Then she went off to look after the luncheon, and Mairi was permitted to go down and explore the mysteries of the kitchen. The servants were not accustomed to this interference and oversight, and might have resented it, only that Sheila had proved a very good mistress to them, and had shown, too, that she would have her own way when she wanted it. Suddenly, as Sheila was explaining to Mairi the use of some particular piece of mechanism, she heard a sound that made her heart jump. It was now but half-past one, and yet that was surely her husband’s foot in the hall. For a moment she was too bewildered to know what to do. She heard him go straight into the very room she had been decorating, the door of which she had left open. Then, as she went upstairs, with her heart still beating fast, the first thing that met her eyes was a tartan shawl belonging to Mairi that had been accidentally left in the passage. Her husband must have seen it. “Sheila, what nonsense is this?” he said. He was evidently in a hurry, and yet she could not answer; her heart was throbbing too quickly. “Look here,” he said, “I wish you’d give up this grotto-making till to-morrow. Mrs. Kavanagh, Mrs. Lorraine and Lord Arthur Redmond are coming here to luncheon at two. I suppose you can get something decent for them. What is the matter? What is the meaning of all this?” And then his eyes rested on the tartan shawl, which he had really not noticed before. “Who is in the house?” he said. “Have you asked some washerwoman to lunch?” Sheila managed at last to say, “It is Mairi come from Stornoway. I was thinking you would be surprised to see her when you came in.” “And these preparations are for her?” Sheila said nothing; there was that in the tone of her husband’s voice which was gradually bringing her to herself and giving her quite sufficient firmness. “And now that this girl has come up, I suppose you mean to introduce her to all your friends; and I suppose you expect those people who are coming in half an hour to sit down at table with a kitchen-maid?” “Mairi,” said Sheila, standing quite erect, but with her eyes cast down, “is my cousin.” “Your cousin! Don’t be ridiculous, Sheila. You know very well that Mairi is nothing more or less than a scullery-maid; and I suppose you mean to take her out of the kitchen and introduce her to people, and expect her to sit down at table with them. Is not that so?” She did not answer, and he went on, impatiently: “Why was I not told that this girl was coming to stay at my house? Surely I have some right to know what guests you invite, that I may be able at least to ask my friends not to come near the house while they are in it.”