’Well, ma’am, you have tied the knot tight enough; perhaps now you’ll cut it,’ said the earl.

Rosamund gasped softly.  ’M. le Marquis is a gentleman who, after a life of dissipation, has been reminded by bad health that he has a young and beautiful wife.’

‘He dug his pit to fall into it:—­he’s jealous?’

She shook her head to indicate the immeasurable.

’Senile jealousy is anxious to be deceived.  He could hardly be deceived so far as to imagine that Madame la Marquise would visit me, such as I am, as my guest.  Knowingly or not, his very clever sister, a good woman, and a friend to husband and wife—­a Frenchwoman of the purest type—­gave me the title.  She insisted on it, and I presumed to guess that she deemed it necessary for the sake of peace in that home.’

Lord Romfrey appeared merely inquisitive; his eyebrows were lifted in permanence; his eyes were mild.

She continued:  ’They leave England in a few hours.  They are not likely to return.  I permitted him to address me with the title of countess.’

‘Of Romfrey?’ said the earl.

Rosamund bowed.

His mouth contracted.  She did not expect thunder to issue from it, but she did fear to hear a sarcasm, or that she would have to endure a deadly silence:  and she was gathering her own lips in imitation of his, to nerve herself for some stroke to come, when he laughed in his peculiar close-mouthed manner.

‘I’m afraid you’ve dished yourself.’

‘You cannot forgive me, my lord?’

He indulged in more of his laughter, and abruptly summoning gravity, bade her talk to him of affairs.  He himself talked of the condition of the Castle, and with a certain off-hand contempt of the ladies of the family, and Cecil’s father, Sir John.  ‘What are they to me?’ said he, and he complained of having been called Last Earl of Romfrey.

‘The line ends undegenerate,’ said Rosamund fervidly, though she knew not where she stood.

‘Ends!’ quoth the earl.

‘I must see Stukely,’ he added briskly, and stooped to her:  ’I beg you to drive me to my Club, countess.’

‘Oh! sir.’

‘Once a countess, always a countess!’

‘But once an impostor, my lord?’

‘Not always, we’ll hope.’

He enjoyed this little variation in the language of comedy; letting it drop, to say:  ’Be here to-morrow early.  Don’t chase that family away from the house.  Do as you will, but not a word of Nevil to me:  he’s a bad mess in any man’s porringer; it’s time for me to claim exemption of him from mine.’

She dared not let her thoughts flow, for to think was to triumph, and possibly to be deluded.  They came in copious volumes when Lord Romfrey, alighting at his Club, called to the coachman:  ‘Drive the countess home.’