"But I want to pick and choose. A man turns the girls over one after another as one does the papers when one is fitting up a room, or rolls them out as one rolls out the carpets. A very careful young man like Lord Popplecourt might reject a young woman because her hair didn't suit the colour of his furniture."
"I don't think that I shall choose my wife as I would papers and carpets."
The Duke, who sat between Lady Cantrip and her daughter, did his best to make himself agreeable. The conversation had been semi-political,—political to the usual feminine extent, and had consisted chiefly of sarcasms from Lady Cantrip against Sir Timothy Beeswax. "That England should put up with such a man," Lady Cantrip had said, "is to me shocking! There used to be a feeling in favour of gentlemen." To this the Duke had responded by asserting that Sir Timothy had displayed great aptitude for parliamentary life, and knew the House of Commons better than most men. He said nothing against his foe, and very much in his foe's praise. But Lady Cantrip perceived that she had succeeded in pleasing him.
When the ladies were gone the politics became more serious. "That unfortunate quarrel is to go on the same as ever, I suppose," said the Duke, addressing himself to the two young men who had seats in the House of Commons. They were both on the Conservative side in politics. The three peers present were all Liberals.
"Till next Session, I think, sir," said Silverbridge.
"Sir Timothy, though he did lose his temper, has managed it well," said Lord Cantrip.
"Phineas Finn lost his temper worse than Sir Timothy," said Lord Nidderdale.
"But yet I think he had the feeling of the House with him," said the Duke. "I happened to be present in the gallery at the time."
"Yes," said Nidderdale, "because he 'owned up.' The fact is if you 'own up' in a genial sort of way the House will forgive anything. If I were to murder my grandmother, and when questioned about it were to acknowledge that I had done it—" Then Lord Nidderdale stood up and made his speech as he might have made it in the House of Commons. "'I regret to say, sir, that the old woman did get in my way when I was in a passion. Unfortunately I had a heavy stick in my hand and I did strike her over the head. Nobody can regret it so much as I do! Nobody can feel so acutely the position in which I am placed! I have sat in this House for many years, and many gentlemen know me well. I think, Sir, that they will acknowledge that I am a man not deficient in filial piety or general humanity. Sir, I am sorry for what I did in a moment of heat. I have now spoken the truth, and I shall leave myself in the hands of the House.' My belief is I should get such a round of applause as I certainly shall never achieve in any other way. It is not only that a popular man may do it,—like Phineas Finn,—but the most unpopular man in the House may make himself liked by owning freely that he has done something that he ought to be ashamed of." Nidderdale's unwonted eloquence was received in good part by the assembled legislators.
"Taking it altogether," said the Duke, "I know of no assembly in any country in which good-humour prevails so generally, in which the members behave to each other so well, in which rules are so universally followed, or in which the president is so thoroughly sustained by the feeling of the members."
"I hear men say that it isn't quite what it used to be," said Silverbridge.
"Nothing will ever be quite what it used to be."
"Changes for the worse, I mean. Men are doing all kinds of things, just because the rules of the House allow them."
"If they be within rule," said the Duke, "I don't know who is to blame them. In my time, if any man stretched a rule too far the House would not put up with it."
"That's just it," said Nidderdale. "The House puts up with anything now. There is a great deal of good feeling no doubt, but there's no earnestness about anything. I think you are more earnest than we; but then you are such horrid bores. And each earnest man is in earnest about something that nobody else cares for."
When they were again in the drawing-room, Lord Popplecourt was seated next to Lady Mary. "Where are you going this autumn?" he asked.
"I don't know in the least. Papa said something about going abroad."
"You won't be at Custins?" Custins was Lord Cantrip's country seat in Dorsetshire.
"I know nothing about myself as yet. But I don't think I shall go anywhere unless papa goes too."
"Lady Cantrip has asked me to be at Custins in the middle of October. They say it is about the best pheasant-shooting in England."
"Do you shoot much?"
"A great deal. I shall be in Scotland on the Twelfth. I and Reginald Dobbes have a place together. I shall get to my own partridges on the 1st of September. I always manage that. Popplecourt is in Suffolk, and I don't think any man in England can beat me for partridges."
"What do you do with all you slay?"
"Leadenhall Market. I make it pay,—or very nearly. Then I shall run back to Scotland for the end of the stalking, and I can easily manage to be at Custins by the middle of October. I never touch my own pheasants till November."
"Why are you so abstemious?"
"The birds are heavier and it answers better. But if I thought you would be at Custins it would be much nicer." Lady Mary again told him that as yet she knew nothing of her father's autumn movements.
But at the same time the Duke was arranging his autumn movements, or at any rate those of his daughter. Lady Cantrip had told him that the desirable son-in-law had promised to go to Custins, and suggested that he and Mary should also be there. In his daughter's name he promised, but he would not bind himself. Would it not be better that he should be absent? Now that the doing of this thing was brought nearer to him so that he could see and feel its details, he was disgusted by it. And yet it had answered so well with his wife!
"Is Lord Popplecourt intimate here?" Lady Mabel asked her friend, Lord Silverbridge.
"I don't know. I am not."
"Lady Cantrip seems to think a great deal about him."
"I dare say. I don't."
"Your father seems to like him."
"That's possible too. They're going back to London together in the governor's carriage. My father will talk high politics all the way, and Popplecourt will agree with everything."
"He isn't intended to—to—? You know what I mean."
"I can't say that I do."
"To cut out poor Frank."
"It's quite possible."
"Poor Frank!"
"You had a great deal better say poor Popplecourt!—or poor governor, or poor Lady Cantrip."
"But a hundred countesses can't make your sister marry a man she doesn't like."
"Just that. They don't go the right way about it."
"What would you do?"
"Leave her alone. Let her find out gradually that what she wants can't be done."
"And so linger on for years," said Lady Mabel reproachfully.
"I say nothing about that. The man is my friend."
"And you ought to be proud of him."
"I never knew anybody yet that was proud of his friends. I like him well enough, but I can quite understand that the governor should object."
"Yes, we all know that," said she sadly.
"What would your father say if you wanted to marry someone who hadn't a shilling?"
"I should object myself,—without waiting for my father. But then,—neither have I a shilling. If I had money, do you think I wouldn't like to give it to the man I loved?"
"But this is a case of giving somebody else's money. They won't make her give it up by bringing such a young ass as that down here. If my father has persistency enough to let her cry her eyes out, he'll succeed."
"And break her heart. Could you do that?"
"Certainly not. But then I'm soft. I can't refuse."
"Can't you?"
"Not if the person who asks me is in my good books. You try me."
"What shall I ask for?"
"Anything."
"Give me that ring off your finger," she said. He at once took it off his hand. "Of course you know I am in joke. You don't imagine that I would take it from you?" He still held it towards her. "Lord Silverbridge, I expect that with you I may say a foolish word without being brought to sorrow by it. I know that that ring belonged to your great-uncle,—and to fifty Pallisers before."
"What would it matter?"
"And it would be wholly useless to me, as I could not wear it."
"Of course it would be too big," said he, replacing the ring on his own finger. "But when I talk of any one being in my good books, I don't mean a thing like that. Don't you know there is nobody on earth I—" there he paused and blushed, and she sat motionless, looking at him expecting, with her colour too somewhat raised,—"whom I like so well as I do you?" It was a lame conclusion. She felt it to be lame. But as regarded him, the lameness at the moment had come from a timidity which forbade him to say the word "love" even though he had meant to say it.
She recovered herself instantly. "I do believe it," she said. "I do think that we are real friends."
"Would you not take a ring from a—real friend?"
"Not that ring;—nor a ring at all after I had asked for it in joke. You understand it all. But to go back to what we were talking about,—if you can do anything for Frank, pray do. You know it will break her heart. A man of course bears it better, but he does not perhaps suffer the less. It is all his life to him. He can do nothing while this is going on. Are you not true enough to your friendship to exert yourself for him?" Silverbridge put his hand up and rubbed his head as though he were vexed. "Your aid would turn everything in his favour."
"You do not know my father."
"Is he so inexorable?"
"It is not that, Mabel. But he is so unhappy. I cannot add to his unhappiness by taking part against him."
In another part of the room Lady Cantrip was busy with Lord Popplecourt. She had talked about pheasants, and had talked about grouse, had talked about moving the address in the House of Lords in some coming Session, and the great value of political alliances early in life, till the young peer began to think that Lady Cantrip was the nicest of women. Then after a short pause she changed the subject.
"Don't you think Lady Mary very beautiful?"
"Uncommon," said his Lordship.
"And her manners so perfect. She has all her mother's ease without any of that— You know what I mean."
"Quite so," said his Lordship.
"And then she has got so much in her."
"Has she though?"
"I don't know any girl of her age so thoroughly well educated. The Duke seems to take to you."
"Well, yes;—the Duke is very kind."
"Don't you think—?"
"Eh!"
"You have heard of her mother's fortune?"
"Tremendous!"
"She will have, I take it, quite a third of it. Whatever I say I'm sure you will take in confidence; but she is a dear dear girl; and I am anxious for her happiness almost as though she belonged to me."
Lord Popplecourt went back to town in the Duke's carriage, but was unable to say a word about politics. His mind was altogether filled with the wonderful words that had been spoken to him. Could it be that Lady Mary had fallen violently in love with him? He would not at once give himself up to the pleasing idea, having so thoroughly grounded himself in the belief that female nets were to be avoided. But when he got home he did think favourably of it. The daughter of a Duke,—and such a Duke! So lovely a girl, and with such gifts! And then a fortune which would make a material addition to his own large property!
We all know that very clever distich concerning the great fleas and the little fleas which tells us that no animal is too humble to have its parasite. Even Major Tifto had his inferior friend. This was a certain Captain Green,—for the friend also affected military honours. He was a man somewhat older than Tifto, of whose antecedents no one was supposed to know anything. It was presumed of him that he lived by betting, and it was boasted by those who wished to defend his character that when he lost he paid his money like a gentleman. Tifto during the last year or two had been anxious to support Captain Green, and had always made use of this argument: "Where thed––––he gets his money I don't know;—but when he loses, there it is."
Major Tifto had a little "box" of his own in the neighbourhood of Egham, at which he had a set of stables a little bigger than his house, and a set of kennels a little bigger than his stables. It was here he kept his horses and hounds, and himself too when business connected with his sporting life did not take him to town. It was now the middle of August and he had come to Tally-ho Lodge, there to look after his establishments, to make arrangements for cub-hunting, and to prepare for the autumn racing campaign. On this occasion Captain Green was enjoying his hospitality and assisting him by sage counsels. Behind the little box was a little garden,—a garden that was very little; but, still, thus close to the parlour window, there was room for a small table to be put on the grass-plat, and for a couple of armchairs. Here the Major and the Captain were seated about eight o'clock one evening, with convivial good things within their reach. The good things were gin-and-water and pipes. The two gentlemen had not dressed strictly for dinner. They had spent a great part of the day handling the hounds and the horses, dressing wounds, curing sores, and ministering to canine ailments, and had been detained over their work too long to think of their toilet. As it was they had an eye to business. The stables at one corner and the kennels at the other were close to the little garden, and the doings of a man and a boy who were still at work among the animals could be directed from the armchairs on which the two sportsmen were sitting.
It must be explained that ever since the Silverbridge election there had been a growing feeling in Tifto's mind that he had been ill-treated by his partner. The feeling was strengthened by the admirable condition of Prime Minister. Surely more consideration had been due to a man who had produced such a state of things!
"I wouldn't quarrel with him, but I'd make him pay his way," said the prudent Captain.
"As for that, of course he does pay—his share."
"Who does all the work?"
"That's true."
"The fact is, Tifto, you don't make enough out of it. When a small man like you has to deal with a big man like that, he may take it out of him in one of two ways. But he must be deuced clever if he can get it both ways."
"What are you driving at?" asked Tifto, who did not like being called a small man, feeling himself to be every inch a Master of foxhounds.
"Why, this!—Look at that d–––– fellow fretting that 'orse with a switch. If you can't strap a 'orse without a stick in your hand, don't you strap him at all, you—" Then there came a volley of abuse out of the Captain's mouth, in the middle of which the man threw down the rubber he was using and walked away.
"You come back," halloed Tifto, jumping up from his seat with his pipe in his mouth. Then there was a general quarrel between the man and his two masters, in which the man at last was victorious. And the horse was taken into the stable in an unfinished condition. "It's all very well to say 'Get rid of him,' but where am I to get anybody better? It has come to such a pass that now if you speak to a fellow he walks out of the yard."
They then returned to the state of affairs, as it was between Tifto and Lord Silverbridge. "What I was saying is this," continued the Captain. "If you choose to put yourself up to live with a fellow like that on equalterms—"
"One gentleman with another, you mean?"
"Put it so. It don't quite hit it off, but put it so. Why then you get your wages when you take his arm and call him Silverbridge."
"I don't want wages from any man," said the indignant Major.
"That comes from not knowing what wages is. I do want wages. If I do a thing I like to be paid for it. You are paid for it after one fashion, I prefer the other."
"Do you mean he should give me—a salary?"
"I'd have it out of him some way. What's the good of young chaps of that sort if they aren't made to pay? You've got this young swell in tow. He's going to be about the richest man in England;—and what the deuce better are you for it?" Tifto sat meditating, thinking of the wisdom which was being spoken. The same ideas had occurred to him. The happy chance which had made him intimate with Lord Silverbridge had not yet enriched him. "What is the good of chaps of that sort if they are not made to pay?" The words were wise words. But yet how glorious he had been when he was elected at the Beargarden, and had entered the club as the special friend of the heir of the Duke of Omnium.
After a short pause, Captain Green pursued his discourse. "You said salary."
"I did mention the word."
"Salary and wages is one. A salary is a nice thing if it's paid regular. I had a salary once myself for looking after a stud of 'orses at Newmarket, only the gentleman broke up and it never went very far."
"Was that Marley Bullock?"
"Yes; that was Marley Bullock. He's abroad somewhere now with nothing a year paid quarterly to live on. I think he does a little at cards. He'd had a good bit of money once, but most of it was gone when he came my way."
"You didn't make by him?"
"I didn't lose nothing. I didn't have a lot of 'orses under me without getting something out of it."
"What am I to do?" asked Tifto. "I can sell him a horse now and again. But if I give him anything good there isn't much to come out of that."
"Very little I should say. Don't he put his money on his 'orses?"
"Not very free. I think he's coming out freer now."
"What did he stand to win on the Derby?"
"A thousand or two perhaps."
"There may be something got handsome out of that," said the Captain, not venturing to allow his voice to rise above a whisper. Major Tifto looked hard at him but said nothing. "Of course you must see your way."
"I don't quite understand."
"Race 'orses are expensive animals,—and races generally is expensive."
"That's true."
"When so much is dropped, somebody has to pick it up. That's what I've always said to myself. I'm as honest as another man."
"That's of course," said the Major civilly.
"But if I don't keep my mouth shut, somebody 'll have my teeth out of my head. Every one for himself and God for us all. I suppose there's a deal of money flying about. He'll put a lot of money on this 'orse of yours for the Leger if he's managed right. There's more to be got out of that than calling him Silverbridge and walking arm-in-arm. Business is business. I don't know whether I make myself understood."
The gentleman did not quite make himself understood; but Tifto endeavoured to read the riddle. He must in some way make money out of his friend Lord Silverbridge. Hitherto he had contented himself with the brilliancy of the connection; but now his brilliant friend had taken to snubbing him, and had on more than one occasion made himself disagreeable. It seemed to him that Captain Green counselled him to put up with that, but counselled him at the same time to—pick up some of his friend's money. He didn't think that he could ask Lord Silverbridge for a salary—he who was a Master of Fox-hounds, and a member of the Beargarden. Then his friend had suggested something about the young lord's bets. He was endeavouring to unriddle all this with a brain that was already somewhat muddled with alcohol, when Captain Green got up from his chair and standing over the Major spoke his last words for that night as from an oracle. "Square is all very well, as long as others are square to you;—but when they aren't, then I say square bed––––.Square! what comes of it? Work your heart out, and then it's no good."
The Major thought about it much that night, and was thinking about it still when he awoke on the next morning. He would like to make Lord Silverbridge pay for his late insolence. It would answer his purpose to make a little money,—as he told himself,—in any honest way. At the present moment he was in want of money, and on looking into his affairs declared to himself that he had certainly impoverished himself by his devotion to Lord Silverbridge's interests. At breakfast on the following morning he endeavoured to bring his friend back to the subject. But the Captain was cross, rather than oracular. "Everybody," he said, "ought to know his own business. He wasn't going to meddle or make. What he had said had been taken amiss." This was hard upon Tifto, who had taken nothing amiss.
"Square be d––––!" There was a great deal in the lesson there enunciated which demanded consideration. Hitherto the Major had fought his battles with a certain adherence to squareness. If his angles had not all been perfect angles, still there had always been an attempt at geometrical accuracy. He might now and again have told a lie about a horse—but who that deals in horses has not done that? He had been alive to the value of underhand information from racing-stables, but who won't use a tip if he can get it? He had lied about the expense of his hounds, in order to enhance the subscription of his members. Those were things which everybody did in his line. But Green had meant something beyond this.
As far as he could see out in the world at large, nobody was square. You had to keep your mouth shut, or your teeth would be stolen out of it. He didn't look into a paper without seeing that on all sides of him men had abandoned the idea of squareness. Chairmen, directors, members of Parliament, ambassadors,—all the world, as he told himself,—were trying to get on by their wits. He didn't see why he should be more square than anybody else. Why hadn't Silverbridge taken him down to Scotland for the grouse?
Far away from all known places, in the northern limit of the Craven district, on the borders of Westmorland but in Yorkshire, there stands a large, rambling, most picturesque old house called Grex. The people around call it the Castle, but it is not a castle. It is an old brick building supposed to have been erected in the days of James the First, having oriel windows, twisted chimneys, long galleries, gable ends, a quadrangle of which the house surrounds three sides, terraces, sun-dials, and fish-ponds. But it is so sadly out of repair as to be altogether unfit for the residence of a gentleman and his family. It stands not in a park, for the land about it is divided into paddocks by low stone walls, but in the midst of lovely scenery, the ground rising all round it in low irregular hills or fells, and close to it, a quarter of a mile from the back of the house, there is a small dark lake, not serenely lovely as are some of the lakes in Westmorland, but attractive by the darkness of its waters and the gloom of the woods around it.
This is the country seat of Earl Grex,—which however he had not visited for some years. Gradually the place had got into such a condition that his absence is not surprising. An owner of Grex, with large means at his disposal and with a taste for the picturesque to gratify,—one who could afford to pay for memories and who was willing to pay dearly for such luxuries, might no doubt restore Grex. But the Earl had neither the money nor the taste.
Lord Grex had latterly never gone near the place, nor was his son Lord Percival fond of looking upon the ruin of his property. But Lady Mabel loved it with a fond love. With all her lightness of spirit she was prone to memories, prone to melancholy, prone at times almost to seek the gratification of sorrow. Year after year when the London season was over she would come down to Grex and spend a week or two amidst its desolation. She was now going on to a seat in Scotland belonging to Mrs. Montacute Jones called Killancodlem; but she was in the meanwhile passing a desolate fortnight at Grex in company with Miss Cassewary. The gardens were let,—and being let of course were not kept in further order than as profit might require. The man who rented them lived in the big house with his wife, and they on such occasions as this would cook and wait upon Lady Mabel.
Lady Mabel was at the home of her ancestors, and the faithful Miss Cass was with her. But at the moment and at the spot at which the reader shall see her, Miss Cass was not with her. She was sitting on a rock about twelve feet above the lake looking upon the black water; and on another rock a few feet from her was seated Frank Tregear. "No," she said, "you should not have come. Nothing can justify it. Of course as you are here I could not refuse to come out with you. To make a fuss about it would be the worst of all. But you should not have come."
"Why not? Whom does it hurt? It is a pleasure to me. If it be the reverse to you, I will go."
"Men are so unmanly. They take such mean advantages. You know it is a pleasure to me to see you."
"I had hoped so."
"But it is a pleasure I ought not to have,—at least not here."
"That is what I do not understand," said he. "In London, where the Earl could bark at me if he happened to find me, I could see the inconvenience of it. But here, where there is nobody but MissCass—"
"There are a great many others. There are the rooks, and stones, and old women;—all of which have ears."
"But of what is there to be ashamed? There is nothing in the world to me so pleasant as the companionship of my friends."
"Then go after Silverbridge."
"I mean to do so;—but I am taking you by the way."
"It is all unmanly," she said, rising from her stone; "you know that it is so. Friends! Do you mean to say that it would make no difference whether you were here with me or with Miss Cass?"
"The greatest difference in the world."
"Because she is an old woman and I am a young one, and because in intercourse between young men and young women there is something dangerous to the women and therefore pleasant to the men."
"I never heard anything more unjust. You cannot think I desire anything injurious to you."
"I do think so." She was still standing and spoke now with great vehemence. "I do think so. You force me to throw aside the reticence I ought to keep. Would it help me in my prospects if your friend Lord Silverbridge knew that I was here?"
"How should he know?"
"But if he did? Do you suppose that I want to have visits paid to me of which I am afraid to speak? Would you dare to tell Lady Mary that you had been sitting alone with me on the rocks at Grex?"
"Certainly I would."
"Then it would be because you have not dared to tell her certain other things which have gone before. You have sworn to her no doubt that you love her better than all the world."
"I have."
"And you have taken the trouble to come here to tell me that,—to wound me to the core by saying so; to show me that, though I may still be sick, you have recovered,—that is if you ever suffered! Go your way and let me go mine. I do not want you."
"Mabel!"
"I do not want you. I know you will not help me, but you need not destroy me."
"You know that you are wronging me."
"No! You understand it all though you look so calm. I hate your Lady Mary Palliser. There! But if by anything I could do I could secure her to you I would do it,—because you want it."
"She will be your sister-in-law,—probably."
"Never. It will never be so."
"Why do you hate her?"
"There again! You are so little of a man that you can ask me why!" Then she turned away as though she intended to go down to the marge of the lake.
But he rose up and stopped her. "Let us have this out, Mabel, before we go," he said. "Unmanly is a heavy word to hear from you, and you have used it a dozen times."
"It is because I have thought it a thousand times. Go and get her if you can;—but why tell me about it?"
"You said you would help me."
"So I would, as I would help you do anything you might want; but you can hardly think that after what has passed I can wish to hear about her."
"It was you spoke of her."
"I told you you should not be here,—because of her and because of me. And I tell you again, I hate her. Do you think I can hear you speak of her as though she were the only woman you had ever seen without feeling it? Did you ever swear that you loved any one else?"
"Certainly, I have so sworn."
"Have you ever said that nothing could alter that love?"
"Indeed I have."
"But it is altered. It has all gone. It has been transferred to one who has more advantages of beauty, youth, wealth, and position."
"Oh Mabel, Mabel!"
"But it is so."
"When you say this do you not think of yourself?"
"Yes. But I have never been false to any one. You are false to me."
"Have I not offered to face all the world with you?"
"You would not offer it now?"
"No," he said, after a pause,—"not now. Were I to do so, I should be false. You bade me take my love elsewhere, and I did so."
"With the greatest ease."
"We agreed it should be so; and you have done the same."
"That is false. Look me in the face and tell me whether you do not know it to be false!"
"And yet I am told that I am injuring you with Silverbridge."
"Oh,—so unmanly again! Of course I have to marry. Who does not know it? Do you want to see me begging my bread about the streets? You have bread; or if not, you might earn it. If you marry formoney—"
"The accusation is altogether unjustifiable."
"Allow me to finish what I have to say. If you marry for money you will do that which is in itself bad, and which is also unnecessary. What other course would you recommend me to take? No one goes into the gutter while there is a clean path open. If there be no escape but through the gutter, one has to take it."
"You mean that my duty to you should have kept me from marrying all my life."
"Not that;—but a little while, Frank; just a little while. Your bloom is not fading; your charms are not running from you. Have you not a strength which I cannot have? Do you not feel that you are a tree, standing firm in the ground, while I am a bit of ivy that will be trodden in the dirt unless it can be made to cling to something? You should not liken yourself to me, Frank."
"If I could do you any good!"
"Good! What is the meaning of good? If you love, it is good to be loved again. It is good not to have your heart torn in pieces. You know that I love you." He was standing close to her, and put out his hand as though he would twine his arm round her waist. "Not for worlds," she said. "It belongs to that Palliser girl. And as I have taught myself to think that what there is left of me may perhaps belong to some other one, worthless as it is, I will keep it for him. I love you,—but there can be none of that softness of love between us." Then there was a pause, but as he did not speak she went on. "But remember, Frank,—our position is not equal. You have got over your little complaint. It probably did not go deep with you, and you have found a cure. Perhaps there is a satisfaction in finding that two young women love you."
"You are trying to be cruel to me."
"Why else should you be here? You know I love you,—with all my heart, with all my strength, and that I would give the world to cure myself. Knowing this, you come and talk to me of your passion for this other girl."
"I had hoped we might both talk rationally as friends."
"Friends! Frank Tregear, I have been bold enough to tell you I love you; but you are not my friend, and cannot be my friend. If I have before asked you to help me in this mean catastrophe of mine, in my attack upon that poor boy, I withdraw my request. I think I will go back to the house now."
"I will walk back to Ledburgh if you wish it without going to the house again."
"No; I will have nothing that looks like being ashamed. You ought not to have come, but you need not run away." Then they walked back to the house together and found Miss Cassewary on the terrace. "We have been to the lake," said Mabel, "and have been talking of old days. I have but one ambition now in the world." Of course Miss Cassewary asked what the remaining ambition was. "To get money enough to purchase this place from the ruins of the Grex property. If I could own the house and the lake, and the paddocks about, and had enough income to keep one servant and bread for us to eat—of course including you, MissCass—"
"Thank'ee, my dear; but I am not sure I should like it."
"Yes; you would. Frank would come and see us perhaps once a year. I don't suppose anybody else cares about the place, but to me it is the dearest spot in the world." So she went on in almost high spirits, though alluding to the general decadence of the Grex family, till Tregear took his leave.
"I wish he had not come," said Miss Cassewary when he was gone.
"Why should you wish that? There is not so much here to amuse me that you should begrudge me a stray visitor."
"I don't think that I grudge you anything in the way of pleasure, my dear; but still he should not have come. My Lord, if he knew it, would be angry."
"Then let him be angry. Papa does not do so much for me that I am bound to think of him at every turn."
"But I am,—or rather I am bound to think of myself, if I take his bread."
"Bread!"
"Well;—I do take his bread, and I take it on the understanding that I will be to you what a mother might be,—or an aunt."
"Well,—and if so! Had I a mother living would not Frank Tregear have come to visit her, and in visiting her, would he not have seen me,—and should we not have walked out together?"
"Not after all that has come and gone."
"But you are not a mother nor yet an aunt, and you have to do just what I tell you. And don't I know that you trust me in all things? And am I not trustworthy?"
"I think you are trustworthy."
"I know what my duty is and I mean to do it. No one shall ever have to say of me that I have given way to self-indulgence. I couldn't help his coming, you know."
That same night, after Miss Cassewary had gone to bed, when the moon was high in the heavens and the world around her was all asleep, Lady Mabel again wandered out to the lake, and again seated herself on the same rock, and there she sat thinking of her past life and trying to think of that before her. It is so much easier to think of the past than of the future,—to remember what has been than to resolve what shall be! She had reminded him of the offer which he had made and repeated to her more than once,—to share with her all his chances in life. There would have been almost no income for them. All the world would have been against her. She would have caused his ruin. Her light on the matter had been so clear that it had not taken her very long to decide that such a thing must not be thought of. She had at last been quite stern in her decision.
Now she was broken-hearted because she found that he had left her in very truth. Oh yes;—she would marry the boy, if she could so arrange. Since that meeting at Richmond he had sent her the ring reset. She was to meet him down in Scotland within a week or two from the present time. Mrs. Montacute Jones had managed that. He had all but offered to her a second time at Richmond. But all that would not serve to make her happy. She declared to herself that she did not wish to see Frank Tregear again; but still it was a misery to her that his heart should in truth be given to another woman.
Almost at the last moment Silverbridge and his brother Gerald were induced to join Lord Popplecourt's shooting-party in Scotland. The party perhaps might more properly be called the party of Reginald Dobbes, who was a man knowing in such matters. It was he who made the party up. Popplecourt and Silverbridge were to share the expense between them, each bringing three guns. Silverbridge brought his brother and Frank Tregear,—having refused a most piteous petition on the subject from Major Tifto. With Popplecourt of course came Reginald Dobbes, who was, in truth, to manage everything, and Lord Nidderdale, whose wife had generously permitted him this recreation. The shooting was in the west of Perthshire, known as Crummie-Toddie, and comprised an enormous acreage of so-called forest and moor. Mr. Dobbes declared that nothing like it had as yet been produced in Scotland. Everything had been made to give way to deer and grouse. The thing had been managed so well that the tourist nuisance had been considerably abated. There was hardly a potato patch left in the district, nor a head of cattle to be seen. There were no inhabitants remaining, or so few that they could be absorbed in game-preserving or cognate duties. Reginald Dobbes, who was very great at grouse, and supposed to be capable of outwitting a deer by venatical wiles more perfectly than any other sportsman in Great Britain, regarded Crummie-Toddie as the nearest thing there was to a Paradise on earth. Could he have been allowed to pass one or two special laws for his own protection, there might still have been improvement. He would like the right to have all intruders thrashed by the gillies within an inch of their lives; and he would have had a clause in his lease against the making of any new roads, opening of footpaths, or building of bridges. He had seen somewhere in print a plan for running a railway from Callender to Fort Augustus right through Crummie-Toddie! If this were done in his time the beauty of the world would be over. Reginald Dobbes was a man of about forty, strong, active, well-made, about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and greatly-developed legs. He was not a handsome man, having a protrusive nose, high cheek-bones, and long upper lip; but there was a manliness about his face which redeemed it. Sport was the business of his life, and he thoroughly despised all who were not sportsmen. He fished and shot and hunted during nine or ten months of the year, filling up his time as best he might with coaching polo, and pigeon-shooting. He regarded it as a great duty to keep his body in the firmest possible condition. All his eating and all his drinking was done upon a system, and he would consider himself to be guilty of weak self-indulgence were he to allow himself to break through sanitary rules. But it never occurred to him that his whole life was one of self-indulgence. He could walk his thirty miles with his gun on his shoulder as well now as he could ten years ago; and being sure of this, was thoroughly contented with himself. He had a patrimony amounting to perhaps £1000 a year, which he husbanded so as to enjoy all his amusements to perfection. No one had ever heard of his sponging on his friends. Of money he rarely spoke, sport being in his estimation the only subject worthy of a man's words. Such was Reginald Dobbes, who was now to be the master of the shooting at Crummie-Toddie.
Crummie-Toddie was but twelve miles from Killancodlem, Mrs. Montacute Jones's highland seat; and it was this vicinity which first induced Lord Silverbridge to join the party. Mabel Grex was to be at Killancodlem, and, determined as he still was to ask her to be his wife, he would make this his opportunity. Of real opportunity there had been none at Richmond. Since he had had his ring altered and had sent it to her there had come but a word or two of answer. "What am I to say? You unkindest of men! To keep it or to send it back would make me equally miserable. I shall keep it till you are married, and then give it to your wife." This affair of the ring had made him more intent than ever. After that he heard that Isabel Boncassen would also be at Killancodlem, having been induced to join Mrs. Montacute Jones's swarm of visitors. Though he was dangerously devoid of experience, still he felt that this was unfortunate. He intended to marry Mabel Grex. And he could assure himself that he thoroughly loved her. Nevertheless he liked making love to Isabel Boncassen. He was quite willing to marry and settle down, and looked forward with satisfaction to having Mabel Grex for his wife. But it would be pleasant to have a six-months run of flirting and love-making before this settlement, and he had certainly never seen any one with whom this would be so delightful as with Miss Boncassen. But that the two ladies should be at the same house was unfortunate.
He and Gerald reached Crummie-Toddie late on the evening of August 11th, and found Reginald Dobbes alone. That was on Wednesday. Popplecourt and Nidderdale ought to have made their appearance on that morning, but had telegraphed to say that they would be detained two days on their route. Tregear, whom hitherto Dobbes had never seen, had left his arrival uncertain. This carelessness on such matters was very offensive to Mr. Dobbes, who loved discipline and exactitude. He ought to have received the two young men with open arms because they were punctual; but he had been somewhat angered by what he considered the extreme youth of Lord Gerald. Boys who could not shoot were, he thought, putting themselves forward before their time. And Silverbridge himself was by no means a first-rate shot. Such a one as Silverbridge had to be endured because from his position and wealth he could facilitate such arrangements as these. It was much to have to do with a man who would not complain if an extra fifty pounds were wanted. But he ought to have understood that he was bound in honour to bring down competent friends. Of Tregear's shooting Dobbes had been able to learn nothing. Lord Gerald was a lad from the Universities; and Dobbes hated University lads. Popplecourt and Nidderdale were known to be efficient. They were men who could work hard and do their part of the required slaughter. Dobbes proudly knew that he could make up for some deficiency by his own prowess; but he could not struggle against three bad guns. What was the use of so perfecting Crummie-Toddie as to make it the best bit of ground for grouse and deer in Scotland, if the men who came there failed by their own incapacity to bring up the grand total of killed to a figure which would render Dobbes and Crummie-Toddie famous throughout the whole shooting world? He had been hard at work on other matters. Dogs had gone amiss,—or guns, and he had been made angry by the champagne which Popplecourt caused to be sent down. He knew what champagne meant. Whisky-and-water, and not much of it, was the liquor which Reginald Dobbes loved in the mountains.
"Don't you call this a very ugly country?" Silverbridge asked as soon as he arrived. Now it is the case that the traveller who travels into Argyllshire, Perthshire, and Inverness, expects to find lovely scenery; and it was also true that the country through which they had passed for the last twenty miles had been not only bleak and barren, but uninteresting and ugly. It was all rough open moorland, never rising into mountains, and graced by no running streams, by no forest scenery, almost by no foliage. The lodge itself did indeed stand close upon a little river, and was reached by a bridge that crossed it; but there was nothing pretty either in the river or the bridge. It was a placid black little streamlet, which in that portion of its course was hurried by no steepness, had no broken rocks in its bed, no trees on its low banks, and played none of those gambols which make running water beautiful. The bridge was a simple low construction with a low parapet, carrying an ordinary roadway up to the hall door. The lodge itself was as ugly as a house could be, white, of two stories, with the door in the middle and windows on each side, with a slate roof, and without a tree near it. It was in the middle of the shooting, and did not create a town around itself as do sumptuous mansions, to the great detriment of that seclusion which is favourable to game. "Look at Killancodlem," Dobbes had been heard to say—"a very fine house for ladies to flirt in; but if you find a deer within six miles of it I will eat him first and shoot him afterwards." There was a Spartan simplicity about Crummie-Toddie which pleased the Spartan mind of Reginald Dobbes.
"Ugly, do you call it?"
"Infernally ugly," said Lord Gerald.
"What did you expect to find? A big hotel, and a lot of cockneys? If you come after grouse, you must come to what the grouse thinks pretty."
"Nevertheless, it is ugly," said Silverbridge, who did not choose to be "sat upon." "I have been at shootings in Scotland before, and sometimes they are not ugly. This I call beastly." Whereupon Reginald Dobbes turned upon his heel and walked away.
"Can you shoot?" he said afterwards to Lord Gerald.
"I can fire off a gun, if you mean that," said Gerald.
"You have never shot much?"
"Not what you call very much. I'm not so old as you are, you know. Everything must have a beginning." Mr. Dobbes wished "the beginning" might have taken place elsewhere; but there had been some truth in the remark.
"What on earth made you tell him crammers like that?" asked Silverbridge, as the brothers sat together afterwards smoking on the wall of the bridge.
"Because he made an ass of himself; asking me whether I could shoot."
On the next morning they started at seven. Dobbes had determined to be cross, because, as he thought, the young men would certainly keep him waiting; and was cross because by their punctuality they robbed him of any just cause for offence. During the morning on the moor they were hardly ever near enough each other for much conversation, and very little was said. According to arrangement made they returned to the house for lunch, it being their purpose not to go far from home till their numbers were complete. As they came over the bridge and put down their guns near the door, Mr. Dobbes spoke the first good-humoured word they had heard from his lips. "Why did you tell me such an infernal—, I would say lie, only perhaps you mightn't like it?"
"I told you no lie," said Gerald.
"You've only missed two birds all the morning, and you have shot forty-two. That's uncommonly good sport."
"What have you done?"
"Only forty," and Mr. Dobbes seemed for the moment to be gratified by his own inferiority. "You are a deuced sight better than your brother."
"Gerald's about the best shot I know," said Silverbridge.
"Why didn't he tell?"
"Because you were angry when we said the place was ugly."
"I see all about it," said Dobbes. "Nevertheless when a fellow comes to shoot he shouldn't complain because a place isn't pretty. What you want is a decent house as near as you can have it to your ground. If there is anything in Scotland to beat Crummie-Toddie I don't know where to find it. Shooting is shooting you know, and touring is touring."
Upon that he took very kindly to Lord Gerald, who, even after the arrival of the other men, was second only in skill to Dobbes himself. With Nidderdale, who was an old companion, he got on very well. Nidderdale ate and drank too much, and refused to be driven beyond a certain amount of labour, but was in other respects obedient and knew what he was about. Popplecourt was disagreeable, but he was a fairly good shot and understood what was expected of him. Silverbridge was so good-humoured, that even his manifest faults,—shooting carelessly, lying in bed and wanting his dinner,—were, if not forgiven, at least endured. But Tregear was an abomination. He could shoot well enough and was active, and when he was at the work seemed to like it;—but he would stay away whole days by himself, and when spoken to would answer in a manner which seemed to Dobbes to be flat mutiny. "We are not doing it for our bread," said Tregear.
"I don't know what you mean."
"There's no duty in killing a certain number of these animals." They had been driving deer on the day before and were to continue the work on the day in question. "I'm not paid fifteen shillings a week for doing it."
"I suppose if you undertake to do a thing you mean to do it. Of course you're not wanted. We can make the double party without you."
"Then why the mischief should you growl at me?"
"Because I think a man should do what he undertakes to do. A man who gets tired after three days' work of this kind would become tired if he were earning his bread."
"Who says I am tired? I came here to amuse myself."
"Amuse yourself!"
"And as long as it amuses me I shall shoot, and when it does not I shall give it up."
This vexed the governor of Crummie-Toddie much. He had learned to regard himself as the arbiter of the fate of men while they were sojourning under the same autumnal roof as himself. But a defalcation which occurred immediately afterwards was worse. Silverbridge declared his intention of going over one morning to Killancodlem. Reginald Dobbes muttered a curse between his teeth, which was visible by the anger on his brow to all the party. "I shall be back to-night, you know," said Silverbridge.
"A lot of men and women who pretend to come there for shooting," said Dobbes angrily, "but do all the mischief they can."
"One must go and see one's friends, you know."
"Some girl!" said Dobbes.
But worse happened than the evil so lightly mentioned. Silverbridge did go over to Killancodlem; and presently there came back a man with a cart, who was to return with a certain not small proportion of his luggage.
"It's hardly honest, you know," said Reginald Dobbes.
Mr. Dobbes was probably right in his opinion that hotels, tourists, and congregations of men are detrimental to shooting. Crummie-Toddie was in all respects suited for sport. Killancodlem, though it had the name of a shooting-place, certainly was not so. Men going there took their guns. Gamekeepers were provided and gillies,—and, in a moderate quantity, game. On certain grand days a deer or two might be shot,—and would be very much talked about afterwards. But a glance at the place would suffice to show that Killancodlem was not intended for sport. It was a fine castellated mansion, with beautiful though narrow grounds, standing in the valley of the Archay River, with a mountain behind and the river in front. Between the gates and the river there was a public road on which a stage-coach ran, with loud-blown horns and the noise of many tourists. A mile beyond the Castle was the famous Killancodlem hotel which made up a hundred and twenty beds, and at which half as many more guests would sleep on occasions under the tables. And there was the Killancodlem post-office halfway between the two. At Crummie-Toddie they had to send nine miles for their letters and newspapers. At Killancodlem there was lawn-tennis and a billiard-room and dancing every night. The costumes of the ladies were lovely, and those of the gentlemen, who were wonderful in knickerbockers, picturesque hats and variegated stockings, hardly less so. And then there were carriages and saddle-horses, and paths had been made hither and thither through the rocks and hills for the sake of the scenery. Scenery! To hear Mr. Dobbes utter the single word was as good as a play. Was it for such cockney purposes as those that Scotland had been created, fit mother for grouse and deer?
Silverbridge arrived just before lunch, and was soon made to understand that it was impossible that he should go back that day. Mrs. Jones was very great on that occasion. "You are afraid of Reginald Dobbes," she said severely.
"I think I am rather."
"Of course you are. How came it to pass that you of all men should submit yourself to such a tyrant?"
"Good shooting, you know," said Silverbridge.
"But you dare not call an hour your own—or your soul. Mr. Dobbes and I are sworn enemies. We both like Scotland, and unfortunately we have fallen into the same neighbourhood. He looks upon me as the genius of sloth. I regard him as the incarnation of tyranny. He once said there should be no women in Scotland,—just an old one here and there, who would know how to cook grouse. I offered to go and cook his grouse!
"Any friend of mine," continued Mrs. Jones, "who comes down to Crummie-Toddie without staying a day or two with me,—will never be my friend any more. I do not hesitate to tell you, Lord Silverbridge, that I call for your surrender, in order that I may show my power over Reginald Dobbes. Are you a Dobbite?"
"Not thorough-going," said Silverbridge.
"Then be a Montacute Jones-ite; or a Boncassenite, if, as is possible, you prefer a young woman to an old one." At this moment Isabel Boncassen was standing close to them.
"Killancodlem against Crummie-Toddie for ever!" said Miss Boncassen, waving her handkerchief. As a matter of course a messenger was sent back to Crummie-Toddie for the young lord's wearing apparel.
The whole of that afternoon he spent playing lawn-tennis with Miss Boncassen. Lady Mabel was asked to join the party, but she refused, having promised to take a walk to a distant waterfall where the Codlem falls into the Archay. A gentleman in knickerbockers was to have gone with her, and two other young ladies; but when the time came she was weary, she said,—and she sat almost the entire afternoon looking at the game from a distance. Silverbridge played well, but not so well as the pretty American. With them were joined two others somewhat inferior, so that Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen were on different sides. They played game after game, and Miss Boncassen's side always won.
Very little was said between Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen which did not refer to the game. But Lady Mabel, looking on, told herself that they were making love to each other before her eyes. And why shouldn't they? She asked herself that question in perfect good faith. Why should they not be lovers? Was ever anything prettier than the girl in her country dress, active as a fawn and as graceful? Or could anything be more handsome, more attractive to a girl, more good-humoured, or better bred in his playful emulation than Silverbridge?
"When youth and pleasure meet, To chase the glowing hours with flying feet!" she said to herself over and over again.
But why had he sent her the ring? She would certainly give him back the ring and bid him bestow it at once upon Miss Boncassen. Inconstant boy! Then she would get up and wander away for a time and rebuke herself. What right had she even to think of inconstancy? Could she be so irrational, so unjust, as to be sick for his love, as to be angry with him because he seemed to prefer another? Was she not well aware that she herself did not love him;—but that she did love another man? She had made up her mind to marry him in order that she might be a duchess, and because she could give herself to him without any of that horror which would be her fate in submitting to matrimony with one or another of the young men around her. There might be disappointment. If he escaped her there would be bitter disappointment. But seeing how it was, had she any further ground for hope? She certainly had no ground for anger!
It was thus, within her own bosom, she put questions to herself. And yet all this before her was simply a game of play in which the girl and the young man were as eager for victory as though they were children. They were thinking neither of love nor love-making. That the girl should be so lovely was no doubt a pleasure to him;—and perhaps to her also that he should be joyous to look at and sweet of voice. But he, could he have been made to tell all the truth within him, would have still owned that it was his purpose to make Mabel his wife.
When the game was over and the propositions made for further matches and the like,—Miss Boncassen said that she would betake herself to her own room. "I never worked so hard in my life before," she said. "And I feel like a navvie. I could drink beer out of a jug and eat bread and cheese. I won't play with you any more, Lord Silverbridge, because I am beginning to think it is unladylike to exert myself."
"Are you not glad you came over?" said Lady Mabel to him as he was going off the ground almost without seeing her.
"Pretty well," he said.
"Is not that better than stalking?"
"Lawn-tennis?"
"Yes;—lawn-tennis,—with Miss Boncassen."
"She plays uncommonly well."
"And so do you."
"Ah, she has such an eye for distances."
"And you,—what have you an eye for? Will you answer me a question?"
"Well;—yes; I think so."
"Truly."
"Certainly; if I do answer it."
"Do you not think her the most beautiful creature you ever saw in your life?" He pushed back his cap and looked at her without making any immediate answer. "I do. Now tell me what you think."
"I think that perhaps she is."
"I knew you would say so. You are so honest that you could not bring yourself to tell a fib,—even to me about that. Come here and sit down for a moment." Of course he sat down by her. "You know that Frank came to see me at Grex?"
"He never mentioned it."
"Dear me;—how odd!"
"It was odd," said he in a voice which showed that he was angry. She could hardly explain to herself why she told him this at the present moment. It came partly from jealousy, as though she had said to herself, "Though he may neglect me, he shall know that there is someone who does not;"—and partly from an eager half-angry feeling that she would have nothing concealed. There were moments with her in which she thought that she could arrange her future life in accordance with certain wise rules over which her heart should have no influence. There were others, many others, in which her feelings completely got the better of her. And now she told herself that she would be afraid of nothing. There should be no deceit, no lies!
"He went to see you at Grex!" said Silverbridge.
"Why should he not have come to me at Grex?"
"Only it is so odd that he did not mention it. It seems to me that he is always having secrets with you of some kind."
"Poor Frank! There is no one else who would come to see me at that tumbledown old place. But I have another thing to say to you. You have behaved badly to me."
"Have I?"
"Yes, sir. After my folly about that ring you should have known better than to send it to me. You must take it back again."
"You shall do exactly what you said you would. You shall give it to my wife,—when I have one."
"That did very well for me to say in a note. I did not want to send my anger to you over a distance of two or three hundred miles by the postman. But now that we are together you must take it back."
"I will do no such thing," said he sturdily.
"You speak as though this were a matter in which you can have your own way."
"I mean to have mine about that."
"Any lady then must be forced to take any present that a gentleman may send her! Allow me to assure you that the usages of society do not run in that direction. Here is the ring. I knew that you would come over to see—well, to see someone here, and I have kept it ready in my pocket."
"I came over to see you."
"Lord Silverbridge! But we know that in certain employments all things are fair." He looked at her not knowing what were the employments to which she alluded. "At any rate you will oblige me by—by—by not being troublesome, and putting this little trinket into your pocket."
"Never! Nothing on earth shall make me do it."
At Killancodlem they did not dine till half-past eight. Twilight was now stealing on these two, who were still out in the garden, all the others having gone in to dress. She looked round to see that no other eyes were watching them as she still held the ring. "It is there," she said, putting it on the bench between them. Then she prepared to rise from the seat so that she might leave it with him.
But he was too quick for her, and was away at a distance before she had collected her dress. And from a distance he spoke again, "If you choose that it shall be lost, so be it."
"You had better take it," said she, following him slowly. But he would not turn back;—nor would she. They met again in the hall for a moment. "I should be sorry it should be lost," said he, "because it belonged to my great-uncle. And I had hoped that I might live to see it very often."
"You can fetch it," she said, as she went to her room. He however would not fetch it. She had accepted it, and he would not take it back again, let the fate of the gem be what it might.
But to the feminine and more cautious mind the very value of the trinket made its position out there on the bench, within the grasp of any dishonest gardener, a burden to her. She could not reconcile it to her conscience that it should be so left. The diamond was a large one, and she had heard it spoken of as a stone of great value,—so much so, that Silverbridge had been blamed for wearing it ordinarily. She had asked for it in joke, regarding it as a thing which could not be given away. She could not go down herself and take it up again; but neither could she allow it to remain. As she went to her room she met Mrs. Jones already coming from hers. "You will keep us all waiting," said the hostess.
"Oh no;—nobody ever dressed so quickly. But, Mrs. Jones, will you do me a favour?"
"Certainly."
"And will you let me explain something?"
"Anything you like,—from a hopeless engagement down to a broken garter."
"I am suffering neither from one or the other. But there is a most valuable ring lying out in the garden. Will you send for it?" Then of course the story had to be told. "You will, I hope, understand how I came to ask for it foolishly. It was because it was the one thing which I was sure he would not give away."
"Why not take it?"
"Can't you understand? I wouldn't for the world. But you will be good enough,—won't you, to see that there is nothing else in it?"
"Nothing of love?"
"Nothing in the least. He and I are excellent friends. We are cousins, and intimate, and all that. I thought I might have had my joke, and now I am punished for it. As for love, don't you see he is over head and ears in love with Miss Boncassen?"
This was very imprudent on the part of Lady Mabel, who, had she been capable of clinging fast to her policy, would not now in a moment of strong feeling have done so much to raise obstacles in her own way. "But you will send for it, won't you, and have it put on his dressing-table to-night?" When he went to bed Lord Silverbridge found it on his table.
But before that time came he had twice danced with Miss Boncassen, Lady Mabel having refused to dance with him. "No," she said, "I am angry with you. You ought to have felt that it did not become you as a gentleman to subject me to inconvenience by throwing upon me the charge of that diamond. You may be foolish enough to be indifferent about its value, but as you have mixed me up with it I cannot afford to have it lost."
"It is yours."
"No, sir; it is not mine, nor will it ever be mine. But I wish you to understand that you have offended me."
This made him so unhappy for the time that he almost told the story to Miss Boncassen. "If I were to give you a ring," he said, "would not you accept it?"
"What a question!"
"What I mean is, don't you think all those conventional rules about men and women are absurd?"
"As a progressive American, of course I am bound to think all conventional rules are an abomination."
"If you had a brother and I gave him a stick he'd take it."
"Not across his back, I hope."
"Or if I gave your father a book?"
"He'd take books to any extent, I should say."
"And why not you a ring?"
"Who said I wouldn't? But after all this you mustn't try me."
"I was not thinking of it."
"I'm so glad of that! Well;—if you'll promise that you'll never offer me one, I'll promise that I'll take it when it comes. But what does all this mean?"
"It is not worth talking about."
"You have offered somebody a ring, and somebody hasn't taken it. May I guess?"
"I had rather you did not."
"I could, you know."
"Never mind about that. Now come and have a turn. I am bound not to give you a ring; but you are bound to accept anything else I may offer."
"No, Lord Silverbridge;—not at all. Nevertheless we'll have a turn."
That night before he went up to his room he had told Isabel Boncassen that he loved her. And when he spoke he was telling her the truth. It had seemed to him that Mabel had become hard to him, and had over and over again rejected the approaches to tenderness which he had attempted to make in his intercourse with her. Even though she were to accept him, what would that be worth to him if she did not love him? So many things had been added together! Why had Tregear gone to Grex, and having gone there why had he kept his journey a secret? Tregear he knew was engaged to his sister;—but for all that, there was a closer intimacy between Mabel and Tregear than between Mabel and himself. And surely she might have taken his ring!
And then Isabel Boncassen was so perfect! Since he had first met her he had heard her loveliness talked of on all sides. It seemed to be admitted everywhere that so beautiful a creature had never before been seen in London. There is even a certain dignity attached to that which is praised by all lips. Miss Boncassen as an American girl, had she been judged to be beautiful only by his own eyes, might perhaps have seemed to him to be beneath his serious notice. In such a case he might have felt himself unable to justify so extraordinary a choice. But there was an acclamation of assent as to this girl! Then came the dancing,—the one dance after another; the pressure of the hand, the entreaty that she would not, just on this occasion, dance with any other man, the attendance on her when she took her glass of wine, the whispered encouragement of Mrs. Montacute Jones, the half-resisting and yet half-yielding conduct of the girl. "I shall not dance at all again," she said when he asked her to stand up for another. "Think of all that lawn-tennis this morning."
"But you will play to-morrow?"
"I thought you were going."
"Of course I shall stay now," he said, and as he said it he put his hand on her hand, which was on his arm. She drew it away at once. "I love you so dearly," he whispered to her; "so dearly."
"Lord Silverbridge!"
"I do. I do. Can you say that you will love me in return?"
"I cannot," she said slowly. "I have never dreamed of such a thing. I hardly know now whether you are in earnest."