“In five minutes, if you like. In the meantime, if you wish to ask questions about that infernal gewgaw,” and he looked savagely at the necklace, which George had torn from its covering, “I will tell you at once I did not give it to your wife, as Lady Florencecourt persists in imagining, but I sold it to a dealer without the least idea what was to become of it. Are you satisfied?” “As to your share in the matter, my lord, perfectly.” “As for my wife, she shall apologise to you herself.” “There is no need for any apology,” said George, without condescending to look in the direction of the lady. “I am quite satisfied with your explanation.” He left the husband and wife together, and finding Nouna, who was in a state of tearful anger against the dragon, he helped her to pack her trunk, and then filled and fastened his own portmanteau. These tasks were scarcely finished when Lady Florencecourt, pale, trembling, meek as a startled lamb, her eyes red with violent crying, her whole manner so utterly subdued and abject as to make one doubt her identity, knocked at the door, and finding them engaged in packing, begged them most earnestly to forget her impatience of the morning and to stay, as they had intended, until the Monday. Poor Nouna was so much affected by the evident distress of this haughty personage, that she burst into tears and put her arms round her, assuring her that she had not noticed any impatience at all, and that she would be glad to stay. But George, whose masculine nature was not so easily melted, persisted quietly but firmly that they were obliged to return to London at once. Whereupon Lady Florencecourt extracted a promise from Nouna that she would come to dinner as soon as they should all return to town. “Oh yes,” said Nouna readily, “I want to see the dear boys again; I always like boys, but I never liked any so well as Regie and Bertie.” At these words Lady Florencecourt fell a-trembling again most unaccountably, and she soon withdrew to order the carriage to take her guests to the station. It was a most uncomfortable leave-taking. In spite of her importunities, Nouna could not see the boys again; Lady Florencecourt was as much too humbly cordial as she had before been too loftily cold; and Lord Florencecourt, who accompanied them to the station, hid a painful nervousness under his usual shield of impenetrable reserve. At the station, however, a little incident occurred which laid bare his defences in an untoward manner.