gure! And do you know, my dear
child, I believe I am awfully in love with her!"

"You only 'believe,' Tristram! That sounds odd to be going to be married
upon!" Lady Ethelrida could not help smiling.

He sipped his tea and then jumped up. He was singularly restless to-day.

"She is the kind of woman a man would go perfectly mad about when he
knew her well. I shall, I know." Then, as he saw his cousin's humorous
expression, he laughed boyishly. "It does sound odd, I admit," he said,
"the inference is that I don't know her well--and that is just it,
Ethelrida, but only to you would I say it. Look here, my dear girl, I
have got to be comforted this afternoon. She has just flattened me out.
We are going to be married on the 25th of October, and I want you to be
awfully nice to her. I am sure she has had a rottenly unhappy life."

"Of course I will, Tristram dear," said Lady Ethelrida, "but remember, I
am completely in the dark. When did you meet her? Can't you tell me
something more? Then I will be as sympathetic as you please."

So Lord Tancred sat down on the sofa beside her again, and told her the
bare facts: that it was rather sudden, but he was convinced it was what
he wanted most to do in life; that she was young and beautiful, rich,
and very reserved, and rather cold; that she was going away, until a
week before the wedding; that he knew it sounded all mad, but his dear
Ethelrida was to be a darling, and to understand and not reason with
him!

And she did not. She had gathered enough from this rather incoherent
recital to make her see that some very deep and unusual current must
have touched her cousin's life. She knew the Tancred character, so she
said all sorts of nice things to him, asked interested but not
indiscreet questions. And soon that irritated and baffled sense left
him, and he became calm.

"I want Uncle Glastonbury to ask Francis Markrute to the shoot on the
2nd of November, Ethelrida," he said, "and you will let me bring
Zara--she will be my wife by then--although I was asked only as a
bachelor?"

"It is my party, not Papa's, you dear old goose, you know that," Lady
Ethelrida said. "Of course you shall bring your Zara and I myself will
write and ask Mr. Markrute. In spite of Aunt Jane's saying that he is a
cynical foreigner I like him!"

CHAPTER IX

Society was absolutely flabbergasted when it read in the _Morning Post_
the announcement of Lord Tancred's engagement! No one had heard a