Seaman nodded.

“Leave it to me,” he directed.  “You go out and play the host.”

Dominey played the host first and then the husband.  Rosamund welcomed him with a little cry of pleasure.

“I have been enjoying myself so much, Everard!” she exclaimed.  “Everybody has been so kind, and Mr. Mangan has taught me a new Patience.”

“And now, I think,” Doctor Harrison intervened a little gruffly, “it’s time to knock off for the evening.”

She turned very sweetly to Everard.

“Will you take me upstairs?” she begged.  “I have been hoping so much that you would come before Doctor Harrison sent me off.”

“I should have been very disappointed if I had been too late,” Dominey assured her.  “Now say good night to everybody.”

“Why, you talk to me as though I were a child,” she laughed.  “Well, good-bye, everybody, then.  You see, my stern husband is taking me off.  When are you coming to see me, Doctor Harrison?”

“Nothing to see you for,” was the gruff reply.  “You are as well as any woman here.”

“Just a little unsympathetic, isn’t he?” she complained to Dominey.  “Please take me through the hall, so that I can say good-bye to every one else.  Is the Princess Eiderstrom there?”

“I am afraid that she has gone to bed,” Dominey answered, as they passed out of the room.  “She said something about a headache.”

“She is very beautiful,” Rosamund said wistfully.  “I wish she looked as though she liked me a little more.  Is she very fond of you, Everard?”

“I think that I am rather in her bad books just at present,” Dominey confessed.

“I wonder!  I am very observant, and I have seen her looking at you sometimes—­Of course,” Rosamund went on, “as I am not really your wife and you are not really my husband, it is very stupid of me to feel jealous, isn’t it, Everard?”

“Not a bit,” he answered.  “If I am not your husband, I will not be anybody else’s.”

“I love you to say that,” she admitted, with a little sigh, “but it seems wrong somewhere.  Look how cross the Duchess looks!  Some one must have played the wrong card.”

Rosamund’s farewells were not easily made; Terniloff especially seemed reluctant to let her go.  She excused herself gracefully, however, promising to sit up a little later the next evening.  Dominey led the way upstairs, curiously gratified at her lingering progress.  He took her to the door of her room and looked in.  The nurse was sitting in an easy-chair, reading, and the maid was sewing in the background.

“Well, you look very comfortable here,” he declared cheerfully.  “Pray do not move, nurse.”

Rosamund held his hands, as though reluctant to let him go.  Then she drew his face down and kissed him.

“Yes,” she said a little plaintively, “it’s very comfortable.—­Everard?”

“Yes, dear?”

She drew his head down and whispered in his ear.