The girl timidly approached. Whilst she was occupied with her sister and with the nurse, Lady Maxwell suddenly looked round, and saw Tressady standing by the table a yard or two from her. A momentary expression of astonishment crossed her face. He saw that, in her absorption with the case and the two sisters, she had clean forgotten all about him. But in a flash she remembered, and smiled. "So you are really going to take her home? That is very kind of you. It will make all the difference to the grandmother that somebody should go and explain. You see, they leave her in the splint for the night, and to-morrow they will put the leg in plaster. Probably they won't keep her in hospital more than about three weeks, for they are very full." "You seem to know all about it!" "I was a nurse myself once, for a time," she said, but with a certain stiffness which seemed to mark the transition from the professional to the great lady. "Ah! I should have remembered that. I had heard it from Edward Watton." She looked up quickly. He felt that for the first time she took notice of him as an individual. "You know Mr. Watton? I think you are Sir George Tressady, are you not? You got in for Market Malford in November? I recollect. I didn't like your speeches." She laughed. So did he. "Yes, I got in just in time for a fighting session." Her laugh disappeared. "An odious fight!" she said gravely. "I am not so sure. That depends on whether you like fighting, and how certain you are of your cause!" She hesitated a moment; then she said: "How can Lord Fontenoy be certain of his cause!" The slight note of scorn roused him. "Isn't that what all parties say of their opponents?" She glanced at him again, curiously. He was evidently quite young--younger than herself, she guessed. But his careless ease and experience of bearing, contrasted with his thin boy's figure, attracted her. Her lip softened reluctantly into a smile. "Perhaps," she said. "Only sometimes, you know, it must be true! Well, evidently we can't discuss it here at one o'clock in the morning--and there is the nurse making signs to me. It is really very good of you. If you are in our neighbourhood on Sunday, will you report?" "Certainly--with the greatest pleasure. I will come and give you a full account of my mission." She held out a slim hand. The sister, red-eyed with crying, was handed over to him, and he and she were soon in a cab, speeding towards the Westminster mews whither she directed him. Well, was Maxwell to be so greatly envied? Tressady was not sure. Such a woman, he thought, for all her beauty, would not have greatly stirred his own pulses. CHAPTER V