But Lady Jennings was in no forgiving mood. The news thus suddenly sprung upon her transformed her at once from an angel of mildness into an embodiment of just indignation. Drawing herself up, she said-- “This is the third time during the last few days that you have done this, Rachel, disappointed me at the very moment when we have been going out together! I can’t understand how you can make appointments and forget them in this manner. Even if I, who don’t pretend to be a woman of business, were to do so, I should soon be in a state of hopeless confusion as to what I had to do and where I had to go.” “I’m very sorry,” said Rachel meekly. But even as she spoke she was walking to the door. “But really you don’t know how difficult it is to reconcile the two conditions, and to be a woman of business and a woman of leisure at the same time.” She went out of the room without giving time for any more discussion, and Lady Jennings turned to Gerard indignantly. The young man had a sympathetic manner, and old ladies always found in him an interested hearer. “Isn’t it too bad of that girl,” she asked, “to treat me in this manner? I make every allowance for the fact that she is a busy woman, and that business appointments have to take precedence of social engagements with her. But when she has expressly asked me to take her to call on certain people, and at the last moment she throws me over like this, I really feel that I have just reason to complain. One can’t treat a duchess in this way, whatever one’s position may be, and it was to meet the Duchess of Beachborough that I was going to take her this afternoon.” “Don’t you think,” suggested Gerard gently, “that it is because she is overworked that she is rather erratic in her ways just now? It seems to me that she looks paler every time I see her, and that her face has grown very much sharper in outline even during the past few weeks. Couldn’t you persuade her to take a rest from business, and to go away for a thorough change? I feel it would do her all the good in the world. Six months abroad, for instance, might make a new woman of her.” The old lady shook her head. “You forget her circumstances,” said she. “How can a woman who has any sort of business connection, leave her work for six months? I don’t know much about these things, but I feel sure I am right in that.” Gerard knew that she was, and found it hard to continue his argument. “At least,” he suggested, “a six weeks’ holiday, then, might be tried with advantage. Don’t you think so?” “She has been talking of taking a holiday,” said Lady Jennings rather coolly, “but I don’t want her to go with me. I want a little rest from her tiresome ways.” “Oh, I’m sorry to hear you say that,” urged Gerard earnestly. “Feeling the interest I do in Miss Davison, I have always been so glad to think that she had by her a friend so judicious, so kind, and so considerate as you.”