breakfast because she never came down in the morning until eleven or
twelve, and he had already gone out, she heard, when she did descend.

It followed then that either he had received some disturbing letter by
the post--only one on Good Friday--or something had occurred during his
visit to his old master. It would be her business to find out which of
these two things it was. Could the Professor be married, and might there
be some woman in the family? Or was it nothing to do with the Professor
or with a letter, or was there a more present reason? Had Cora Lutworth
attracted him with her youth and high spirits? They were walking ahead
now, and she could hear his laugh and see how they were enjoying
themselves.

She had been a perfect fool to ask Cora. She did not fear a single
Englishwoman, the powers of most of whom in her heart she despised--but
Cora was of her own race, and well equipped to rival her in a question
of marriage. Cora was only twenty-one, and she herself was thirty--and
there was the divorce which, although she had found it no bar to her
entrance into the most exclusive English society, still might perhaps
rankle unconsciously in the mind of a man mounting the political ladder,
and determined to secure the highest honors.

She felt she hated Cora, and would have destroyed her with a look if she
had been able.

Miss Lutworth, meanwhile, brimful of the joy of life and _insouciance_,
was amusing herself vastly. And John Derringham was experiencing that
sense of relaxation and irresponsible pleasure he got sometimes when he
was overworked from going to an excruciatingly funny Paris farce. Miss
Lutworth did not appeal to his brain at all, although she was quite