Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/124

 "Give you leave—to make me unhappy?"

He hesitated. "To tell you again—" But he checked himself. "I will be silent," he said; "silent always."

Ralph Touchett had been joined, in his visit to the excavation, by Miss Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the mounds of earth and stone collected round the aperture, and came into sight of Isabel and her companion. Ralph Touchett gave signs of greeting to Lord Warburton, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice, "Gracious, there's that lord!" Ralph and his friend met each other with undemonstrative cordiality, and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburnt traveller.

"I don't suppose you remember me, sir," she soon remarked.

"Indeed I do remember you," said Lord Warburton. "I asked you to come and see me, and you never came."

"I don't go everywhere I am asked," Miss Stackpole answered, coldly.

"Ah well, I won't ask you again," said the master of Lockleigh, good-humouredly.

"If you do I will go; so be sure!"

Lord Warburton, for all his good-humour, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling had stood by, without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly "Oh, you here, Bantling?" and a hand-shake.

"Well," said Henrietta, "I didn't know you knew him!"

"I guess you don't know every one I know," Mr. Bantling rejoined, facetiously.

"I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you."

"Ah, I am afraid Bantling was ashamed of me," said Lord