"It might have been any one of three," he said, "but I will guess
Mademoiselle d'Artois."

"At last! At last! . . . How rapidly your mind works under pressure.
I wonder, sir, if you will remember us so promptly a year hence."

"Suppose we wait and see," De Lacy answered, and tried to catch the
Countess' eye, but failed. Indeed, save for a quick smile of greeting
when he joined them, she had given him not a single glance, but had
kept her head bent over her needle.

Lady Mary drew down her pretty mouth. "If you can forget Marie
d'Artois so soon, what chance have we?" she asked.

"But I have not forgotten her; we were quite too good friends for that."

"And she was quite too fascinating," the Lady Mary laughed.

"Aye, and quite too beautiful."

"Goodness, Beatrix, listen to the man," she exclaimed. "He has the bad
taste to praise one woman, to another."

The Countess looked up. "Sir Aymer was lauding Mademoiselle d'Artois
to me, last night," she said.

"Can it be, Lady Mary," De Lacy asked, "you do not know that two months
since, Marie d'Artois was wedded to the Duc de Boiselle?"