"
It would have been bad form to protest. Both Lord Antony and
Sir Andrew felt that Lady Blakeney could not altogether be in tune
with them at the moment. Her love for her brother, Armand St. Just,
was deep and touching in the extreme. He had just spent a few weeks with
her in her English home, and was going back to serve his country, at the
moment when death was the usual reward for the most enduring devotion.
Sir Percy also made no attempt to detain his wife. With that
perfect, somewhat affected gallantry which characterised his every
movement, he opened the coffee-room door for her, and made her the
most approved and elaborate bow, which the fashion of the time
dictated, as she sailed out of the room without bestowing on him more
than a passing, slightly contemptuous glance. Only Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, whose every thought since he had met Suzanne de Tournay
seemed keener, more gentle, more innately sympathetic, noted the
curious look of intense longing, of deep and hopeless passion, with
which the inane and flippant Sir Percy followed the retreating figure
of his brilliant wife.
CHAPTER VII THE SECRET ORCHARD
Once outside the noisy coffee-room, along in the dimly-lighted
passage, Marguerite Blakeney seemed to breathe more freely.
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