"
"I think it was, Maude. However--don't act for yourself in future; let me
know your wishes. I do not think you have expressed a wish, or half a
wish, since our marriage, but I have felt a pleasure in gratifying it."
"You good old fellow! But I am given to having a will of my own, and to
act independently. I'm like mamma in that. Val, we will start to-morrow:
have you any orders for the servants? I can transmit them through mamma."
"I have no orders. This is your expedition, Maude, not mine; and, I
assure you, I feel like a man in utter darkness in regard to it. Allow
me to see your mother's letter."
Lady Hartledon had put the letter safely into her pocket.
"I would rather not, Percival: it contains a few private words to myself,
and mamma has always an objection to her letters being shown. I'll read
you all necessary particulars. You must let me have some money to-day."
"How much?" asked he, from between his compressed lips.
"Oceans. I owe for millinery and things. And, Val, I'll go to Versailles
this afternoon, if you like. I want to see some of the rooms again."
"Very well," he answered.
She poured out some chocolate, took it hurriedly, and quitted the room,
leaving her husband in a disheartening reverie. That Lady Hartledon and
Maude Kirton were two very distinct persons he had discovered already;
the one had been all gentleness and childlike suavity, the other was
positive, extravagant, and self-willed; the one had made a pretence of
loving him beyond all other things in life, the other was making very
little show of loving him at all, or of concealing her indifference.
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