“I can’t remember, that I can’t,” Mrs. Merryweather replied. “And yet somehow his name rings a bell, the Marquis of Stade. Someone was speakin’ of him. Maybe it was one of the huntsmen. They drop in after a day’s huntin’ and talk about Society people. Maybe they said somethin’ about him. But whoever it is, it doesn’t matter if what they said was good or bad, you don’t dine downstairs alone with him. It ain’t proper.”

“What does it matter just for once?” Gretna pleaded. “Who is going to know? I shall never see him again and, if I do, I don’t believe he would hold it against me. After all it cannot be helped that you are ill.”

“I could kick myself, I could really,” Mrs. Merryweather said. “Why should a thing like this happen to me?” She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Perhaps the physician will be here. Perhaps I will be well enough to get up.”

Gretna bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.

“Even if he comes in the next five minutes, he will not let you get up. You have to rest, you know that.”

She turned away before Mrs. Merryweather could say anything more and, walking through the open door into her own bedroom, she saw that the maid had unpacked everything that was necessary for the night.

For the first time she was ashamed of her belongings. The thin threadbare wrapper that had been washed and washed until it had long lost its original colour, the little worn slippers that had been hers since she was a child, the plain wooden hairbrush and her cotton petticoats, darned neatly but unornamented with embroidery or lace.

They were all laid out for her, only her gown was missing. She guessed that the chambermaid had taken it away to have it pressed.

Yet, when finally she was dressed and had arranged her hair as neatly and elegantly as she knew how, none of these things seemed to matter. She looked at herself in the mirror and was not ashamed of her appearance.

The crisp white muslin might not compare with the elegant satin gowns that Society ladies wore on such occasions, but at least it was fresh and new.

To Gretna its very newness was a delight. The muslin had only cost a few shillings and she had made it up herself for she had felt that she could not go to London without one new gown that she would not be ashamed to appear in for the first time. There was a blue sash for her waist. It had been one of her mother’s. It was over twenty years old and yet it looked as fresh and as pretty as the dress it ornamented.