She came with certain stores
and a heavy load of mails for the troops, and it would be a full
fortnight before she would sail again for home. Her officers would
be ashore during the time, the welcome guests of the officers of the
garrison, bearing their share in the gaieties with which the latter
strove to kill the time of waiting for events, and Marcus Glennie,
the captain of the frigate, an old friend of Tremayne's, was by
virtue of that friendship an almost daily visitor at the adjutant's
quarters.
But there again I am anticipating. The Telemachus came to her
moorings in the Tagus, at which for the present we may leave her,
on the morning of the day that was to close with Count Redondo's
semi-official ball. Lady O'Moy had risen late, taking from one
end of the day what she must relinquish to the other, that thus
fully rested she might look her best that night. The greater part
of the afternoon was devoted to preparation. It was amazing even
to herself what an amount of detail there was to be considered, and
from Sylvia she received but very indifferent assistance. There
were times when she regretfully suspected in Sylvia a lack of
proper womanliness, a taint almost of masculinity. There was to
Lady O'Moy's mind something very wrong about a woman who preferred
a canter to a waltz.
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