Nell of Shorne Mills
Page 337"I am so sorry to be so late," said Luce, in her sweetest tones, "but my
maid, who is a perfect tyrant, refused to dress me until I had
rested----"
"Your dinner?" almost gasped the countess.
"I had some sent up to my room," said Lady Luce sweetly.
She looked round. Drake stood by the piano, his face sternly set. Why
had she remained? What was she going to do? He glanced at Nell, and saw
that she had gone white, and that her eyes were fixed on Lady Luce. What
should he do?
Instinctively, he went to meet Luce, who was advancing with a placid
sure of her welcome.
"How do you do, Lord Angleford?" she said, as if this were their first
meeting for some time. "I am so glad that I was able to get here
to-night, though I wish that I could have arrived earlier. But I am
interrupting the music! Please don't let me!"
She moved away from him with perfect grace, and, greeting one and
another, went and seated herself in a chair beside the duchess--and
opposite Nell at the piano. There was a little buzz of conversation
round her, then she herself raised her fan as a sign for silence, and
It was well for Nell that she knew every note of the nocturne by heart,
for the page of music swam before her eyes, and she could not see a
note. She felt Lady Luce's gaze, rather than saw it, and her heart
throbbed painfully for a while; but presently the influence of the music
stole over her and helped her--if only Falconer could have known
it!--and she said to herself: "What can it matter to me if she is here?
I know that Drake loves me, and me alone; that she is nothing to him and
I am everything. It is she who should feel confused and embarrassed, not
I. And yet how calm, how serene she is! Can she have forgotten that
it is she whose heart should be beating as mine is now."
When the nocturne came to an end, and the applause which greeted it
broke out, Lady Luce, still clapping her hands, rose and went toward
Drake.
"Will you please introduce me to Miss Lorton?" she said. "I am all
anxiety to know her."