He told her
that in her hands the finest lute Laux Maler ever made, mellowed by three
centuries, would be but wood and catgut.
"It is the prettiest head in the world, and a forehead as white as Queen
Anne's," he said one day, with a light touch on the ringletted brow, "but
there is nothing inside. I wonder if there is anything here?" and the same
light touch fluttered for an instant against her brocade bodice, at the
spot where fancy locates the faculty of loving and suffering.
She laughed at his rude speeches, just as she laughed at his flatteries--as
if there were safety in that atmosphere of idle mirth. Angela heard and
wondered, wondering most perhaps what occupied and interested Lord Fareham
in those white winter days, when he lived for the greater part alone in his
own rooms, or pacing the long walks from which the gardeners had cleared
the snow. He spent some of his time indoors, deep in a book. She knew as
much as that. He had allowed Angela to read some of his favourites, though
he would not permit any of the new comedies, which everybody at Court was
reading, to enter his house, much to Lady Fareham's annoyance.
"I am half a century behind all my friends in intelligence," she said,
"because of your Puritanism.
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