sande, the middle one. "He's cross, and
sometimes he makes darling mummie cry."

"We must always love papa," chanted Mildred, in a lesson voice. "We must
always love our parents, and grandmamma, and grandpapa, and aunts and
cousins--amen." The "amen" slipped out unawares, and she looked confused,
and corrected herself when she had said it.

"Let's find Harbottle. Harbottle is papa's valet," Corisande said, "and he
is much thoughtfuller than papa. Last time he brought me a Highland boy
doll, though papa had forgotten I asked for it."

They all three went out of the room, first kissing me, and courtesying
sweetly when they got to the door. They are never rude or boisterous, the
three angels--I love them.

Left alone, I did feel like a dead fish. The column "London Day by Day"
caught my eye in the _Daily Telegraph_, and I idly glanced down it, not
taking in the sense of the words, until "The Duke of Torquilstone has
arrived at Vavasour House, St. James's, from abroad," I read.

Well, what did it matter to me--what did anything matter to me?--Lord
Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the opera;
he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his abrupt
departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have a glass of
brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to supper, and
various other _empresse_ things, looking at her with the greatest
devotion. I might not have existed.

She was capricious, as she sometimes is. "No, Robert, I am going home to
bed. I have got a chill, too," she said.

And the footman announcing the electric at that moment, we flew off and
left them, Christopher having fastened my sable collar with an air of
possession which would have irritated me beyond words at another time, but
I felt cold and dead, and utterly numb.

Lady Ver did not speak a word on the way back, and kissed me frigidly as
she went into her room; then she called out:

"I am tired, snake-girl; don't think I am cross. Good-night." And so I
crept up to bed.

To-morrow is Saturday and my visit ends. After my lunch with Lady
Merrenden, I am a wanderer on the face of the earth.

Where shall I wander to? I feel I want to go away by myself, away where I
shall not see a human being who is English. I want to forget what they
look like; I want to shut out of my sight their well-groomed heads; I
want--oh, I do not know what I do want.

Shall I marry Mr. Carruthers? He would eat me up,