Sir Henry started, and became his reddest, face, and ears, and neck; but, after a momentary pause, he merely nodded to the woman and went out, knocking over the same china figure from the same table as he did so, but this time without perceiving it. As soon as he was gone, the maid replaced the piece of china now permanently tongueless, and then raised her eyes and hands. "Mon Dieu!" she said below her breath, as she left the room. "Quel fiancé!" A few moments later Madeleine came in her headache appeared to be sufficiently relieved to allow of her coming down now that her betrothed had departed. She pulled down the rose-coloured blinds, and then flung herself with a little shiver on to the couch beside the fire. She was very pretty, very fair, very small, very feminine in dress and manner. That she was seven and twenty it would have been impossible to believe, except by daylight, but for a certain tinge of laboured youthfulness in her demeanour. She put up two of the dearest little hands to her small curled head, and then held them to the fire with a gesture of annoyance. Her eyes--they were pretty appealing eyes, with delicately-bistred eyelashes--fell upon her diamond engagement-ring as she did so, and she turned her left hand from side to side to make the stones catch the light. She was still looking at her ring when the door opened, and "Miss Tempest" was announced. "Well, Madeleine?" said a fresh clear voice. "_Dear_ Di!" said Madeleine, rising and throwing herself into her friend's arms. "How good of you to come, and so early, too! I have been so longing to see you, so longing to tell you about everything!" She drew her visitor down beside her on the couch, and took possession of her hand. "I am very anxious to hear," said Di, disengaging her hand after a moment, and pulling off her furred gloves and boa. "Let me help you, you dear thing," said Madeleine, unfastening her friend's coat, in which action the engagement-ring took a good deal of exercise. "Is it very cold out? What a colour you have! I never saw you looking so well." "Really?" said Di, remembering how Madeleine had made the same remark on her return last year from fishing in Scotland with her face burnt brick red. "One does not generally look one's best after being out in a wind like a knife; but I am glad you think so. And now tell me all about _it_." Di's long, rather large, white hand was taken into both Madeleine's small ones again, and fondled in silence for a few moments. Di looked at her with an expression half puzzled, half benevolent, as a Newfoundland might look at a toy terrier. She was in reality five or six years younger than Madeleine, but her height and a certain natural dignity of carriage and manner gave her the appearance of being much older--by a rose-coloured light. "It was very sudden," said Madeleine in a shy whisper, evidently enjoying the situation. "How sudden? Do you mean it was a sudden idea on his part?"