She stretched out her hand.
"Come again soon!" she begged. "I shall be better to-morrow! 'Tis only to-day that my head aches till I could shriek with the worry and the pain of it! Come again!"
"Unfortunately I anticipate leaving Bath within a day or two. But nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to comply with your wishes." He kissed her hand punctiliously, and took his leave. At the door he paused, and looked back mockingly. "By the way-her name is-Diana." He bowed again and swept out, as Lavinia buried her face in the cushions and burst into tears.
It was thus that Richard found her, twenty minutes later, and his concern was so great that it in part restored her spirits, and she spent a quiet and, for him, blissful evening, playing at piquet.
In the middle of a game she suddenly flung down her hand and caught at his wrist.
"Dicky, Dicky-I will go home!"
"Go home? What do you mean? Not-"
"Yes, yes-Wyncham! Why not?"
"My dear, do you mean it?" His voice quivered with joyful surprise, and the cards slipped from his hands.
"Yes, I mean it! But take me quickly before I change my mind! I can sleep at Wyncham, and here I lie awake all night, and my head aches.
Take me home and I will try to be a better wife! Oh, Dicky, have I been tiresome and exacting? I did not mean to be! Why do you let me?"
She came quickly round the table and knelt at his side, giving no heed to the crumpling of her billowing silks. "I have been a wicked, selfish woman!" she said vehemently. "But indeed I will be better. You must not let me be bad-you must not, I tell you!"
He flung his arm about her plump shoulders and drew her tightly to him.
"When I get you home at Wyncham, I promise you I will finely hector you, sweetheart," he said, laughing to conceal his deeper feelings.
"I shall make you into a capital housewife!"
"And I will learn to make butter," she nodded. "Then I must wear a dimity gown with a muslin apron and cap. Oh, yes, yes-a dimity gown!"
She sprang up and danced to the middle of the room. "Shall I not be charming, Richard?"
"Very charming, Lavinia!"
"Of course! Oh, we will go home at once-at once! But first I must procure some new gowns from Marguerite!"
"To make butter in, dear?" he protested.
She was not attending.
"A dimity gown-or shall it be of tiffany with a quilted petticoat? Or both?" she chanted. "Dicky, I shall set a fashion in country toilettes!"