other man of whose life the world knew nothing, and who went out and came in between dusk and dawn by that side door in the court."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE GENERAL RECEIVES A SUMMONS.
While Bothwell was working out the scheme of an industrious unpretentious life, to be spent with the woman he loved on that wild Cornish coast on which he had been reared, and which was to him as a passion, Lady Valeria Harborough was shining in the county and military society within twenty miles of Plymouth—admired, envied, to outward seeming the most fortunate of women. She went everywhere, she received every one worth receiving. She had brought something of the easy manners, the unceremonious gaiety, of Simla to her Devonshire villa. Her afternoon parties were the liveliest in the neighbourhood. Her weekly musical evenings were the rage. She engaged the best professional talent obtainable for these evenings. She rigidly eschewed the amateur element. She selected music and songs with an extraordinary tact, and contrived that no hackneyed composition should be ever heard at her parties. The newest ballads, the last successes in modern classical music, were first revealed to county society at Fox Hill. There people heard the gavotte that was going to be fashionable, the song that was to be the rage next season. And on these evenings, when the flowery corridors and the long suite of rooms were filled with guests, when the spacious music-room, with its two grand pianos and magnificent organ, was thrown open to the crowd, Lady Valeria circulated amidst the throng, a queen among women, not so beautiful as the fairest of her guests, but by far the most attractive of them all. There was a subtle charm in those dreamy eyes and in that languid smile. Beardless subalterns worshipped her as if she had been a goddess; and many a man, who could hardly have been included in Lady Valeria's list of "nice boys," felt his heart beat faster as she lingered by his side for a few minutes. She had a smile and a word for every one who crossed her threshold; the most insignificant guest was greeted and remembered. She seemed a woman who lived only for society, who had fulfilled her mission when she had been admired. The General was proud of his young wife's success, delighted that his house should be known as the pleasantest in the county. He could afford that money should be spent as if it were water. He never complained of the expenses of his establishment, but he knew the cost of everything, and paid all
