"I think, if I were you, I should have some lunch," he said, gently
pushing the admirable _salmi_ which the butler had left in front of him
towards his old friend.

Lady Henry laughed.

"Oh, my temper will be better presently, when those men are gone"--she
nodded towards the butler and footman in the distance--"and I can
have my say."

Sir Wilfrid hurried his meal as much as Lady Henry--who, as it turned
out, was not at all minded to starve him--would allow. She meanwhile
talked politics and gossip to him, with her old, caustic force, nibbling
a dry biscuit at intervals and sipping a cup of coffee. She was a
wilful, characteristic figure as she sat there, beneath her own portrait
as a bride, which hung on the wall behind her. The portrait represented
a very young woman, with plentiful brown hair gathered into a knot on
the top of her head, a high waist, a blue waist-ribbon, and inflated
sleeves. Handsome, imperious, the corners of the mouth well down, the
look straight and daring--the Lady Henry of the picture, a bride of
nineteen, was already formidable. And the old woman sitting beneath it,
with the strong, white hair, which the ample cap found some difficulty
even now in taming and confining, the droop of the mouth accentuated,
the nose more masterful, the double chin grown evident, the light of the
eyes gone out, breathed pride and will from every feature of her still
handsome face, pride of race and pride of intellect, combined with a
hundred other subtler and smaller prides that only an intimate knowledge
of her could detect. The brow and eyes, so beautiful in the picture,
were, however, still agreeable in the living woman; if generosity