“He has had an enormous effect on you—­that man,” he said to Betty.

He spoke clearly so that she might have the pleasure of being certain that the menservants heard.  They were close to the table, handing fruit—­professing to be automatons, eyes down, faces expressing nothing, but as quick of hearing as it is said that blind men are.  He knew that if he had been in her place and a thing as insultingly significant had been said to him, he should promptly have hurled the nearest object—­plate, wineglass, or decanter—­in the face of the speaker.  He knew, too, that women cannot hurl projectiles without looking like viragos and fools.  The weakly-feminine might burst into tears or into a silly rage and leave the table.  There was a distinct breath’s space of pause, and Betty, cutting a cluster from a bunch of hothouse grapes presented by the footman at her side, answered as clearly as he had spoken himself.

“He is strong enough to produce an effect on anyone,” she said.  “I think you feel that yourself.  He is a man who will not be beaten in the end.  Fortune will give him some good thing.”

“He is a fellow who knows well enough on which hand of him good things lie,” he said.  “He will take all that offers itself.”

“Why not?” Betty said impartially.

“There must be no riding or driving in the neighbourhood of the place,” he said next.  “I will have no risks run.”  He turned and addressed the butler.  “Jennings, tell the servants that those are my orders.”

He sat over his wine but a short time that evening, and when he joined his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room he went at once to Betty.  In fact, he was in the condition when a man cannot keep away from a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her whether it is fatuous or plausible.

“What I said to Jennings was an order to you as well as to the people below stairs.  I know you are particularly fond of riding in the direction of Mount Dunstan.  You are in my care so long as you are in my house.”

“Orders are not necessary,” Betty replied.  “The day is past when one rushed to smooth pillows and give the wrong medicine when one’s friends were ill.  If one is not a properly-trained nurse, it is wiser not to risk being very much in the way.”

He spoke over her shoulder, dropping his voice, though Lady Anstruthers sat apart, appearing to read.

“Don’t think I am fool enough not to understand.  You have yourself under magnificent control, but a woman passionately in love cannot keep a certain look out of her eyes.”

He was standing on the hearth.  Betty swung herself lightly round, facing him squarely.  Her full look was splendid.

“If it is there—­let it stay,” she said.  “I would not keep it out of my eyes if I could, and, you are right, I could not if I would—­if it is there.  If it is—­let it stay.”