"There was a bad thunder-storm, if I recollect. We should have got
wet," I laughed, in a hollow way. He could not know how he was hurting
me; he should not see, at all events.

"You would have been very dear to take to Gretna Green," he continued.
"I should have loved to watch your wise, sweet eyes changing all
expressions as morning dawned and you found yourself away from them
all--away from Augustus."

I did not answer. I drew hieroglyphics with the point of the mauve
parasol in the soft moss beneath our feet.

"Why don't you speak, Comtesse?"

"There is nothing to say--I am married--and you did not tap at the
window--and let us go back to the house."

IV

The last evening at Harley is one of the things I shall not want to
recall. Augustus got drunk--yes, it is almost too dreadful to write
even. I had not realized up to this that gentlemen (of course I do not
mean that word literally, as applied to Augustus, but I mean people
with money and a respectable position)--I never realized that they got
drunk. I thought it was only common men in the street.

It struck me he was making a great noise at dinner, but as he was
sitting on the same side of the table as I was I could not see. When
the men joined us afterwards it came upon me as a thunder-clap. His
face was a deep heliotrope, and he walked unsteadily--not really
lurching about, but rather as if the furniture was in the way.

One or two of the men seemed very much amused, especially when he went
and pushed himself into the sofa where Lady Grenellen was sitting and
threw his arm along the back behind her head. I felt frozen. I could
not have risen from my chair for a few moments. She, however, did not
seem to mind at all; she merely laughed continuously behind her fan,
the men helping her to ridicule Augustus.

For me it was an hour of deep humiliation. It required all my
self-control to go on talking to Babykins as if nothing had happened.

The Duke came over and joined us. He drew a low chair and sat down so
that I could not see the hilarious sofa-party.

I have not the least idea what he said or what any of us said. The
guffaws of laughter in Augustus's thick voice was all I was conscious
of.

Sir Antony Thornhirst, who had stopped to speak to Lady Tilchester
by the billiard-room door, now came over to us. He stood by me for a
moment, then crossed to Lady Grenellen.

"They are wanting you to play bridge in the blue drawing-room," he
said.