Mr. Barker hurried off, with many incoherent apologies. When he had finally departed, Mr. Lennox looked at Célestine with a smile.
"Which way will you go, mademoiselle?"
"I would like to walk among the people, if you please, monsieur; not right in the crowd, but about here, where you can see people—and feel that there is life."
"You find it dull at Heron's Carew!" Lennox observed sympathetically.
Célestine held up her hands. "But of all things. And to me, who understood that miladi was to spend the season in town, it is all that there is of the most horrible. I would never have engaged to come to Heron's Carew all the time, like this—never!"
He glanced at her comprehendingly. "It is hard on you, mademoiselle. But I suppose Lady Carew is not strong enough for the gaieties of the season."
Célestine shrugged her shoulders. "Miladi has a constitution of the most magnifique. But one day she has a migraine, and your English doctors are fools. She is sent down to this triste Heron's Carew, where there is never any person to speak to but Sir Anthony and Miss Peggy, and what can you expect?"
"She is not getting better?" Lennox questioned.
"But no," Célestine answered energetically. "How should she be here in this dullness? And it is impossible for her to be gay when Sir Anthony—he mopes always, and is sulky."
Mr. Lennox looked interested. "Perhaps they don't get on. I saw him just now when they were giving the prizes away. He looks as if he had a temper of his own."
Célestine raised her eyebrows. "Was there ever a Carew of them all that had not?" she demanded. "The mad Carews, the people round here call them. I think it is a good name—me. But, as for getting on, Sir Anthony and miladi used to be like lovers always. It was wearisome to see them together, until the night of Lady Denborough's dinner-party. Since then all has been changed."
"They quarrelled perhaps," her companion suggested, as she paused and looked mysterious.
"Perhaps," she said slowly, lifting her shoulders. "I do not know. At any rate, miladi and Sir Anthony went to a wedding, Lady Geraldine Summerhouse's, in the afternoon. Then miladi had her migraine and did not go to Lady Denborough's. It may have been that Sir Anthony was sulky because he did not want to go alone. Most men are like that—thoughtless, what you call, selfish!" with a swift upraising of her dark lashes.
Mr. Lennox rose to the occasion gallantly. "I should not be thoughtless or selfish if I had a sweet little wife like—" His eyes pointed the unfinished sentence.
Célestine smiled, did her best to blush.
"But men are all alike—before," with a coquettish glance.
"Not all—any more than you ladies," Mr. Lennox contradicted playfully. "Now you, mademoiselle, if you had a headache, you would make a struggle to go out with your husband, I know; you would not leave him to go alone."
The maid pursed up her lips. "If it suited my purpose I might or I might not, monsieur. Sometimes—sometimes it may be that a migraine is—shall we say—convenient?"
Mr. Lennox looked at her, his face a study of good-humoured surprise. "I don't understand, mademoiselle. You say that Lady Carew's headaches are convenient."
"Not all of miladi's migraines are," Célestine contradicted. "But that first one, on the night of Lady Denborough's dinner, was a convenient one, all the same. But there, monsieur, sometimes it happens that my tongue runs away with me; we will talk of something else."
Lennox looked at her a moment, and then he threw back his head and laughed.
"Do you think I should gossip, mademoiselle? Bless my life it isn't as if I were a married man with a wife to whisper my secrets to," casting a sentimental glance at the girl.
Célestine's eyelids flickered coyly.
Mr. Lennox drew a little nearer. "Sometimes one does get led away, mademoiselle; one meets somebody suddenly, the very sight of whom seems to alter one's life. It is hard to realize that the feeling is not mutual, that one is suspected, doubted; but I suppose, if one weren't a fool, one would be prepared for it."
"But suspected, monsieur, doubted?" Célestine glanced up quickly into the mild blue eyes that were watching her with such evident interest. In her shrewd little heart she was calculating the possibilities; it was apparent that the new-comer was greatly attracted to her. There was an air of prosperity about him which impressed Célestine. Decidedly, she thought, it appeared as though he would be a better match than Barker. Altogether she thought it might be as well to temporize. "It was only that though miladi had strange ways I do not speak of them usually; but to you, monsieur, who seem not like other men, it is different. Only you must understand that I do not gossip—me."
"Good heavens, no." The man laughed again with every appearance of good faith. "And what does it matter to me whether Lady Carew has her own little game to play, if she breaks engagements in order to get out of doors to—perhaps better say no more."
"But, monsieur," Célestine was staring at him with wide open eyes, "what do you mean, what do you know?"
The tragic intensity of her tone seemed to amuse Mr. Lennox, his smile broadened. "Only the ordinary gossip of the town about a lady so well known as Lady Carew," he replied lightly. "You know she is a society beauty, a famous person whose every movement is chronicled. There have been whispers of Lady Carew of late, that there is a lover in the background, but I should not speak of them to anybody but you, mademoiselle."
"And I never knew, I never dreamed that anyone had guessed." Célestine clasped her small exquisitely covered hands tightly together and spoke with dramatic intensity. "All I know is that Miladi says she has a bad headache, that she can not go to Lady Denborough's dinner, and that she sends me away, and afterwards when the house is quiet she comes stealing down the stairs and lets herself out like a mouse."
"Oh, you ladies—you ladies!" apostrophized Mr. Lennox. "It would take a clever man to be even with some of you, mademoiselle. So I suppose Lady Carew spent a pleasant evening with her lover, while poor Sir Anthony went to Lady Denborough's dinner alone, and made himself miserable all the evening, thinking that his wife was ill."
Célestine did not answer for a minute; her carefully arched eyebrows were drawn together consideringly.
"No! Sir Anthony—he did not go to Lady Denborough's either!" she said slowly. "Though Miladi thought he would. He went out, somewhere, I do not know where. And he did not come back till after Miladi had come back, and then he came in and shut his door with a bang—so." And Célestine brought her two hands together smartly. "But when you speak of Miladi's lover, you make a mistake. Miladi may have secrets, but a lover, no, I do not think it. She loves Sir Anthony."
Mr. Lennox's interest in the story was evidently only second to that he felt in Célestine herself. "But if she is meeting a man—outside," he said. "And all London says she is."
Célestine shook her head. "It is not a lover she meets, monsieur. And I do not speak without reason."
"Reason," Mr. Lennox repeated thoughtfully. "But, mademoiselle, how can you know?"
Célestine's black eyes looked important. "Ah, now, monsieur, you are asking more than I can tell. That is my little—what you call—secret."
Chapter XVI
The Dowager Lady Carew was giving a dinner-party at the Dower House. She had had her way now. Peggy's engagement to Lord Chesterham, was formally announced, and Sir Anthony had withdrawn all open opposition, though his private opinion of his future brother-in-law remained much the same. Stephen Crasster's representations had turned the scale, for Crasster, putting his own feelings on one side, had pleaded for Peggy's sake. But, although as Peggy's guardian he had given his formal consent, Sir Anthony was looking