mable lady gave vent to whenever put out. It is not
capable of being written. "You might have sent word you were coming. I
should think you frightened your wife to death."

"Not quite."

He walked across the room and rang the bell. Hedges appeared. It had
been the dowager's pleasure that no one else should serve her at that
meal--perhaps on account of her peculiarities of costume.

"Will you be good enough to pour out the coffee in Maude's place to-day,
Lady Kirton? She has promised to be down another morning."

It was making her so entirely and intentionally a guest, as she thought,
that Lady Kirton did not like it. Not only did she fully intend Hartledon
House to be her home, but she meant to be its one ruling power. Keep
Maude just now to her invalid fancies, and later to her gay life, and
there would be little fear of her asserting very much authority.

"Are you in the habit of serving this sort of breakfast, Hedges?" asked
Lord Hartledon; for the board looked almost like an elaborate dinner.

"We have made some difference, my lord, this morning."

"For me, I suppose. You need not do so in future. I have got out of the
habit of taking breakfast; and in any case I don't want this unnecessary
display. Captain Kirton gets up later, I presume."

"He's hardly ever up before eleven," said Hedges. "But he makes a good
breakfast, my lord."

"That's right. Tempt him with any delicacy you can devise. He wants
strength."

The dowager was fuming. "Don't you think I'm capable of regulating these
things, Hartledon, I'd beg leave to ask?"

"No doubt. I beg you will make yourself at home whilst you stay with us.
Some tea, Hedges."

She could have thrown the coffee-pot at him. There was incipient defiance
in his every movement; latent war in his tones. He was no longer the
puppet he had been; that day had gone by for ever.

Perhaps Val could not himself have explained the feeling that was this
morning at work within him. It was the first time he and the dowager had
met since the marriage, and she brought before him all too prominently
the ill-omened past: her unjustifiable scheming--his own miserable
weakness. If ever Lord Hartledon felt shame and repentance for his weak
yielding, he felt it now--felt it in all its bitterness; and something
very like rage against the dowager was bubbling up in his spirit, which
he had some trouble to suppress.

He did suppress it, however, though it rendered him less courteous than