable.’

‘He must put his feelings into Italian song!’

‘To put them aside will do.’

‘We are not to have our feelings?’

’Yes, on the proviso that ours are respected.  But, one instant, Lord Fleetwood, pray.  She is—­I have to speak of her as my sister.  I am sure she regrets . . .  She writes very nicely.’

‘You have a letter from her?’

Henrietta sighed that it would not bear exposure to him:  ‘Yes.’

‘Nicely worded?’

‘Well, yes, it is.’

He paused, not expecting that the letter would be shown, but silence fired shots, and he had stopped the petition.  ’We are to have you for a week’s yachting.  You prescribe your company.  Only be merciful.  Exclusion will mean death to some.  Columelli will be touring in Switzerland.  You shall have him in the house when my new bit of ground Northwest of London is open:  very handy, ten miles out.  We’ll have the Opera troupe there, and you shall command the Opera.’

Her beauty sweetened to thank him.

If, as Livia said, his passion for her was unchanged, the generosity manifested in the considerate screen it wore over any physical betrayal of it, deserved the lustre of her eyes.  It dwelt a moment, vivid with the heart close behind and remorseful for misreading of old his fine character.  Here was a young man who could be the very kindest of friends to the woman rejecting him to wed another.  Her smile wavered.  How shall a loving wife express warmth of sentiment elsewhere, without the one beam too much, that plunges her on a tideway?  His claim of nothing called for everything short of the proscribed.  She gave him her beauty in fullest flower.