"No, my lady; perhaps a little later----"
"Well, I'll see," said Lady Luce irritably. "I don't suppose you could
do any good if you were to go home; I suppose there's some one to look
after your mother; and, after all, she may not be so bad as you think.
Servants always look at the worst side of things, and meet troubles
halfway."
"Yes, my lady," said Burden.
"And do, for goodness' sake, try and look more cheerful, my good girl!
It's like having a ghost behind me. Besides, if you are worrying
yourself about your mother you can't dress me properly; and I want you
to be very careful to-night--of all nights!"
She leaned back and smiled at her face in the glass, and thought no more
of the maid's pale and anxious one. Had she been not so entirely
heartless, had she even only affected a little interest and expressed
some sympathy, the unhappy girl might have broken down and confessed her
share in the meditated crime; but Lady Luce was incapable of pretending
sympathy with a servant. In her eyes servants were of quite a different
order of creation to that of her own class; hewers of wood and drawers
of water, of no account beyond that which they gained from their value
to their masters or mistresses. To consider the feelings of the servants
who waited upon her would have seemed absurd to Lady Luce, almost,
indeed, a kind of bad form.
The dinner bell had rung before she was dressed, and she hurried down to
find herself the last to arrive in the drawing-room. She sought Drake's
face as she entered. It still wore the expression of suppressed
excitement which she had noticed when he came in from his walk, and he
smiled with a kind of reluctant admiration as he noticed the magnificent
dress, and the way in which it set off her beauty.
At dinner his altered mood was so marked that several persons who were
near him noticed it. He, who had been so quiet and grave, almost stern
in his manner and speech, to-night talked much and rapidly, and laughed
freely.
The flush on his face deepened, and his eyes flashed so brightly that
Wolfer, who was sitting near him, could not help noticing how often
Drake permitted the butler to fill his glass, and wondered whether
anything had happened, and whether he were drinking too much.
But Drake's gayety was infectious enough, and the dinner was a much
livelier one than any that had preceded it.
Lady Luce was, perhaps, the most quiet and least talkative; but she sat
and listened to Drake's stories and badinage, with a smile in her eyes
and her lips slightly apart.