She had shunned the place.
"Why, did you expect Eglington?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps
of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she
would not allow herself to look. She knew that Hylda did not expect
Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last
moment.
"Of course not--he doesn't know we are here. But if it wasn't too late,
I thought I'd go down and drive him home."
The Duchess veiled her look. Here was some new development in the
history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and
Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a day,
and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited for the
critical hour when they should be needed.
"We'll go at once if you like," she replied. "The opera will be over
soon. We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won't
come now; it's too late. So, we'll go, if you like."
She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst
looked in quizzically. There was a smile on his face.
"I'm late, I know; but you'll forgive me--you'll forgive me, dear lady,"
he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a
smashing speech for a bad cause."
Hylda smiled. "Then I must go and congratulate him," she answered, and
withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.
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