"If this is jealousy," she murmured, sitting down to think, and undoing her veil with fingers that thrilled to their extreme ends, "I must indeed school myself. I thought I had learned to bear calmly." At dinner Sir Karl seemed in better spirits than usual. He told them he had been to the Opera to hear the new singer, Ilma di Murska, in "Robert le Diable." "Oh, Karl!--and not to have had me with you!" cried Lucy. "I will take you up on purpose, Lucy. You must hear her. In the song 'Robert, toi que j'aime' she electrified us all. I never heard anything like it in my life. And she is most elegant on the stage. Her dresses are splendid." "Was anyone there that you knew?" "I hardly looked at the house at all. I was in the stalls. The Prince and Princess of Wales were in the royal box." "I am sure, Karl, it is a wonder to hear that you went!" "True, Lucy; but my evenings hung heavily on my hands. What with Plunkett and Plunkett and other business matters, the days were busy enough: I used to wish the evenings were. I felt very dull." "Just as I have been feeling here, Karl, without you." His answer to his wife was but a look; but Miss Blake wished she had not caught it. What had she done, that his love should have missed her to be lavished on this girl-child? "Sir Karl," she cried somewhat abruptly, "who is Mr. Smith?" "I don't know," carelessly replied Sir Karl, whose thoughts were preoccupied. "Not know! but is he not your agent?--and a friend also?" Sir Karl was fully aroused now. "Know who Mr. Smith is?" he repeated--and he wished to heaven in his secret heart that he did know. "How do you mean, Miss Blake? He is Mr. Smith, and--yes--a kind of agent to me on the estate." The latter part of the answer was given lightly, half merrily, as if he would pass it off with a laugh. Miss Blake resumed. "Is he not an old friend of the Andinnian family?" "Of some of them, I believe. I did not know him myself." "Who gave him his appointment?" "My mother. She considered it well to have some responsible person here to look after my interests, as I was living abroad." "Do you not intend, Sir Karl, to make an acquaintance of him?--a friend?" For a moment Sir Karl's brows were heavily knitted. "I do not suppose I shall," he quietly said. "He seems a well-informed, agreeable man; and is, I conclude, a gentleman," returned Miss Blake, quite in a tone of remonstrance. "I am glad to hear it," replied Sir Karl, his manner somewhat freezing. "And so, Lucy, you have had some of the neighbours calling here?" he continued, addressing his wife and turning the conversation. "Oh, Karl, yes! And you were not here to help me; and I did not know them, and confused their names hopelessly with one another." "I should not have known them either," laughed Sir Karl.