"Beechleigh!" he mumbled, absently. "Who lives there? I don't even know.
I am going home."
"Why, Hector, of course you know! The Fitzgeralds--Sir Patrick and Lady
Ada. Every one does."
Then it came to him. These were Theodora's uncle and aunt. Was it
possible she could be going there, too? He recollected she had told him
in Paris her father had written to this brother of his about her coming
to London. She might be going. It was a chance, and he must ascertain at
once.
Sir Patrick Fitzgerald he knew at the Turf, and now that he thought of
it he knew Lady Ada by sight quite well, and he was aware he would be a
welcome guest at any house. If Theodora was going, he expected the thing
could be managed. Meanwhile, he must find her, and get rid of Morella
Winmarleigh. He hurried her on through the blue salon and the yellow
salon and out into the gallery beyond. Theodora had completely
disappeared.
Miss Winmarleigh kept up a constant chatter of commonplaces, to which,
when he replied at all, he gave random answers.
And every moment she became more annoyed and uneasy.
She had known Hector since she was a child. Their places adjoined in the
country, and she saw him constantly when there. Her stolid vanity had
never permitted the suggestion to come to her that he had always been
completely indifferent to her. She intended to marry him. His mother
shared her wishes. They were continually thrown together, and the
thought of her as a probable ending to his life when all pleasures
should be over had often entered his head.
Before he met Theodora, if he had ever analyzed his views about Morella,
they probably would have been that she was a safe bore with a great
many worldly advantages. A woman who you could be sure would not take a
lover a few years after you had married her, and whom he would probably
marry if she were still free when the time came.
His flittings from one pretty matron to another had not caused her grave
anxieties. He could not marry them, and he never talked with girls or
possible rivals. So she had always felt safe and certain that fate would
ultimately make him her husband.
But this was different--he had never been like this before. And
uneasiness grabbed at her well-regulated heart.
"Ah, there is my mother!" he exclaimed, at last, with such evident
relief that Morella began to feel spiteful.
They made their way to where Lady Bracondale was standing. She beamed
upon them like a pleased pussy-cat. It looked so suitable to see them
thus together!