the hotel tire me; and, besides, I said I should sleep at the villa, and
I never go back to people who don't expect me."

Wilfrid looked about the room perplexed, and almost suspicious because of
his unexplained perplexity. Her (as he deemed it--not much above the
level of Mrs. Chump in that respect) aristocratic indifference to opinion
and conventional social observances would have pleased him by daylight,
but it fretted him now.

Lady Charlotte's maid came in to say that Miss Ford would join her. The
maid was dismissed to her bed. "There's nothing to do there," said her
mistress, as she was moving to the folding-doors. The window facing
seaward was open. He went straight to it and closed it. Next, in an
apparent distraction, he went to the folding-doors. He was about to
press the handle, when Lady Charlotte's quiet remark, "My bedroom,"
brought him back to his seat, crying pardon.

"Have you had news?" she inquired. "You thought that a letter might be
there. Bad, is it?"

"It is not good," he replied, briefly.

"I am sorry."

"That is--it tells me--" (Wilfrid disciplined his tongue) "that I--we
are--a lieutenant on half-pay may say that he is ruined, I suppose, when
his other supplies are cut off!..."

"I can excuse him for thinking it," said Lady Charlotte. She exhibited
no sign of eagerness for his statement of facts.