In the drawing-room, after dinner, he went up to her, but she gave him no greeting. She only faced him with an expression he had never seen before—a strange bold expression of displeasure. It made her fearfully common. “Why have you come down here?” she asked. “Have you come to watch me?” Waterville coloured to the roots of his hair. He knew it was terribly little like a diplomatist, but he was unable to control his heat. He was justly shocked, he was angry and in addition he was mystified. “I came because I was asked.” “Who asked you?” “The same person who asked you, I suppose—Lady Demesne.” “She’s an old cat!” And Nancy Beck turned away from him. He turned from her as well. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve such treatment. It was a complete surprise; he had never seen her like that before. She was a very vulgar woman; that was the way people dealt with each other, he supposed, on hideous back piazzas. He threw himself almost passionately into contact with the others, who all seemed to him, possibly a little by contrast, extraordinarily genial and friendly. He had not, however, the consolation of seeing Mrs. Headway punished for her rudeness—she wasn’t in the least neglected. On the contrary, in the part of the room where she sat the group was denser and repeatedly broke into gusts of unanimous laughter. Yes, if she should amuse them she might doubtless get anywhere and do anything, and evidently she was amusing them. VII If she was strange, at any rate he hadn’t come to the end of her strangeness. The next day was a Sunday and uncommonly fine; he was down before breakfast and took a walk in the park, stopping to gaze at the thin-legged deer on the remoter slopes, who reminded him of small pin-cushions turned upside down, and wandering along the edge of a large sheet of ornamental water which had a temple in imitation of that of Vesta on an island in the middle. He thought at this time no more of Mrs. Headway; he only reflected that these stately objects had for at least a hundred years furnished a background to a great deal of heavy history. Further reflexion would perhaps have suggested to him that she might yet become a feature in the record that so spread itself. Two or three ladies failed to appear at breakfast; the well-known Texan belle was one of them. “She tells me she never leaves her room till noon,” he heard Lady Demesne say to the General, her companion of the previous evening, who had asked about her. “She takes three hours to dress.” “She’s a monstrous clever woman!” the General declared. “To do it in three hours?” “No, I mean the way she keeps her wits about her.”