"No," she replied. "A gentleman went with her."
The earl laid down his knife and fork suddenly, then picked them up
again, and made a great fuss with the remains of his cutlet.
"Oh! Did you--er--did you hear who it was?"
"Yes," said Nell, "but I can't remember his name. It has quite gone for
the moment;" and she knit her brows.
The earl stared straight at the épergne.
"Was it--Sir Archie Walbrooke?" he said, in a dry, expressionless voice.
Nell laughed, as one laughs at the sudden return of a treacherous
memory.
"Of course, yes! That was the name," she said brightly. "How stupid of
me!"
But Lord Wolfer did not laugh. He bent still lower over the cutlet, and
worried the bone a minute or two in silence; then he consulted his
watch, and rose.
"I beg you will excuse me," he said. "I have an appointment--a
meeting----"
He mumbled himself out of the room, and Nell sat and gazed at the door
which had closed behind him.
She was too innocent, too ignorant of the world, to have even the
faintest idea of the trouble which lowered over the house which she had
entered; but a vague dread of something intangible took possession of
her.