If Maulevrier brought him she must tolerate his
presence, but she would do nothing to invite that danger.
There was no music that evening. Maulevrier and Mary were playing
billiards; Fraeulein Mueller was sitting in her corner working at a
high-art counterpane. Lesbia came in from the verandah presently, and
sat on a low stool by her grandmother's arm-chair, and talked to her in
soft, cooing accents, inaudible to John Hammond, who sat a little way
off turning the leaves of the _Contemporary Review_: and this went on
till eleven o'clock, the regular hour for retiring, when Mary came in
from the billiard-room, and told Mr. Hammond that Maulevrier was waiting
for a smoke and a talk. Then candles were lighted, and the ladies all
departed, leaving John Hammond and his friend with the house to
themselves.
They played a fifty game, and smoked and talked till the stroke of
midnight, by which time it seemed as if there were not another creature
awake in the house. Maulevrier put out the lamps in the billiard-room,
and then they went softly up the shadowy staircase, and parted in the
gallery, the Earl going one way, and his friend the other.
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