“I’ve got some lovely old French tapestries,” he said, “that even you will admire, little Vandal that you are.” He felt in his pockets and then exclaimed: “Oh, I haven’t got the key of the gallery. Miss Pembury has charge of it now, for she’s begun to make me a catalogue, and she is in there every morning before anybody else is up.” “Ah!” said Lady Sarah sharply. Sir Robert looked at her quickly, but she would give no explanation of what was in her mind, and the expedition to the gallery was given up for that evening. CHAPTER VI. JACK ROTHERFIELD Nobody would have supposed, to judge by Lady Sarah’s attitude to Rhoda, that any suspicion or mistrust of her had ever entered her pretty head. On the contrary, she went out of her way to be charming to her boy’s companion, openly congratulating herself on having provided him with such an amiable friend, and told Rhoda, with merry laughter, that she considered herself a most magnanimous person not to be jealous of such a formidable rival. “Who would ever have thought that the thin, pale girl with the colourless hair would be transformed into--you?” she cried, “with your stately walk and dignified figure! You make me look so small, and so frivolous and empty-headed, that I shall end by being jealous of you with my own husband as well as my boy!” Rhoda frowned painfully. “I don’t like to hear you say those things even in fun. Caryl looks upon me just as he would upon a nurse who was kind to him. He speaks of you with bated breath, as if you were a goddess. And it’s the same with Sir Robert. All I can do is to make myself useful, and I have to work hard to keep my hold upon both of them; I have to keep a smile always ready for little Caryl and to indulge his whims; to keep my place in his heart I have to be always working, working hard. As for Sir Robert, I’m afraid his appreciation of me is confined to my capacity for making out his handwriting, and his admiration is given only to my beautiful capitals, and not to me. If I thought that you meant that I presumed upon my position----” “But I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” cried Lady Sarah briskly. “I’m unfeignedly thankful for what you have done for both of them, and there never was in this world a person less capable of jealousy than I. But you are too modest. For I see Sir Robert lets you have the key of his gallery. I’m sure he’d rather die than trust it to me.” Rhoda’s fair face became suffused with a hot blush. “I won’t let him give it me again,” she said quickly. Lady Sarah put a peremptory little hand upon her arm.