While he accepted a vacant place on her right hand, and chatted about his travels, his ear was pitched to hear what Joan was talking so brightly about to Lady Mound and her daughters at the other end of the table. He lost the thread of Lady Thorne's remarks, until she startled him agreeably by asking him whether they would meet him that afternoon at the concert at Dulwich House.
"Are you--is Miss Thorne--going?" he stammered. "I--of course I only arrived last night, but Lady Dulwich is such an old friend, I know I should be quite the _bien-venu_!"
"Joan, you are coming with me to Lady Dulwich's this afternoon, of course?" asked her aunt, when there was a lull in the conversation. "No? Why not?"
"I am riding to Crouch Hill to see poor Nana," she said, and the determined tones of her resonant young voice seemed to strike upon Vansittart's hot, perturbedly beating heart. "I know it is not a month yet since I went last--my uncle is an autocrat, as I daresay you know, Lady Mound! He only allows me to see my poor old nurse once a month! But I had a letter from her, she is worse than usual. I meant to have told you, auntie, but you were busy, and I thought it did not matter."
"It matters very much, unless you drive, for I cannot accompany you this afternoon," said her uncle, raising his voice so that his wife could hear. "Joan can drive with her maid, my dear." He was well aware that Joan detested driving accompanied by her maid. "You can postpone it till to-morrow? I could not go with you then, Joan, I have to attend a meeting. Perhaps Vansittart will spare time to escort you? You are not deep in engagements yet I expect, my boy, are you?"
"I should be only too pleased, if Miss Thorne will accept my services, as she has done on occasion in the hunting-field," he said, with an effort not to betray his violent delight at such an opportunity to plead his cause.
"London is not the country, Lord Vansittart, thanks," said Joan, calmly; although she had suddenly paled to lividity with dread, with the indescribable fear she felt of self betrayal to this man who loved her. "I shall be perfectly safe, alone. One only meets a few wagons and carts along the highroads."
There was a slightly displeased expostulation from her uncle, a deprecatory word or two in favour of Vansittart as her squire on the part of Lady Thorne; and Joan, desperate, capitulated, feeling unequal to being focussed by all the pairs of eyes around the table. She went upstairs to change her habit and hat for one more suited to the muddy suburban roads, and presently found herself trotting northwards on her spirited grey mare Nora, Vansittart at her side.