XXVIII. Mrs. Montacute Jones's Garden-Party…

XXVIII. Mrs. Montacute Jones's Garden-Party

It was known to all the world that Mrs. Montacute Jones's first great garden-party was to come off on Wednesday, 16th June, at Roehampton. Mrs. Montacute Jones, who lived in Grosvenor Place and had a country house in Gloucestershire, and a place for young men to shoot at in Scotland, also kept a suburban elysium at Roehampton, in order that she might give two garden-parties every year. When it is said that all these costly luxuries appertained to Mrs. Montacute Jones, it is to be understood that they did in truth belong to Mr. Jones, of whom nobody heard much. But of Mrs. Jones,--that is, Mrs. Montacute Jones,--everybody heard a great deal. She was an old lady who devoted her life to the amusement of--not only her friends, but very many who were not her friends. No doubt she was fond of Lords and Countesses, and worked very hard to get round her all the rank and fashion of the day. It must be acknowledged that she was a worldly old woman. But no more good-natured old woman lived in London, and everybody liked to be asked to her garden-parties. On this occasion there was to be a considerable infusion of royal blood,--German, Belgian, French, Spanish, and of native growth. Everybody who was asked would go, and everybody had been asked,--who was anybody. Lord Silverbridge had been asked, and Lord Silverbridge intended to be there. Lady Mary, his sister, could not even be asked, because her mother was hardly more than three months dead; but it is understood in the world that women mourn longer than men.

Silverbridge had mounted a private hansom cab in which he could be taken about rapidly,--and, as he said himself, without being shut up in a coffin. In this vehicle he had himself taken to Roehampton, purporting to kill two birds with one stone. He had not as yet seen his sister since she had been with Lady Cantrip. He would on this day come back by The Horns.

He was well aware that Lady Mab would be at the garden-party. What place could be better for putting the question he had to ask? He was by no means so confident as the heir to so many good things might perhaps have been without overdue self-confidence.

Entering through the house into the lawn he encountered Mrs. Montacute Jones, who, with a seat behind her on the terrace, surrounded by flowers, was going through the immense labour of receiving her guests.

"How very good of you to come all this way, Lord Silverbridge, to eat my strawberries."

"How very good of you to ask me! I did not come to eat your strawberries but to see your friends."

"You ought to have said you came to see me, you know. Have you met Miss Boncassen yet?"

"The American beauty? No. Is she here?"

"Yes; and she particularly wants to be introduced to you; you won't betray me, will you?"

"Certainly not; I am as true as steel."

"She wanted, she said, to see if the eldest son of the Duke of Omnium really did look like any other man."

"Then I don't want to see her," said Silverbridge, with a look of vexation.

"There you are wrong, for there was real downright fun in the way she said it. There they are, and I shall introduce you." Then Mrs. Montacute Jones absolutely left her post for a minute or two, and taking the young lord down the steps of the terrace did introduce him to Mr. Boncassen, who was standing there amidst a crowd, and to Miss Boncassen the daughter.

Mr. Boncassen was an American who had lately arrived in England with the object of carrying out certain literary pursuits in which he was engaged within the British Museum. He was an American who had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with trade. He was a man of wealth and a man of letters. And he had a daughter who was said to be the prettiest young woman either in Europe or in America at the present time.

Isabel Boncassen was certainly a very pretty girl. I wish that my reader would believe my simple assurance. But no such simple assurance was ever believed, and I doubt even whether any description will procure for me from the reader that amount of faith which I desire to achieve. But I must make the attempt. General opinion generally considered Miss Boncassen to be small, but she was in truth something above the average height of English women. She was slight, without that look of slimness which is common to girls, and especially to American girls. That her figure was perfect the reader must believe on my word, as any detailed description of her arms, feet, bust, and waist, would be altogether ineffective. Her hair was dark brown and plentiful; but it added but little to her charms, which depended on other matters. Perhaps what struck the beholder first was the excessive brilliancy of her complexion. No pink was ever pinker, no alabaster whiteness was ever more like alabaster; but under and around and through it all there was a constantly changing hue which gave a vitality to her countenance which no fixed colours can produce. Her eyes, too, were full of life and brilliancy, and even when she was silent her mouth would speak. Nor was there a fault within the oval of her face upon which the hypercritics of mature age could set a finger. Her teeth were excellent both in form and colour, but were seen but seldom. Who does not know that look of ubiquitous ivory produced by teeth which are too perfect in a face which is otherwise poor? Her nose at the base spread a little,--so that it was not purely Grecian. But who has ever seen a nose to be eloquent and expressive, which did not so spread? It was, I think, the vitality of her countenance,--the way in which she could speak with every feature, the command which she had of pathos, of humour, of sympathy, of satire, the assurance which she gave by every glance of her eye, every elevation of her brow, every curl of her lip, that she was alive to all that was going on,--it was all this rather than those feminine charms which can be catalogued and labelled that made all acknowledge that she was beautiful.

"Lord Silverbridge," said Mr. Boncassen, speaking a little through his nose, "I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir. Your father is a man for whom we in our country have a great respect. I think, sir, you must be proud of such a father."

"Oh yes,--no doubt," said Silverbridge awkwardly. Then Mr. Boncassen continued his discourse with the gentlemen around him. Upon this our friend turned to the young lady. "Have you been long in England, Miss Boncassen?"

"Long enough to have heard about you and your father," she said, speaking with no slightest twang.

"I hope you have not heard any evil of me."

"Well!"

"I'm sure you can't have heard much good."

"I know you didn't win the Derby."

"You've been long enough to hear that?"

"Do you suppose we don't interest ourselves about the Derby in New York? Why, when we arrived at Queenstown I was leaning over the taffrail so that I might ask the first man on board the tender whether the Prime Minister had won."

"And he said he hadn't."

"I can't conceive why you of all men should call your horse by such a name. If my father had been President of the United States, I don't think I'd call a horse President."

"I didn't name the horse."

"I'd have changed it. But is it not very impudent in me to be finding fault with you the first time I have ever seen you? Shall you have a horse at Ascot?"

"There will be something going, I suppose. Nothing that I care about." Lord Silverbridge had made up his mind that he would go to no races with Tifto before the Leger. The Leger would be an affair of such moment as to demand his presence. After that should come the complete rupture between him and Tifto.

Then there was a movement among the elders, and Lord Silverbridge soon found himself walking alone with Miss Boncassen. It seemed to her to be quite natural to do so, and there certainly was no reason why he should decline anything so pleasant. It was thus that he had intended to walk with Mabel Grex;--only as yet he had not found her. "Oh yes," said Miss Boncassen, when they had been together about twenty minutes; "we shall be here all the summer, and all the fall, and all the winter. Indeed father means to read every book in the British Museum before he goes back."

"He'll have something to do."

"He reads by steam, and he has two or three young men with him to take it all down and make other books out of it;--just as you'll see a lady take a lace shawl and turn it all about till she has trimmed a petticoat with it. It is the same lace all through,--and so I tell father it's the same knowledge."

"But he puts it where more people will find it."

"The lady endeavours to do the same with the lace. That depends on whether people look up or down. Father however is a very learned man. You mustn't suppose that I am laughing at him. He is going to write a very learned book. Only everybody will be dead before it can be half finished." They still went on together, and then he gave her his arm and took her into the place where the strawberries and cream were prepared. As he was going in he saw Mabel Grex walking with Tregear, and she bowed to him pleasantly and playfully. "Is that lady a great friend of yours?" asked Miss Boncassen.

"A very great friend indeed."

"She is very beautiful."

"And clever as well,--and good as gold."

"Dear me! Do tell me who it is that owns all these qualities."

"Lady Mabel Grex. She is daughter of Lord Grex. That man with her is my particular friend. His name is Frank Tregear, and they are cousins."

"I am so glad they are cousins."

"Why glad?"

"Because his being with her won't make you unhappy."

"Supposing I was in love with her,--which I am not,--do you suppose it would make me jealous to see her with another man?"

"In our country it would not. A young lady may walk about with a young gentleman just as she might with another young lady; but I thought it was different here. Do you know, judging by English ways, I believe I am behaving very improperly in walking about with you so long. Ought I not to tell you to go away?"

"Pray do not."

"As I am going to stay here so long I wish to behave well to English eyes."

"People know who you are, and discount all that."

"If the difference be very marked they do. For instance, I needn't wear a hideous long bit of cloth over my face in Constantinople because I am a woman. But when the discrepancies are small, then they have to be attended to. So I shan't walk about with you any more."

"Oh yes, you will," said Silverbridge, who began to think that he liked walking about with Miss Boncassen.

"Certainly not. There is Mr. Sprottle. He is father's secretary. He will take me back."

"Cannot I take you back as well as Mr. Sprottle?"

"Indeed no;--I am not going to monopolise such a man as you. Do you think that I don't understand that everybody will be making remarks upon the American girl who won't leave the son of the Duke of Omnium alone? There is your particular friend Lady Mabel, and here is my particular friend Mr. Sprottle."

"May I come and call?"

"Certainly. Father will only be too proud,--and I shall be prouder. Mother will be the proudest of all. Mother very seldom goes out. Till we get a house we are at The Langham. Thank you, Mr. Sprottle. I think we'll go and find father."

Lord Silverbridge found himself close to Lady Mabel and Tregear, and also to Miss Cassewary, who had now joined Lady Mabel. He had been much struck with the American beauty, but was not on that account the less anxious to carry out his great plan. It was essentially necessary that he should do so at once, because the matter had been settled between him and his father. He was anxious to assure her that if she would consent, then the Duke would be ready to pour out all kinds of paternal blessings on their heads. "Come and take a turn among the haycocks," he said.

"Frank declares," said Lady Mabel, "that the hay is hired for the occasion. I wonder whether that is true."

"Anybody can see," said Tregear, "that it has not been cut off the grass it stands upon."

"If I could find Mrs. Montacute Jones I'd ask her where she got it," said Lady Mabel.

"Are you coming?" asked Silverbridge impatiently.

"I don't think I am. I have been walking round the haycocks till I am tired of them."

"Anywhere else then?"

"There isn't anywhere else. What have you done with your American beauty? The truth is, Lord Silverbridge, you ask me for my company when she won't give you hers any longer. Doesn't it look like it, Miss Cassewary?"

"I don't think Lord Silverbridge is the man to forget an old friend for a new one."

"Not though the new friend be as lovely as Miss Boncassen?"

"I don't know that I ever saw a prettier girl," said Tregear.

"I quite admit it," said Lady Mabel. "But that is no salve for my injured feelings I have heard so much about Miss Boncassen's beauty for the last week, that I mean to get up a company of British females, limited, for the express purpose of putting her down. Who is Miss Boncassen that we are all to be put on one side for her?"

Of course he knew that she was joking, but he hardly knew how to take her joke. There is a manner of joking which carries with it much serious intention. He did feel that Lady Mabel was not gracious to him because he had spent half an hour with this new beauty, and he was half inclined to be angry with her. Was it fitting that she should be cross with him, seeing that he was resolved to throw at her feet all the good things that he had in the world? "Bother Miss Boncassen," he said; "you might as well come and take a turn with a fellow."

"Come along, Miss Cassewary," said she. "We will go round the haycocks yet once again." So they turned and the two ladies accompanied Lord Silverbridge.

But this was not what he wanted. He could not say what he had to say in the presence of Miss Cassewary,--nor could he ask her to take herself off in another direction. Nor could he take himself off. Now that he had joined himself to these two ladies he must make with them the tour of the gardens. All this made him cross. "These kind of things are a great bore," he said.

"I dare say you would rather be in the House of Commons;--or, better still, at the Beargarden."

"You mean to be ill-natured when you say that, Lady Mab."

"You ask us to come and walk with you, and then you tell us that we are bores!"

"I did nothing of the kind."

"I should have thought that you would be particularly pleased with yourself for coming here to-day, seeing that you have made Miss Boncassen's acquaintance. To be allowed to walk half an hour alone with the acknowledged beauty of the two hemispheres ought to be enough even for Lord Silverbridge."

"That is nonsense, Lady Mab."

"Nothing gives so much zest to admiration as novelty. A republican charmer must be exciting after all the blasées habituées of the London drawing-rooms."

"How can you talk such nonsense, Mabel?" said Miss Cassewary.

"But it is so. I feel that people must be sick of seeing me. I know I am very often sick of seeing them. Here is something fresh,--and not only unlike, but so much more lovely. I quite acknowledge that I may be jealous, but no one can say that I am spiteful. I wish that some republican Adonis or Apollo would crop up,--so that we might have our turn. But I don't think the republican gentlemen are equal to the republican ladies. Do you, Lord Silverbridge?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Mr. Sprottle for instance."

"I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Sprottle."

"Now we've been round the haycocks, and really, Lord Silverbridge, I don't think we have gained much by it. Those forced marches never do any good." And so they parted.

He was thinking with a bitter spirit of the ill-result of his morning's work when he again found himself close to Miss Boncassen in the crowd of departing people on the terrace. "Mind you keep your word," she said. And then she turned to her father. "Lord Silverbridge has promised to call."

"Mrs. Boncassen will be delighted to make his acquaintance."

He got into his cab and was driven off towards Richmond. As he went he began to think of the two young women with whom he had passed his morning. Mabel had certainly behaved badly to him. Even if she suspected nothing of his object, did she not owe it to their friendship to be more courteous to him than she had been? And if she suspected that object, should she not at any rate have given him the opportunity?

Or could it be that she was really jealous of the American girl? No;--that idea he rejected instantly. It was not compatible with the innate modesty of his disposition. But no doubt the American girl was very lovely. Merely as a thing to be looked at she was superior to Mabel. He did feel that as to mere personal beauty she was in truth superior to anything he had ever seen before. And she was clever too;--and good-humoured;--whereas Mabel had been both ill-natured and unpleasant.

XXIX. The Lovers Meet

Lord Silverbridge found his sister alone. "I particularly want you," said he, "to come and call on Mabel Grex. She wishes to know you, and I am sure you would like her."

"But I haven't been out anywhere yet," she said. "I don't feel as though I wanted to go anywhere."

Nevertheless she was very anxious to know Lady Mabel Grex, of whom she had heard much. A girl if she has had a former love passage says nothing of it to her new lover; but a man is not so reticent. Frank Tregear had perhaps not told her everything, but he had told her something. "I was very fond of her;--very fond of her," he had said. "And so I am still," he had added. "As you are my love of loves, she is my friend of friends." Lady Mary had been satisfied by the assurance, but had become anxious to see the friend of friends. She resisted at first her brother's entreaties. She felt that her father in delivering her over to the seclusion of The Horns had intended to preclude her from showing herself in London. She was conscious that she was being treated with cruelty, and had a certain pride in her martyrdom. She would obey her father to the letter; she would give him no right to call her conduct in question; but he and any other to whom he might entrust the care of her, should be made to know that she thought him cruel. He had his power to which she must submit. But she also had hers,--to which it was possible he might be made to submit. "I do not know that papa would wish me to go," she said.

"But it is just what he would wish. He thinks a good deal about Mabel."

"Why should he think about her at all?"

"I can't exactly explain," said Silverbridge, "but he does."

"If you mean to tell me that Mabel Grex is anything particular to you, and that papa approves of it, I will go all round the world to see her." But he had not meant to tell her this. The request had been made at Lady Mabel's instance. When his sister had spoken of her father's possible objection, then he had become eager in explaining the Duke's feeling, not remembering that such anxiety might betray himself. At that moment Lady Cantrip came in, and the question was referred to her. She did not see any objection to such a visit, and expressed her opinion that it would be a good thing that Mary should be taken out. "She should begin to go somewhere," said Lady Cantrip. And so it was decided. On the next Friday he would come down early in his hansom and drive her up to Belgrave Square. Then he would take her to Carlton Terrace, and Lady Cantrip's carriage should pick her up there and bring her home. He would arrange it all.

"What did you think of the American beauty?" asked Lady Cantrip when that was settled.

"I thought she was a beauty."

"So I perceived. You had eyes for nobody else," said Lady Cantrip, who had been at the garden-party.

"Somebody introduced her to me, and then I had to walk about the grounds with her. That's the kind of thing one always does in those places."

"Just so. That is what 'those places' are meant for, I suppose. But it was not apparently a great infliction." Lord Silverbridge had to explain that it was not an infliction;--that it was a privilege, seeing that Miss Boncassen was both clever and lovely; but that it did not mean anything in particular.

When he took his leave he asked his sister to go out into the grounds with him for a moment. This she did almost unwillingly, fearing that he was about to speak to her of Tregear. But he had no such purpose on his mind. "Of course you know," he began, "all that was nonsense you were saying about Mabel."

"I did not know."

"I was afraid you might blurt out something before her."

"I should not be so imprudent."

"Girls do make such fools of themselves sometimes. They are always thinking about people being in love. But it is the truth that my father said to me the other day how very much he liked what he had heard of her, and that he would like you to know her."

On that same evening Silverbridge wrote from the Beargarden the shortest possible note to Lady Mabel, telling her what he had arranged. "I and Mary propose to call in B. Square on Friday at two. I must be early because of the House. You will give us lunch. S." There was no word of endearment,--none even of those ordinary words which people who hate each other use to one another. But he received the next day at home a much more kindly-written note from her:

DEAR LORD SILVERBRIDGE,

You are so good! You always do just what you think people will like best. Nothing could please me so much as seeing your sister, of whom of course I have heard very very much. There shall be nobody here but Miss Cass.

Yours most sincerely,

M. G.

"How I do wish I were a man!" his sister said to him when they were in the hansom together.

"You'd have a great deal more trouble."

"But I'd have a hansom of my own, and go where I pleased. How would you like to be shut up at a place like The Horns?"

"You can go out if you like it."

"Not like you. Papa thinks it's the proper place for me to live in, and so I must live there. I don't think a woman ever chooses how or where she shall live herself."

"You are not going to take up woman's rights, I hope."

"I think I shall if I stay at The Horns much longer. What would papa say if he heard that I was going to give a lecture at an Institute?"

"The governor has had so many things to bear that a trifle such as that would make but little difference."

"Poor papa!"

"He was dreadfully cut up about Gerald. And then he is so good! He said more to me about Gerald than he ever did about my own little misfortune at Oxford; but to Gerald himself he said almost nothing. Now he has forgiven me because he thinks I am constant at the House."

"And are you?"

"Not so much as he thinks. I do go there,--for his sake. He has been so good about my changing sides."

"I think you were quite right there."

"I am beginning to think I was quite wrong. What did it matter to me?"

"I suppose it did make papa unhappy."

"Of course it did;--and then this affair of yours." As soon as this was said Lady Mary at once hardened her heart against her father. Whether Silverbridge was or was not entitled to his own political opinions,--seeing that the Pallisers had for ages been known as staunch Whigs and Liberals,--might be a matter for question. But that she had a right to her own lover she thought that there could be no question. As they were sitting in the cab he could hardly see her face, but he was aware that she was in some fashion arming herself against opposition. "I am sure that this makes him very unhappy," continued Silverbridge.

"It cannot be altered," she said.

"It will have to be altered."

"Nothing can alter it. He might die, indeed;--or so might I."

"Or he might see that it is no good,--and change his mind," suggested Silverbridge.

"Of course that is possible," said Lady Mary very curtly,--showing plainly by her manner that the subject was one which she did not choose to discuss any further.

"It is very good of you to come to me," said Lady Mabel, kissing her new acquaintance. "I have heard so much about you."

"And I also of you."

"I, you know, am one of your brother's stern Mentors. There are three or four of us determined to make him a pattern young legislator. Miss Cassewary is another. Only she is not quite so stern as I am."

"He ought to be very much obliged."

"But he is not,--not a bit. Are you, Lord Silverbridge?"

"Not so much as I ought to be, perhaps."

"Of course there is an opposing force. There are the race-horses, and the drag, and Major Tifto. No doubt you have heard of Major Tifto. The Major is the Mr. Worldly-Wiseman who won't let Christian go to the Strait Gate. I am afraid he hasn't read his Pilgrim's Progress. But we shall prevail, Lady Mary, and he will get to the beautiful city at last."

"What is the beautiful city?" he asked.

"A seat in the Cabinet, I suppose,--or that general respect which a young nobleman achieves when he has shown himself able to sit on a bench for six consecutive hours without appearing to go to sleep."

Then they went to lunch, and Lady Mary did find herself to be happy with her new acquaintance. Her life since her mother's death had been so sad, that this short escape from it was a relief to her. Now for awhile she found herself almost gay. There was an easy liveliness about Lady Mabel,--a grain of humour and playfulness conjoined,--which made her feel at home at once. And it seemed to her as though her brother was at home. He called the girl Lady Mab, and Queen Mab, and once plain Mabel, and the old woman he called Miss Cass. It surely, she thought, must be the case that Lady Mabel and her brother were engaged.

"Come upstairs into my own room,--it is nicer than this," said Lady Mabel, and they went from the dining-room into a pretty little sitting-room with which Silverbridge was very well acquainted. "Have you heard of Miss Boncassen?" Mary said she had heard something of Miss Boncassen's great beauty. "Everybody is talking about her. Your brother met her at Mrs. Montacute Jones's garden-party, and was made a conquest of instantly."

"I wasn't made a conquest of at all," said Silverbridge.

"Then he ought to have been made a conquest of. I should be if I were a man. I think she is the loveliest person to look at and the nicest person to listen to that I ever came across. We all feel that, as far as this season is concerned, we are cut out. But we don't mind it so much because she is a foreigner." Then just as she said this the door was opened and Frank Tregear was announced.

Everybody there present knew as well as does the reader, what was the connexion between Tregear and Lady Mary Palliser. And each knew that the other knew it. It was therefore impossible for them not to feel themselves guilty among themselves. The two lovers had not seen each other since they had been together in Italy. Now they were brought face to face in this unexpected manner! And nobody except Tregear was at first quite sure whether somebody had not done something to arrange the meeting. Mary might naturally suspect that Lady Mabel had done this in the interest of her friend Tregear, and Silverbridge could not but suspect that it was so. Lady Mabel, who had never before met the other girl, could hardly refrain from thinking that there had been some underhand communication,--and Miss Cassewary was clearly of opinion that there had been some understanding.

Silverbridge was the first to speak. "Halloo, Tregear, I didn't know that we were to see you."

"Nor I, that I should see you," said he. Then of course there was a shaking of hands all round, in the course of which ceremony he came to Mary the last. She gave him her hand, but had not a word to say to him. "If I had known that you were here," he said, "I should not have come; but I need hardly say how glad I am to see you,--even in this way." Then the two girls were convinced that the meeting was accidental; but Miss Cass still had her doubts.

Conversation became at once very difficult. Tregear seated himself near, but not very near, to Lady Mary, and made some attempt to talk to both the girls at once. Lady Mabel plainly showed that she was not at her ease;--whereas Mary seemed to be stricken dumb by the presence of her lover. Silverbridge was so much annoyed by a feeling that this interview was a treason to his father, that he sat cudgelling his brain to think how he should bring it to an end. Miss Cassewary was dumbfounded by the occasion. She was the one elder in the company who ought to see that no wrong was committed. She was not directly responsible to the Duke of Omnium, but she was thoroughly permeated by a feeling that it was her duty to take care that there should be no clandestine love meetings in Lord Grex's house. At last Silverbridge jumped up from his chair. "Upon my word, Tregear, I think you had better go," said he.

"So do I," said Miss Cassewary. "If it is an accident--"

"Of course it is an accident," said Tregear angrily,--looking round at Mary, who blushed up to her eyes.

"I did not mean to doubt it," said the old lady. "But as it has occurred, Mabel, don't you think that he had better go?"

"He won't bite anybody, Miss Cass."

"She would not have come if she had expected it," said Silverbridge.

"Certainly not," said Mary, speaking for the first time. "But now he is here--" Then she stopped herself, rose from the sofa, sat down, and then rising again, stepped up to her lover, who rose at the same moment,--and threw herself into his arms and put up her lips to be kissed.

"This won't do at all," said Silverbridge. Miss Cassewary clasped her hands together and looked up to heaven. She probably had never seen such a thing done before. Lady Mabel's eyes were filled with tears, and though in all this there was much to cause her anguish, still in her heart of hearts she admired the brave girl who could thus show her truth to her lover.

"Now go," said Mary, through her sobs.

"My own one," ejaculated Tregear.

"Yes, yes, yes; always your own. Go,--go; go." She was weeping and sobbing as she said this, and hiding her face with her handkerchief. He stood for a moment irresolute, and then left the room without a word of adieu to any one.

"You have behaved very badly," said the brother.

"She has behaved like an angel," said Mabel, throwing her arms round Mary as she spoke, "like an angel. If there had been a girl whom you loved and who loved you, would you not have wished it? Would you not have worshipped her for showing that she was not ashamed of her love?"

"I am not a bit ashamed," said Mary.

"And I say that you have no cause. No one knows him as I do. How good he is, and how worthy!" Immediately after that Silverbridge took his sister away, and Lady Mabel, escaping from Miss Cass, was alone. "She loves him almost as I have loved him," she said to herself. "I wonder whether he can love her as he did me?"

XXX. What Came of the Meeting

Not a word was said in the cab as Lord Silverbridge took his sister to Carlton Terrace, and he was leaving her without any reference to the scene which had taken place, when an idea struck him that this would be cruel. "Mary," he said, "I was very sorry for all that."

"It was not my doing."

"I suppose it was nobody's doing. But I am very sorry that it occurred. I think that you should have controlled yourself."

"No!" she almost shouted.

"I think so."

"No;--if you mean by controlling myself, holding my tongue. He is the man I love,--whom I have promised to marry."

"But, Mary,--do ladies generally embrace their lovers in public?"

"No;--nor should I. I never did such a thing in my life before. But as he was there I had to show that I was not ashamed of him! Do you think I should have done it if you all had not been there?" Then again she burst into tears.

He did not quite know what to make of it. Mabel Grex had declared that she had behaved like an angel. But yet, as he thought of what he had seen, he shuddered with vexation. "I was thinking of the governor," he said.

"He shall be told everything."

"That you met Tregear?"

"Certainly; and that I--kissed him. I will do nothing that I am ashamed to tell everybody."

"He will be very angry."

"I cannot help it. He should not treat me as he is doing. Mr. Tregear is a gentleman. Why did he let him come? Why did you bring him? But it is of no use. The thing is settled. Papa can break my heart, but he cannot make me say that I am not engaged to Mr. Tregear."

On that night Mary told the whole of her story to Lady Cantrip. There was nothing that she tried to conceal. "I got up," she said, "and threw my arms round him. Is he not all the world to me?"

"Had it been planned?" asked Lady Cantrip.

"No;--no! Nothing had been planned. They are cousins and very intimate, and he goes there constantly. Now I want you to tell papa all about it."

Lady Cantrip began to think that it had been an evil day for her when she had agreed to take charge of this very determined young lady; but she consented at once to write to the Duke. As the girl was in her hands she must take care not to lay herself open to reproaches. As this objectionable lover had either contrived a meeting, or had met her without contriving, it was necessary that the Duke should be informed. "I would rather you wrote the letter," said Lady Mary. "But pray tell him that all along I have meant him to know all about it."

Till Lady Cantrip seated herself at her writing-table she did not know how great the difficulty would be. It cannot in any circumstance be easy to write to a father as to his daughter's love for an objectionable lover; but the Duke's character added much to the severity of the task. And then that embrace! She knew that the Duke would be struck with horror as he read of such a tale, and she found herself almost struck with horror as she attempted to write it. When she came to the point she found she could not write it. "I fear there was a good deal of warmth shown on both sides," she said, feeling that she was calumniating the man, as to whose warmth she had heard nothing. "It is quite clear," she added, "that this is not a passing fancy on her part."

It was impossible that the Duke should be made to understand exactly what had occurred. That Silverbridge had taken Mary he did understand, and that they had together gone to Lord Grex's house. He understood also that the meeting had taken place in the presence of Silverbridge and of Lady Mabel. "No doubt it was all an accident," Lady Cantrip wrote. How could it be an accident?

"You had Mary up in town on Friday," he said to his son on the following Sunday morning.

"Yes, sir."

"And that friend of yours came in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you not know what my wishes are?"

"Certainly I do;--but I could not help his coming. You do not suppose that anybody had planned it?"

"I hope not."

"It was simply an accident. Such an accident as must occur over and over again,--unless Mary is to be locked up."

"Who talks of locking anybody up? What right have you to speak in that way?"

"I only meant that of course they will stumble across each other in London."

"I think I will go abroad," said the Duke. He was silent for awhile, and then repeated his words. "I think I will go abroad."

"Not for long, I hope, sir."

"Yes;--to live there. Why should I stay here? What good can I do here? Everything I see and everything I hear is a pain to me." The young man of course could not but go back in his mind to the last interview which he had had with his father, when the Duke had been so gracious and apparently so well pleased.

"Is there anything else wrong,--except about Mary?" Silverbridge asked.

"I am told that Gerald owes about fifteen hundred pounds at Cambridge."

"So much as that! I knew he had a few horses there."

"It is not the money, but the absence of principle,--that a young man should have no feeling that he ought to live within certain prescribed means! Do you know what you have had from Mr. Morton?"

"Not exactly, sir."

"It is different with you. But a man, let him be who he may, should live within certain means. As for your sister, I think she will break my heart." Silverbridge found it to be quite impossible to say anything in answer to this. "Are you going to church?" asked the Duke.

"I was not thinking of doing so particularly."

"Do you not ever go?"

"Yes;--sometimes. I will go with you now, if you like it, sir."

"I had thought of going, but my mind is too much harassed. I do not see why you should not go."

But Silverbridge, though he had been willing to sacrifice his morning to his father,--for it was, I fear, in that way that he had looked at it,--did not see any reason for performing a duty which his father himself omitted. And there were various matters also which harassed him. On the previous evening, after dinner, he had allowed himself to back the Prime Minister for the Leger to a very serious amount. In fact he had plunged, and now stood to lose some twenty thousand pounds on the doings of the last night. And he had made these bets under the influence of Major Tifto. It was the remembrance of this, after the promise made to his father, that annoyed him the most. He was imbued with a feeling that it behoved him as a man to "pull himself together," as he would have said himself, and to live in accordance with certain rules. He could make the rules easily enough, but he had never yet succeeded in keeping any one of them. He had determined to sever himself from Tifto, and, in doing that, had intended to sever himself from affairs of the turf generally. This resolution was not yet a week old. It was on that evening that he had resolved that Tifto should no longer be his companion; and now he had to confess to himself that because he had drunk three or four glasses of champagne he had been induced by Tifto to make those wretched bets.

And he had told his father that he intended to ask Mabel Grex to be his wife. He had so committed himself that the offer must now be made. He did not specially regret that, though he wished that he had been more reticent. "What a fool a man is to blurt out everything!" he said to himself. A wife would be a good thing for him; and where could he possibly find a better wife than Mabel Grex? In beauty she was no doubt inferior to Miss Boncassen. There was something about Miss Boncassen which made it impossible to forget her. But Miss Boncassen was an American, and on many accounts out of the question. It did not occur to him that he would fall in love with Miss Boncassen; but still it seemed hard to him that this intention of marriage should stand in his way of having a good time with Miss Boncassen for a few weeks. No doubt there were objections to marriage. It clipped a fellow's wings. But then, if he were married, he might be sure that Tifto would be laid aside. It was such a great thing to have got his father's assured consent to a marriage. It meant complete independence in money matters.

Then his mind ran away to a review of his father's affairs. It was a genuine trouble to him that his father should be so unhappy. Of all the griefs which weighed upon the Duke's mind, that in reference to his sister was the heaviest. The money which Gerald owed at Cambridge would be nothing if that other sorrow could be conquered. Nor had Tifto and his own extravagance caused the Duke any incurable wounds. If Tregear could be got out of the way, his father, he thought, might be reconciled to other things. He felt very tender-hearted about his father; but he had no remorse in regard to his sister as he made up his mind that he would speak very seriously to Tregear.

He had wandered into St. James's Park, and had lighted by this time half-a-dozen cigarettes one after another, as he sat on one of the benches. He was a handsome youth, all but six feet high, with light hair, with round blue eyes, and with all that aristocratic look, which had belonged so peculiarly to the late Duke but which was less conspicuous in the present head of the family. He was a young man whom you would hardly pass in a crowd without observing,--but of whom you would say, after due observation, that he had not as yet put off all his childish ways. He now sat with his legs stretched out, with his cane in his hands, looking down upon the water. He was trying to think. He worked hard at thinking. But the bench was hard and, upon the whole, he was not satisfied with his position. He had just made up his mind that he would look up Tregear, when Tregear himself appeared on the path before him.

"Tregear!" exclaimed Silverbridge.

"Silverbridge!" exclaimed Tregear.

"What on earth makes you walk about here on a Sunday morning?"

"What on earth makes you sit there? That I should walk here, which I often do, does not seem to me odd. But that I should find you is marvellous. Do you often come?"

"Never was here in my life before. I strolled in because I had things to think of."

"Questions to be asked in Parliament? Notices of motions, Amendments in Committee, and that kind of thing?"

"Go on, old fellow."

"Or perhaps Major Tifto has made important revelations."

"D---- Major Tifto."

"With all my heart," said Tregear.

"Sit down here," said Silverbridge. "As it happened, at the moment when you came up I was thinking of you."

"That was kind."

"And I was determined to go to you. All this about my sister must be given up."

"Must be given up?"

"It can never lead to any good. I mean that there never can be a marriage." Then he paused, but Tregear was determined to hear him out. "It is making my father so miserable that you would pity him if you could see him."

"I dare say I should. When I see people unhappy I always pity them. What I would ask you to think of is this. If I were to commission you to tell your sister that everything between us should be given up, would not she be so unhappy that you would have to pity her?"

"She would get over it."

"And so will your father."

"He has a right to have his own opinion on such a matter."

"And so have I. And so has she. His rights in this matter are very clear and very potential. I am quite ready to admit that we cannot marry for many years to come, unless he will provide the money. You are quite at liberty to tell him that I say so. I have no right to ask your father for a penny, and I will never do so. The power is all in his hands. As far as I know my own purposes, I shall not make any immediate attempt even to see her. We did meet, as you saw, the other day, by the merest chance. After that, do you think that your sister wishes me to give her up?"

"As for supposing that girls are to have what they wish, that is nonsense."

"For young men I suppose equally so. Life ought to be a life of self-denial, no doubt. Perhaps it might be my duty to retire from this affair, if by doing so I should sacrifice only myself. The one person of whom I am bound to think in this matter is the girl I love."

"That is just what she would say about you."

"I hope so."

"In that way you support each other. If it were any other man circumstanced just like you are, and any other girl placed like Mary, you would be the first to say that the man was behaving badly. I don't like to use hard language to you, but in such a case you would be the first to say of another man--that he was looking after the girl's money."

Silverbridge as he said this looked forward steadfastly on to the water, regretting much that cause for quarrel should have arisen, but thinking that Tregear would find himself obliged to quarrel. But Tregear, after a few moments' silence, having thought it out, determined that he would not quarrel. "I think I probably might," he said, laying his hand on Silverbridge's arm. "I think I perhaps might express such an opinion."

"Well then!"

"I have to examine myself, and find out whether I am guilty of the meanness which I might perhaps be too ready to impute to another. I have done so, and I am quite sure that I am not drawn to your sister by any desire for her money. I did not seek her because she was a rich man's daughter, nor,--because she is a rich man's daughter,--will I give her up. She shall be mistress of the occasion. Nothing but a word from her shall induce me to leave her;--but a word from her, if it comes from her own lips,--shall do so." Then he took his friend's hand in his, and, having grasped it, walked away without saying another word.

Chapter XXXI

Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 1

Thrice within the next three weeks did Lord Silverbridge go forth to ask Mabel to be his wife, but thrice in vain. On one occasion she would talk on other things. On the second Miss Cassewary would not leave her. On the third the conversation turned in a very disagreeable way on Miss Boncassen, as to whom Lord Silverbridge could not but think that Lady Mabel said some very ill-natured things. It was no doubt true that he, during the last three weeks, had often been in Miss Boncassen's company, that he had danced with her, ridden with her, taken her to the House of Lords and to the House of Commons, and was now engaged to attend upon her at a river-party up above Maidenhead. But Mabel had certainly no right to complain. Had he not thrice during the same period come there to lay his coronet at her feet;--and now, at this very moment, was it not her fault that he was not going through the ceremony?

"I suppose," she said, laughing, "that it is all settled."

"What is all settled?"

"About you and the American beauty."

"I am not aware that anything particular has been settled."

"Then it ought to be,--oughtn't it? For her sake, I mean."

"That is so like an English woman," said Lord Silverbridge. "Because you cannot understand a manner of life a little different from your own you will impute evil."

"I have imputed no evil, Lord Silverbridge, and you have no right to say so."

"If you mean to assert," said Miss Cass, "that the manners of American young ladies are freer than those of English young ladies, it is you that are taking away their characters."

"I don't say it would be at all bad," continued Lady Mabel. "She is a beautiful girl, and very clever, and would make a charming Duchess. And then it would be such a delicious change to have an American Duchess."

"She wouldn't be a Duchess."

"Well, Countess, with Duchessship before her in the remote future. Wouldn't it be a change, Miss Cass?"

"Oh decidedly!" said Miss Cass.

"And very much for the better. Quite a case of new blood, you know. Pray don't suppose that I mean to object. Everybody who talks about it approves. I haven't heard a dissentient voice. Only as it has gone so far, and as English people are too stupid, you know, to understand all these new ways,--don't you think perhaps--?"

"No, I don't think. I don't think anything except that you are very ill-natured." Then he got up and, after making formal adieux to both the ladies, left the house.

As soon as he was gone Lady Mabel began to laugh, but the least apprehensive ears would have perceived that the laughter was affected. Miss Cassewary did not laugh at all, but sat bolt upright and looked very serious. "Upon my honour," said the younger lady, "he is the most beautifully simple-minded human being I ever knew in my life."

"Then I wouldn't laugh at him."

"How can one help it? But of course I do it with a purpose."

"What purpose?"

"I think he is making a fool of himself. If somebody does not interfere he will go so far that he will not be able to draw back without misbehaving."

"I thought," said Miss Cassewary, in a very low voice, almost whispering, "I thought that he was looking for a wife elsewhere."

"You need not think of that again," said Lady Mab, jumping up from her seat. "I had thought of it too. But as I told you before, I spared him. He did not really mean it with me;--nor does he mean it with this American girl. Such young men seldom mean. They drift into matrimony. But she will not spare him. It would be a national triumph. All the States would sing a pæan of glory. Fancy a New York belle having compassed a Duke!"

"I don't think it possible. It would be too horrid."

"I think it quite possible. As for me, I could teach myself to think it best as it is, were I not so sure that I should be better for him than so many others. But I shouldn't love him."

"Why not love him?"

"He is such a boy. I should always treat him like a boy,--spoiling him and petting him, but never respecting him. Don't run away with any idea that I should refuse him from conscientious motives, if he were really to ask me. I too should like to be a Duchess. I should like to bring all this misery at home to an end."

"But you did refuse him."

"Not exactly;--because he never asked me. For the moment I was weak, and so I let him have another chance. I shall not have been a good friend to him if it ends in his marrying this Yankee."

Lord Silverbridge went out of the house in a very ill humour,--which however left him when in the course of the afternoon he found himself up at Maidenhead with Miss Boncassen. Miss Boncassen at any rate did not laugh at him. And then she was so pleasant, so full of common sense, and so completely intelligent! "I like you," she had said, "because I feel that you will not think that you ought to make love to me. There is nothing I hate so much as the idea that a young man and a young woman can't be acquainted with each other without some such tomfoolery as that." This had exactly expressed his own feeling. Nothing could be so pleasant as his intimacy with Isabel Boncassen.

Mrs. Boncassen seemed to be a homely person, with no desire either to speak, or to be spoken to. She went out but seldom, and on those rare occasions did not in any way interfere with her daughter. Mr. Boncassen filled a prouder situation. Everybody knew that Miss Boncassen was in England because it suited Mr. Boncassen to spend many hours in the British Museum. But still the daughter hardly seemed to be under control from the father. She went alone where she liked; talked to those she liked; and did what she liked. Some of the young ladies of the day thought that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the freedom which she enjoyed.

There is however a good deal to be said against it. All young ladies cannot be Miss Boncassens, with such an assurance of admirers as to be free from all fear of loneliness. There is a comfort for a young lady in having a pied-à-terre to which she may retreat in case of need. In American circles, where girls congregate without their mothers, there is a danger felt by young men that if a lady be once taken in hand, there will be no possibility of getting rid of her,--no mamma to whom she may be taken and under whose wings she may be dropped. "My dear," said an old gentleman the other day walking through an American ball-room, and addressing himself to a girl whom he knew well,--"My dear--" But the girl bowed and passed on, still clinging to the arm of the young man who accompanied her. But the old gentleman was cruel, and possessed of a determined purpose. "My dear," said he again, catching the young man tight by the collar and holding him fast. "Don't be afraid; I've got him; he shan't desert you; I'll hold him here till you have told me how your father does." The young lady looked as if she didn't like it, and the sight of her misery gave rise to a feeling that, after all, mammas perhaps may be a comfort.

But in her present phase of life Miss Boncassen suffered no misfortune of this kind. It had become a privilege to be allowed to attend upon Miss Boncassen, and the feeling of this privilege had been enhanced by the manner in which Lord Silverbridge had devoted himself to her. Fashion of course makes fashion. Had not Lord Silverbridge been so very much struck by the charm of the young lady, Lords Glasslough and Popplecourt would not perhaps have found it necessary to run after her. As it was, even that most unenergetic of young men, Dolly Longstaff, was moved to profound admiration.

On this occasion they were all up the river at Maidenhead. Mr. Boncassen had looked about for some means of returning the civilities offered to him, and had been instigated by Mrs. Montacute Jones to do it after this fashion. There was a magnificent banquet spread in a summer-house on the river bank. There were boats, and there was a band, and there was a sward for dancing. There was lawn-tennis, and fishing-rods,--which nobody used,--and better still, long shady secluded walks in which gentlemen might stroll,--and ladies too, if they were kind enough. The whole thing had been arranged by Mrs. Montacute Jones. As the day was fine, as many of the old people had abstained from coming, as there were plenty of young men of the best sort, and as nothing had been spared in reference to external comforts, the party promised to be a success. Every most lovely girl in London of course was there,--except Lady Mabel Grex. Lady Mabel was in the habit of going everywhere, but on this occasion she had refused Mrs. Boncassen's invitation. "I don't want to see her triumphs," she had said to Miss Cass.

Everybody went down by railway of course, and innumerable flies and carriages had been provided to take them to the scene of action. Some immediately got into boats and rowed themselves up from the bridge,--which, as the thermometer was standing at eighty in the shade, was an inconsiderate proceeding. "I don't think I am quite up to that," said Dolly Longstaff, when it was proposed to him to take an oar. "Miss Amazon will do it. She rows so well, and is so strong." Whereupon Miss Amazon, not at all abashed, did take the oar; and as Lord Silverbridge was on the seat behind her with the other oar she probably enjoyed her task.

"What a very nice sort of person Lady Cantrip is." This was said to Silverbridge by that generally silent young nobleman Lord Popplecourt. The remark was the more singular because Lady Cantrip was not at the party,--and the more so again because, as Silverbridge thought, there could be but little in common between the Countess who had his sister in charge and the young lord beside him, who was not fast only because he did not like to risk his money.

"Well,--yes; I dare say she is."

"I thought so, peculiarly. I was at that place at Richmond yesterday."

"The devil you were! What were you doing at The Horns?"

"Lady Cantrip's grandmother was,--I don't quite know what she was, but something to us. I know I've got a picture of her at Popplecourt. Lady Cantrip wanted to ask me something about it, and so I went down. I was so glad to make acquaintance with your sister."

"You saw Mary, did you?"

"Oh yes; I lunched there. I'm to go down and meet the Duke some day."

"Meet the Duke!"

"Why not?"

"No reason on earth,--only I can't imagine the governor going to Richmond for his dinner. Well! I am very glad to hear it. I hope you'll get on well with him."

"I was so much struck with your sister."

"Yes; I dare say," said Silverbridge, turning away into the path where he saw Miss Boncassen standing with some other ladies. It certainly did not occur to him that Popplecourt was to be brought forward as a suitor for his sister's hand.

"I believe this is the most lovely place in the world," Miss Boncassen said to him.

"We are so much the more obliged to you for bringing us here."

"We don't bring you. You allow us to come with you and see all that is pretty and lovely."

"Is it not your party?"

"Father will pay the bill, I suppose,--as far as that goes. And mother's name was put on the cards. But of course we know what that means. It is because you and a few others like you have been so kind to us, that we are able to be here at all."

"Everybody, I should think, must be kind to you."

"I do have a good time pretty much; but nowhere so good as here. I fear that when I get back I shall not like New York."

"I have heard you say, Miss Boncassen, that Americans were more likeable than the English."

"Have you? Well, yes; I think I have said so. And I think it is so. I'd sooner have to dance with a bank clerk in New York, than with a bank clerk here."

"Do you ever dance with bank clerks?"

"Oh dear yes. At least I suppose so. I dance with whoever comes up. We haven't got lords in America, you know!"

"You have got gentlemen?"

"Plenty of them;--but they are not so easily defined as lords. I do like lords."

"Do you?"

"Oh yes,--and ladies;--Countesses I mean and women of that sort. Your Lady Mabel Grex is not here. Why wouldn't she come?"

"Perhaps you didn't ask her."

"Oh yes I did;--especially for your sake."

"She is not my Lady Mabel Grex," said Lord Silverbridge with unnecessary energy.

"But she will be."

"What makes you think that?"

"You are devoted to her."

"Much more to you, Miss Boncassen."

"That is nonsense, Lord Silverbridge."

"Not at all."

"It is also--untrue."

"Surely I must be the best judge of that myself."

"Not a doubt; a judge not only whether it be true, but if true whether expedient,--or even possible. What did I say to you when we first began to know each other?"

"What did you say?"

"That I liked knowing you;--that was frank enough;--that I liked knowing you because I knew that there would be no tomfoolery of love-making." Then she paused; but he did not quite know how to go on with the conversation at once, and she continued her speech. "When you condescend to tell me that you are devoted to me, as though that were the kind of thing that I expect to have said when I take a walk with a young man in a wood, is not that the tomfoolery of love-making?" She stopped and looked at him, so that he was obliged to answer.

"Then why do you ask me if I am devoted to Lady Mabel? Would not that be tomfoolery too?"

"No. If I thought so, I would not have asked the question. I did specially invite her to come here because I thought you would like it. You have got to marry somebody."

"Some day, perhaps."

"And why not her?"

"If you come to that, why not you?" He felt himself to be getting into deep waters as he said this,--but he had a meaning to express if only he could find the words to express it. "I don't say whether it is tomfoolery, as you call it, or not; but whatever it is, you began it."

"Yes;--yes. I see. You punish me for my unpremeditated impertinence in suggesting that you are devoted to Lady Mabel by the premeditated impertinence of pretending to be devoted to me."

"Stop a moment. I cannot follow that." Then she laughed. "I will swear that I did not intend to be impertinent."

"I hope not."

"I am devoted to you."

"Lord Silverbridge!"

"I think you are--"

"Stop, stop. Do not say it."

"Well I won't;--not now. But there has been no tomfoolery."

"May I ask a question, Lord Silverbridge? You will not be angry? I would not have you angry with me."

"I will not be angry," he said.

"Are you not engaged to marry Lady Mabel Grex?"

"No."

"Then I beg your pardon. I was told that you were engaged to her. And I thought your choice was so fortunate, so happy! I have seen no girl here that I admire half so much. She almost comes up to my idea of what a young woman should be."

"Almost!"

"Now I am sure that if not engaged to her you must be in love with her, or my praise would have sufficed."

"Though one knows a Lady Mabel Grex, one may become acquainted with a Miss Boncassen."

There are moments in which stupid people say clever things, obtuse people say sharp things, and good-natured people say ill-natured things. "Lord Silverbridge," she said, "I did not expect that from you."

"Expect what? I meant it simply."

"I have no doubt you meant it simply. We Americans think ourselves sharp, but I have long since found out that we may meet more than our matches over here. I think we will go back. Mother means to try to get up a quadrille."

"You will dance with me?"

"I think not. I have been walking with you, and I had better dance with someone else."

"You can let me have one dance."

"I think not. There will not be many."

"Are you angry with me?"

"Yes, I am; there." But as she said this she smiled. "The truth is, I thought I was getting the better of you, and you turned round and gave me a pat on the head to show me that you could be master when it pleased you. You have defended your intelligence at the expense of your good-nature."

"I'll be shot if I know what it all means," he said, just as he was parting with her.

Chapter XXXII

Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 2

Lord Silverbridge made up his mind that as he could not dance with Miss Boncassen he would not dance at all. He was not angry at being rejected, and when he saw her stand up with Dolly Longstaff he felt no jealousy. She had refused to dance with him not because she did not like him, but because she did not wish to show that she liked him. He could understand that, though he had not quite followed all the ins and outs of her little accusations against him. She had flattered him--without any intention of flattery on her part. She had spoken of his intelligence and had complained that he had been too sharp to her. Mabel Grex when most sweet to him, when most loving, always made him feel that he was her inferior. She took no trouble to hide her conviction of his youthfulness. This was anything but flattering. Miss Boncassen, on the other hand, professed herself to be almost afraid of him.

"There shall be no tomfoolery of love-making," she had said. But what if it were not tomfoolery at all? What if it were good, genuine, earnest love-making? He certainly was not pledged to Lady Mabel. As regarded his father there would be a difficulty. In the first place he had been fool enough to tell his father that he was going to make an offer to Mabel Grex. And then his father would surely refuse his consent to a marriage with an American stranger. In such case there would be no unlimited income, no immediate pleasantness of magnificent life such as he knew would be poured out upon him if he were to marry Mabel Grex. As he thought of this, however, he told himself that he would not sell himself for money and magnificence. He could afford to be independent, and gratify his own taste. Just at this moment he was of opinion that Isabel Boncassen would be the sweeter companion of the two.

He had sauntered down to the place where they were dancing and stood by, saying a few words to Mrs. Boncassen. "Why are you not dancing, my Lord?" she asked.

"There are enough without me."

"I guess you young aristocrats are never over-fond of doing much with your own arms and legs."

"I don't know about that; polo, you know, for the legs, and lawn-tennis for the arms, is hard work enough."

"But it must always be something new-fangled; and after all it isn't of much account. Our young men like to have quite a time at dancing."

It all came through her nose! And she looked so common! What would the Duke say to her, or Mary, or even Gerald? The father was by no means so objectionable. He was a tall, straight, ungainly man, who always wore black clothes. He had dark, stiff, short hair, a long nose, and a forehead that was both high and broad. Ezekiel Boncassen was the very man,--from his appearance,--for a President of the United States; and there were men who talked of him for that high office. That he had never attended to politics was supposed to be in his favour. He had the reputation of being the most learned man in the States, and reputation itself often suffices to give a man dignity of manner. He, too, spoke through his nose, but the peculiar twang coming from a man would be supposed to be virile and incisive. From a woman, Lord Silverbridge thought it to be unbearable. But as to Isabel, had she been born within the confines of some lordly park in Hertfordshire, she could not have been more completely free from the abomination.

"I am sorry that you should not be enjoying yourself," said Mr. Boncassen, coming to his wife's relief.

"Nothing could have been nicer. To tell the truth, I am standing idle by way of showing my anger against your daughter, who would not dance with me."

"I am sure she would have felt herself honoured," said Mr. Boncassen.

"Who is the gentleman with her?" asked the mother.

"A particular friend of mine--Dolly Longstaff."

"Dolly!" ejaculated Mrs. Boncassen.

"Everybody calls him so. His real name I believe to be Adolphus."

"Is he,--is he--just anybody?" asked the anxious mother.

"He is a very great deal,--as people go here. Everybody knows him. He is asked everywhere, but he goes nowhere. The greatest compliment paid to you here is his presence."

"Nay, my Lord, there are the Countess Montague, and the Marchioness of Capulet, and Lord Tybalt, and--"

"They go everywhere. They are nobodies. It is a charity to even invite them. But to have had Dolly Longstaff once is a triumph for life."

"Laws!" said Mrs. Boncassen, looking hard at the young man who was dancing. "What has he done?"

"He never did anything in his life."

"I suppose he's very rich."

"I don't know. I should think not. I don't know anything about his riches, but I can assure you that having had him down here will quite give a character to the day."

In the meantime Dolly Longstaff was in a state of great excitement. Some part of the character assigned to him by Lord Silverbridge was true. He very rarely did go anywhere, and yet was asked to a great many places. He was a young man,--though not a very young man,--with a fortune of his own and the expectation of a future fortune. Few men living could have done less for the world than Dolly Longstaff,--and yet he had a position of his own. Now he had taken it into his head to fall in love with Miss Boncassen. This was an accident which had probably never happened to him before, and which had disturbed him much. He had known Miss Boncassen a week or two before Lord Silverbridge had seen her, having by some chance dined out and sat next to her. From that moment he had become changed, and had gone hither and thither in pursuit of the American beauty. His passion having become suspected by his companions had excited their ridicule. Nevertheless he had persevered;--and now he was absolutely dancing with the lady out in the open air. "If this goes on, your friends will have to look after you and put you somewhere," Mr. Lupton had said to him in one of the intervals of the dance. Dolly had turned round and scowled, and suggested that if Mr. Lupton would mind his own affairs it would be as well for the world at large.

At the present crisis Dolly was very much excited. When the dance was over, as a matter of course, he offered the lady his arm, and as a matter of course she accepted it. "You'll take a turn; won't you?" he said.

"It must be a very short turn," she said,--"as I am expected to make myself busy."

"Oh, bother that."

"It bothers me; but it has to be done."

"You have set everything going now. They'll begin dancing again without your telling them."

"I hope so."

"And I've got something I want to say."

"Dear me; what is it?"

They were now on a path close to the riverside, in which there were many loungers. "Would you mind coming up to the temple?" he said.

"What temple?"

"Oh such a beautiful place. The Temple of the Winds, I think they call it, or Venus;--or--or--Mrs. Arthur de Bever."

"Was she a goddess?"

"It is something built to her memory. Such a view of the river! I was here once before and they took me up there. Everybody who comes here goes and sees Mrs. Arthur de Bever. They ought to have told you."

"Let us go then," said Miss Boncassen. "Only it must not be long."

"Five minutes will do it all." Then he walked rather quickly up a flight of rural steps. "Lovely spot; isn't it?"

"Yes, indeed."

"That's Maidenhead Bridge;--that's--somebody's place;--and now I've got something to say to you."

"You're not going to murder me now you've got me up here alone?" said Miss Boncassen, laughing.

"Murder you!" said Dolly, throwing himself into an attitude that was intended to express devoted affection. "Oh no!"

"I am glad of that."

"Miss Boncassen!"

"Mr. Longstaff! If you sigh like that you'll burst yourself."

"I'll--what?"

"Burst yourself!" and she nodded her head at him.

Then he clapped his hands together, and turned his head away from her towards the little temple. "I wonder whether she knows what love is," he said, as though he were addressing himself to Mrs. Arthur de Bever.

"No, she don't," said Miss Boncassen.

"But I do," he shouted, turning back towards her. "I do. If any man were ever absolutely, actually, really in love, I am the man."

"Are you indeed, Mr. Longstaff? Isn't it pleasant?"

"Pleasant;--pleasant? Oh, it could be so pleasant."

"But who is the lady? Perhaps you don't mean to tell me that."

"You mean to say you don't know?"

"Haven't the least idea in life."

"Let me tell you then that it could only be one person. It never was but one person. It never could have been but one person. It is you." Then he put his hand well on his heart.

"Me!" said Miss Boncassen, choosing to be ungrammatical in order that he might be more absurd.

"Of course it is you. Do you think that I should have brought you all the way up here to tell you that I was in love with anybody else?"

"I thought I was brought to see Mrs. de Somebody, and the view."

"Not at all," said Dolly emphatically.

"Then you have deceived me."

"I will never deceive you. Only say that you will love me, and I will be as true to you as the North Pole."

"Is that true to me?"

"You know what I mean."

"But if I don't love you?"

"Yes, you do!"

"Do I?"

"I beg your pardon," said Dolly. "I didn't mean to say that. Of course a man shouldn't make sure of a thing."

"Not in this case, Mr. Longstaff; because really I entertain no such feeling."

"But you can if you please. Just let me tell you who I am."

"That will do no good whatever, Mr. Longstaff."

"Let me tell you at any rate. I have a very good income of my own as it is."

"Money can have nothing to do with it."

"But I want you to know that I can afford it. You might perhaps have thought that I wanted your money."

"I will attribute nothing evil to you, Mr. Longstaff. Only it is quite out of the question that I should--respond as I suppose you wish me to; and therefore, pray, do not say anything further."

She went to the head of the little steps but he interrupted her. "You ought to hear me," he said.

"I have heard you."

"I can give you as good a position as any man without a title in England."

"Mr. Longstaff, I rather fancy that wherever I may be I can make a position for myself. At any rate I shall not marry with the view of getting one. If my husband were an English Duke I should think myself nothing, unless I was something as Isabel Boncassen."

When she said this she did not bethink herself that Lord Silverbridge would in the course of nature become an English Duke. But the allusion to an English Duke told intensely on Dolly, who had suspected that he had a noble rival. "English Dukes aren't so easily got," he said.

"Very likely not. I might have expressed my meaning better had I said an English Prince."

"That's quite out of the question," said Dolly. "They can't do it,--by Act of Parliament,--except in a hugger-mugger left-handed way, that wouldn't suit you at all."

"Mr. Longstaff,--you must forgive me--if I say--that of all the gentlemen--I have ever met in this country or in any other--you are the--most obtuse." This she brought out in little disjointed sentences, not with any hesitation, but in a way to make every word she uttered more clear to an intelligence which she did not believe to be bright. But in this belief she did some injustice to Dolly. He was quite alive to the disgrace of being called obtuse, and quick enough to avenge himself at the moment.

"Am I?" said he. "How humble-minded you must be when you think me a fool because I have fallen in love with such a one as yourself."

"I like you for that," she replied laughing, "and withdraw the epithet as not being applicable. Now we are quits and can forget and forgive;--only let there be the forgetting."

"Never!" said Dolly, with his hand again on his heart.

"Then let it be a little dream of your youth,--that you once met a pretty American girl who was foolish enough to refuse all that you would have given her."

"So pretty! So awfully pretty!" Thereupon she curtsied. "I have seen all the handsome women in England going for the last ten years, and there has not been one who has made me think that it would be worth my while to get off my perch for her."

"And now you would desert your perch for me!"

"I have already."

"But you can get up again. Let it be all a dream. I know men like to have had such dreams. And in order that the dream may be pleasant the last word between us shall be kind. Such admiration from such a one as you is an honour,--and I will reckon it among my honours. But it can be no more than a dream." Then she gave him her hand. "It shall be so;--shall it not?" Then she paused. "It must be so, Mr. Longstaff."

"Must it?"

"That and no more. Now I wish to go down. Will you come with me? It will be better. Don't you think it is going to rain?"

Dolly looked up at the clouds. "I wish it would with all my heart."

"I know you are not so ill-natured. It would spoil all."

"You have spoiled all."

"No, no. I have spoiled nothing. It will only be a little dream about 'that strange American girl, who really did make me feel queer for half an hour.' Look at that. A great big drop--and the cloud has come over us as black as Erebus. Do hurry down." He was leading the way. "What shall we do for carriages to get us to the inn?"

"There's the summer-house."

"It will hold about half of us. And think what it will be to be in there waiting till the rain shall be over! Everybody has been so good-humoured and now they will be so cross!"

The rain was falling in big heavy drops, slow and far between, but almost black with their size. And the heaviness of the cloud which had gathered over them made everything black.

"Will you have my arm?" said Silverbridge, who saw Miss Boncassen scudding along, with Dolly Longstaff following as fast as he could.

"Oh dear no. I have got to mind my dress. There;--I have gone right into a puddle. Oh dear!" So she ran on, and Silverbridge followed close behind her, leaving Dolly Longstaff in the distance.

It was not only Miss Boncassen who got her feet into a puddle and splashed her stockings. Many did so who were not obliged by their position to maintain good-humour under their misfortunes. The storm had come on with such unexpected quickness that there had been a general stampede to the summer-house. As Isabel had said, there was comfortable room for not more than half of them. In a few minutes people were crushed who never ought to be crushed. A Countess for whom treble-piled sofas were hardly good enough was seated on the corner of a table till some younger and less gorgeous lady could be made to give way. And the Marchioness was declaring she was as wet through as though she had been dragged in a river. Mrs. Boncassen was so absolutely quelled as to have retired into the kitchen attached to the summer-house. Mr. Boncassen, with all his country's pluck and pride, was proving to a knot of gentlemen round him on the verandah, that such treachery in the weather was a thing unknown in his happier country. Miss Boncassen had to do her best to console the splashed ladies. "Oh Mrs. Jones, is it not a pity! What can I do for you?"

"We must bear it, my dear. It often does rain, but why on this special day should it come down out of buckets?"

"I never was so wet in all my life," said Dolly Longstaff, poking in his head.

"There's somebody smoking," said the Countess angrily. There was a crowd of men smoking out on the verandah. "I never knew anything so nasty," the Countess continued, leaving it in doubt whether she spoke of the rain, or the smoke, or the party generally.

Damp gauzes, splashed stockings, trampled muslins, and features which have perhaps known something of rouge and certainly encountered something of rain may be made, but can only, by supreme high breeding, be made compatible with good-humour. To be moist, muddy, rumpled and smeared, when by the very nature of your position it is your duty to be clear-starched up to the pellucidity of crystal, to be spotless as the lily, to be crisp as the ivy-leaf, and as clear in complexion as a rose,--is it not, O gentle readers, felt to be a disgrace? It came to pass, therefore, that many were now very cross. Carriages were ordered under the idea that some improvement might be made at the inn which was nearly a mile distant. Very few, however, had their own carriages, and there was jockeying for the vehicles. In the midst of all this Silverbridge remained as near to Miss Boncassen as circumstances would admit. "You are not waiting for me," she said.

"Yes, I am. We might as well go up to town together."

"Leave me with father and mother. Like the captain of a ship, I must be the last to leave the wreck."

"But I'll be the gallant sailor of the day who always at the risk of his life sticks to the skipper to the last moment."

"Not at all;--just because there will be no gallantry. But come and see us to-morrow and find out whether we have got through it alive."

XXXIII. The Langham Hotel

"What an abominable climate," Mrs. Boncassen had said when they were quite alone at Maidenhead.

"My dear, you didn't think you were to bring New York along with you when you came here," replied her husband.

"I wish I was going back to-morrow."

"That's a foolish thing to say. People here are very kind, and you are seeing a great deal more of the world than you would ever see at home. I am having a very good time. What do you say, Bell?"

"I wish I could have kept my stockings clean."

"But what about the young men?"

"Young men are pretty much the same everywhere, I guess. They never have their wits about them. They never mean what they say, because they don't understand the use of words. They are generally half impudent and half timid. When in love they do not at all understand what has befallen them. What they want they try to compass as a cow does when it stands stretching out its head towards a stack of hay which it cannot reach. Indeed there is no such thing as a young man, for a man is not really a man till he is middle-aged. But take them at their worst they are a deal too good for us, for they become men some day, whereas we must only be women to the end."

"My word, Bella!" exclaimed the mother.

"You have managed to be tolerably heavy upon God's creatures, taking them in a lump," said the father. "Boys, girls, and cows! Something has gone wrong with you besides the rain."

"Nothing on earth, sir,--except the boredom."

"Some young man has been talking to you, Bella."

"One or two, mother; and I got to be thinking if any one of them should ask me to marry him, and if moved by some evil destiny I were to take him, whether I should murder him, or myself, or run away with one of the others."

"Couldn't you bear with him till, according to your own theory, he would grow out of his folly?" said the father.

"Being a woman,--no. The present moment is always everything to me. When that horrid old harridan halloaed out that somebody was smoking, I thought I should have died. It was very bad just then."

"Awful!" said Mrs. Boncassen, shaking her head.

"I didn't seem to feel it much," said the father. "One doesn't look to have everything just what one wants always. If I did I should go nowhere;--but my total life would be less enjoyable. If ever you do get married, Bell, you should remember that."

"I mean to get married some day, so that I shouldn't be made love to any longer."

"I hope it will have that effect," said the father.

"Mr. Boncassen!" ejaculated the mother.

"What I say is true. I hope it will have that effect. It had with you, my dear."

"I don't know that people didn't think of me as much as of anybody else, even though I was married."

"Then, my dear, I never knew it."

Miss Boncassen, though she had behaved serenely and with good temper during the process of Dolly's proposal, had not liked it. She had a very high opinion of herself, and was certainly entitled to have it by the undisguised admiration of all that came near her. She was not more indifferent to the admiration of young men than are other young ladies. But she was not proud of the admiration of Dolly Longstaff. She was here among strangers whose ways were unknown to her, whose rank and standing in the world were vague to her, and wonderful in their dimness. She knew that she was associating with men very different from those at home where young men were supposed to be under the necessity of earning their bread. At New York she would dance, as she had said, with bank clerks. She was not prepared to admit that a young London lord was better than a New York bank clerk. Judging the men on their own individual merits she might find the bank clerk to be the better of the two. But a certain sweetness of the aroma of rank was beginning to permeate her republican senses. The softness of a life in which no occupation was compulsory had its charms for her. Though she had complained of the insufficient intelligence of young men she was alive to the delight of having nothings said to her pleasantly. All this had affected her so strongly that she had almost felt that a life among these English luxuries would be a pleasant life. Like most Americans who do not as yet know the country, she had come with an inward feeling that as an American and a republican she might probably be despised.

There is not uncommonly a savageness of self-assertion about Americans which arises from a too great anxiety to be admitted to fellowship with Britons. She had felt this, and conscious of reputation already made by herself in the social life of New York, she had half trusted that she would be well received in London, and had half convinced herself that she would be rejected. She had not been rejected. She must have become quite aware of that. She had dropped very quickly the idea that she would be scorned. Ignorant as she had been of English life, she perceived that she had at once become popular. And this had been so in spite of her mother's homeliness and her father's awkwardness. By herself and by her own gifts she had done it. She had found out concerning herself that she had that which would commend her to other society than that of the Fifth Avenue. Those lords of whom she had heard were as plenty with her as blackberries. Young Lord Silverbridge, of whom she was told that of all the young lords of the day he stood first in rank and wealth, was peculiarly her friend. Her brain was firmer than that of most girls, but even her brain was a little turned. She never told herself that it would be well for her to become the wife of such a one. In her more thoughtful moments she told herself that it would not be well. But still the allurement was strong upon her. Park Lane was sweeter than the Fifth Avenue. Lord Silverbridge was nicer than the bank clerk.

But Dolly Longstaff was not. She would certainly prefer the bank clerk to Dolly Longstaff. And yet Dolly Longstaff was the one among her English admirers who had come forward and spoken out. She did not desire that any one should come forward and speak out. But it was an annoyance to her that this special man should have done so.

The waiter at the Langham understood American ways perfectly, and when a young man called between three and four o'clock, asking for Mrs. Boncassen, said that Miss Boncassen was at home. The young man took off his hat, brushed up his hair, and followed the waiter up to the sitting-room. The door was opened and the young man was announced. "Mr. Longstaff."

Miss Boncassen was rather disgusted. She had had enough of this English lover. Why should he have come after what had occurred yesterday? He ought to have felt that he was absolved from the necessity of making personal inquiries. "I am glad to see that you got home safe," she said as she gave him her hand.

"And you too, I hope?"

"Well;--so, so; with my clothes a good deal damaged and my temper rather worse."

"I am so sorry."

"It should not rain on such days. Mother has gone to church."

"Oh;--indeed. I like going to church myself sometimes."

"Do you now?"

"I know what would make me like to go to church."

"And father is at the Athenæum. He goes there to do a little light reading in the library on Sunday afternoon."

"I shall never forget yesterday, Miss Boncassen."

"You wouldn't if your clothes had been spoilt as mine were."

"Money will repair that."

"Well; yes; but when I've had a petticoat flounced particularly to order I don't like to see it ill-treated. There are emotions of the heart which money can't touch."

"Just so;--emotions of the heart! That's the very phrase."

She was determined if possible to prevent a repetition of the scene which had taken place up at Mrs. de Bever's temple. "All my emotions are about my dress."

"All?"

"Well; yes; all. I guess I don't care much for eating and drinking." In saying this she actually contrived to produce something of a nasal twang.

"Eating and drinking!" said Dolly. "Of course they are necessities;--and so are clothes."

"But new things are such ducks!"

"Trowsers may be," said Dolly.

Then she took a prolonged gaze at him, wondering whether he was or was not such a fool as he looked. "How funny you are," she said.

"A man does not generally feel funny after going through what I suffered yesterday, Miss Boncassen."

"Would you mind ringing the bell?"

"Must it be done quite at once?"

"Quite,--quite," she said. "I can do it myself for the matter of that." And she rang the bell somewhat violently. Dolly sank back again into his seat, remarking in his usual apathetic way that he had intended to obey her behest but had not understood that she was in so great a hurry. "I am always in a hurry," she said. "I like things to be done--sharp." And she hit the table a crack. "Please bring me some iced water," this of course was addressed to the waiter. "And a glass for Mr. Longstaff."

"None for me, thank you."

"Perhaps you'd like soda and brandy?"

"Oh dear no;--nothing of the kind. But I am so much obliged to you all the same." As the water-bottle was in fact standing in the room, and as the waiter had only to hand the glass, all this created but little obstacle. Still it had its effect, and Dolly, when the man had retired, felt that there was a difficulty in proceeding. "I have called to-day--" he began.

"That has been so kind of you. But mother has gone to church."

"I am very glad that she has gone to church, because I wish to--"

"Oh laws! There's a horse has tumbled down in the street. I heard it."

"He has got up again," said Dolly, looking leisurely out of the window. "But as I was saying--"

"I don't think that the water we Americans drink can be good. It makes the women become ugly so young."

"You will never become ugly."

She got up and curtsied to him, and then, still standing, made him a speech. "Mr. Longstaff, it would be absurd of me to pretend not to understand what you mean. But I won't have any more of it. Whether you are making fun of me, or whether you are in earnest, it is just the same."

"Making fun of you!"

"It does not signify. I don't care which it is. But I won't have it. There!"

"A gentleman should be allowed to express his feelings and to explain his position."

"You have expressed and explained more than enough, and I won't have any more. If you will sit down and talk about something else, or else go away, there shall be an end of it;--but if you go on, I will ring the bell again. What can a man gain by going on when a girl has spoken as I have done?" They were both at this time standing up, and he was now as angry as she was.

"I've paid you the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman," he began.

"Very well. If I remember rightly I thanked you for it yesterday. If you wish it, I will thank you again to-day. But it is a compliment which becomes very much the reverse if it be repeated too often. You are sharp enough to understand that I have done everything in my power to save us both from this trouble."

"What makes you so fierce, Miss Boncassen?"

"What makes you so foolish?"

"I suppose it must be something peculiar to American ladies."

"Just that;--something peculiar to American ladies. They don't like--well; I don't want to say anything more that can be called fierce."

At this moment the door was again opened and Lord Silverbridge was announced. "Halloa, Dolly, are you here?"

"It seems that I am."

"And I am here too," said Miss Boncassen, smiling her prettiest.

"None the worse for yesterday's troubles, I hope?"

"A good deal the worse. I have been explaining all that to Mr. Longstaff, who has been quite sympathetic with me about my things."

"A terrible pity that shower," said Dolly.

"For you," said Silverbridge, "because, if I remember right, Miss Boncassen was walking with you;--but I was rather glad of it."

"Lord Silverbridge!"

"I regarded it as a direct interposition of Providence, because you would not dance with me."

"Any news to-day, Silverbridge?" asked Dolly.

"Nothing particular. They say that Coalheaver can't run for the Leger."

"What's the matter?" asked Dolly vigorously.

"Broke down at Ascot. But I daresay it's a lie."

"Sure to be a lie," said Dolly. "What do you think of Madame Scholzdam, Miss Boncassen?"

"I am not a good judge."

"Never heard anything equal to it yet in this world," said Dolly. "I wonder whether that's true about Coalheaver?"

"Tifto says so."

"Which at the present moment," asked Miss Boncassen, "is the greater favourite with the public, Madame Scholzdam or Coalheaver?"

"Coalheaver is a horse, Miss Boncassen."

"Oh,--a horse!"

"Perhaps I ought to say a colt."

"Oh,--a colt."

"Do you suppose, Dolly, that Miss Boncassen doesn't know all that?" asked Silverbridge.

"He supposes that my American ferocity has never been sufficiently softened for the reception of polite erudition."

"You two have been quarrelling, I fear."

"I never quarrel with a woman," said Dolly.

"Nor with a man in my presence, I hope," said Miss Boncassen.

"Somebody does seem to have got out of bed at the wrong side," said Silverbridge.

"I did," said Miss Boncassen. "I got out of bed at the wrong side. I am cross. I can't get over the spoiling of my flounces. I think you had better both go away and leave me. If I could walk about the room for half an hour and stamp my feet, I should get better." Silverbridge thought that as he had come last, he certainly ought to be left last. Miss Boncassen felt that, at any rate, Mr. Longstaff should go. Dolly felt that his manhood required him to remain. After what had taken place he was not going to leave the field vacant for another. Therefore he made no effort to move.

"That seems rather hard upon me," said Silverbridge. "You told me to come."

"I told you to come and ask after us all. You have come and asked after us, and have been informed that we are very bad. What more can I say? You accuse me of getting out of bed the wrong side, and I own that I did."

"I meant to say that Dolly Longstaff had done so."

"And I say it was Silverbridge," said Dolly.

"We aren't very agreeable together, are we? Upon my word I think you'd better both go." Silverbridge immediately got up from his chair; upon which Dolly also moved.

"What the mischief is up?" asked Silverbridge, when they were under the porch together.

"The truth is, you never can tell what you are to do with those American girls."

"I suppose you have been making up to her."

"Nothing in earnest. She seemed to me to like admiration; so I told her I admired her."

"What did she say then?"

"Upon my word, you seem to be very great at cross-examining. Perhaps you had better go back and ask her."

"I will, next time I see her." Then he stepped into his cab, and in a loud voice ordered the man to drive him to the Zoo. But when he had gone a little way up Portland Place, he stopped the driver and desired he might be taken back again to the hotel. As he left the vehicle he looked round for Dolly, but Dolly had certainly gone. Then he told the waiter to take his card to Miss Boncassen, and explain that he had something to say which he had forgotten.

"So you have come back again?" said Miss Boncassen, laughing.

"Of course I have. You didn't suppose I was going to let that fellow get the better of me. Why should I be turned out because he had made an ass of himself!"

"Who said he made an ass of himself?"

"But he had; hadn't he?"

"No;--by no means," said she after a little pause.

"Tell me what he had been saying."

"Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind. If I told you all he said, then I should have to tell the next man all that you may say. Would that be fair?"

"I should not mind," said Silverbridge.

"I dare say not, because you have nothing particular to say. But the principle is the same. Lawyers and doctors and parsons talk of privileged communications. Why should not a young lady have her privileged communications?"

"But I have something particular to say."

"I hope not."

"Why should you hope not?"

"I hate having things said particularly. Nobody likes conversation so well as I do; but it should never be particular."

"I was going to tell you that I came back to London yesterday in the same carriage with old Lady Clanfiddle, and that she swore that no consideration on earth would ever induce her to go to Maidenhead again."

"That isn't particular."

"She went on to say;--you won't tell of me; will you?"

"It shall all be privileged."

"She went on to say that Americans couldn't be expected to understand English manners."

"Perhaps they may be all the better for that."

"Then I spoke up. I swore I was awfully in love with you."

"You didn't."

"I did;--that you were, out and away, the finest girl I ever saw in my life. Of course you understand that her two daughters were there. And that as for manners,--unless the rain could be attributed to American manners,--I did not think anything had gone wrong."

"What about the smoking?"

"I told her they were all Englishmen, and that if she had been giving the party herself they would have smoked just as much. You must understand that she never does give any parties."

"How could you be so ill-natured?"

"There was ever so much more of it. And it ended in her telling me that I was a schoolboy. I found out the cause of it all. A great spout of rain had come upon her daughter's hat, and that had produced a most melancholy catastrophe."

"I would have given her mine willingly."

"An American hat;--to be worn by Lady Violet Clanfiddle!"

"It came from Paris last week, sir."

"But must have been contaminated by American contact."

"Now, Lord Silverbridge," said she, getting up, "if I had a stick I'd whip you."

"It was such fun."

"And you come here and tell it all to me?"

"Of course I do. It was a deal too good to keep it to myself. 'American manners!'" As he said this he almost succeeded in looking like Lady Clanfiddle.

At that moment Mr. Boncassen entered the room, and was immediately appealed to by his daughter. "Father, you must turn Lord Silverbridge out of the room."

"Dear me! If I must,--of course I must. But why?"

"He is saying everything horrid he can about Americans."

After this they settled down for a few minutes to general conversation, and then Lord Silverbridge again took his leave. When he was gone Isabel Boncassen almost regretted that the "something particular" which he had threatened to say had not been less comic in its nature.

XXXIV. Lord Popplecourt

When the reader was told that Lord Popplecourt had found Lady Cantrip very agreeable it is to be hoped that the reader was disgusted. Lord Popplecourt would certainly not have given a second thought to Lady Cantrip unless he had been specially flattered. And why should such a man have been flattered by a woman who was in all respects his superior? The reader will understand. It had been settled by the wisdom of the elders that it would be a good thing that Lord Popplecourt should marry Lady Mary Palliser.

The mutual assent which leads to marriage should no doubt be spontaneous. Who does not feel that? Young love should speak from its first doubtful unconscious spark,--a spark which any breath of air may quench or cherish,--till it becomes a flame which nothing can satisfy but the union of the two lovers. No one should be told to love, or bidden to marry, this man or that woman. The theory of this is plain to us all, and till we have sons or daughters whom we feel imperatively obliged to control, the theory is unassailable. But the duty is so imperative! The Duke had taught himself to believe that as his wife would have been thrown away on the world had she been allowed to marry Burgo Fitzgerald, so would his daughter be thrown away were she allowed to marry Mr. Tregear. Therefore the theory of spontaneous love must in this case be set aside. Therefore the spark,--would that it had been no more!--must be quenched. Therefore there could be no union of two lovers;--but simply a prudent and perhaps splendid marriage.

Lord Popplecourt was a man in possession of a large estate which was unencumbered. His rank in the peerage was not high; but his barony was of an old date,--and, if things went well with him, something higher in rank might be open to him. He had good looks of that sort which recommend themselves to pastors and masters, to elders and betters. He had regular features. He looked as though he were steady. He was not impatient nor rollicking. Silverbridge was also good-looking;--but his good looks were such as would give a pang to the hearts of anxious mothers of daughters. Tregear was the handsomest man of the three;--but then he looked as though he had no betters and did not care for his elders. Lord Popplecourt, though a very young man, had once stammered through half-a-dozen words in the House of Lords, and had been known to dine with the "Benevolent Funds." Lord Silverbridge had declared him to be a fool. No one thought him to be bright. But in the eyes of the Duke,--and of Lady Cantrip,--he had his good qualities.

But the work was very disagreeable. It was the more hard upon Lady Cantrip because she did not believe in it. If it could be done, it would be expedient. But she felt very strongly that it could not be done. No doubt that Lady Glencora had been turned from her evil destiny; but Lady Glencora had been younger than her daughter was now, and possessed of less character. Nor was Lady Cantrip blind to the difference between a poor man with a bad character, such as that Burgo had been, and a poor man with a good character, such as was Tregear. Nevertheless she undertook to aid the work, and condescended to pretend to be so interested in the portrait of some common ancestor as to persuade the young man to have it photographed, in order that the bringing down of the photograph might lead to something.

He took the photograph, and Lady Cantrip said very much to him about his grandmother, who was the old lady in question. "She could," she said, "just remember the features of the dear old woman." She was not habitually a hypocrite, and she hated herself for what she was doing, and yet her object was simply good,--to bring together two young people who might advantageously marry each other. The mere talking about the old woman would be of no service. She longed to bring out the offer plainly, and say, "There is Lady Mary Palliser. Don't you think she'd make a good wife for you?" But she could not, as yet, bring herself to be so indelicately plain. "You haven't seen the Duke since?" she asked.

"He spoke to me only yesterday in the House. I like the Duke."

"If I may be allowed to say so, it would be for your advantage that he should like you;--that is, if you mean to take a part in politics."

"I suppose I shall," said Popplecourt. "There isn't much else to do."

"You don't go to races?" He shook his head. "I am glad of that," said Lady Cantrip. "Nothing is so bad as the turf. I fear Lord Silverbridge is devoting himself to the turf."

"I don't think it can be good for any man to have much to do with Major Tifto. I suppose Silverbridge knows what he's about."

Here was an opportunity which might have been used. It would have been so easy for her to glide from the imperfections of the brother to the perfections of the sister. But she could not bring herself to do it quite at once. She approached the matter however as nearly as she could without making her grand proposition. She shook her head sadly in reference to Silverbridge, and then spoke of the Duke. "His father is so anxious about him."

"I dare say."

"I don't know any man who is more painfully anxious about his children. He feels the responsibility so much since his wife's death. There is Lady Mary."

"She's all right, I should say."

"All right! oh yes. But when a girl is possessed of so many things,--rank, beauty, intelligence, large fortune,--"

"Will Lady Mary have much?"

"A large portion of her mother's money, I should say. When all these things are joined together, a father of course feels most anxious as to their disposal."

"I suppose she is clever."

"Very clever," said Lady Cantrip.

"I think a girl may be too clever, you know," said Lord Popplecourt.

"Perhaps she may. But I know more who are too foolish. I am so much obliged to you for the photograph."

"Don't mention it."

"I really did mean that you should send a man down."

On that occasion the two young people did not see each other. Lady Mary did not come down, and Lady Cantrip lacked the courage to send for her. As it was, might it not be possible that the young man should be induced to make himself agreeable to the young lady without any further explanation? But love-making between young people cannot well take place unless they be brought together. There was a difficulty in bringing them together at Richmond. The Duke had indeed spoken of meeting Lord Popplecourt at dinner there;--but this was to have followed the proposition which Lady Cantrip should make to him. She could not yet make the proposition, and therefore she hardly knew how to arrange the dinner. She was obliged at last to let the wished-for lover go away without arranging anything. When the Duke should have settled his autumn plans, then an attempt must be made to induce Lord Popplecourt to travel in the same direction.

That evening Lady Cantrip said a few words to Mary respecting the proposed suitor. "There is nothing I have such a horror of as gambling," she said.

"It is dreadful."

"I am very glad to think that Nidderdale does not do anything of that sort." It was perhaps on the cards that Nidderdale should do things of which she knew nothing. "I hope Silverbridge does not bet."

"I don't think he does."

"There's Lord Popplecourt,--quite a young man,--with everything at his own disposal, and a very large estate. Think of the evil he might do if he were given that way."

"Does he gamble?"

"Not at all. It must be such a comfort to his mother!"

"He looks to me as though he never would do anything," said Lady Mary. Then the subject was dropped.

It was a week after this, towards the end of July, that the Duke wrote a line to Lady Cantrip, apologising for what he had done, but explaining that he had asked Lord Popplecourt to dine at The Horns on a certain Sunday. He had, he said, been assured by Lord Cantrip that such an arrangement would be quite convenient. It was clear from his letter that he was much in earnest. Of course there was no reason why the dinner should not be eaten. Only the speciality of the invitation to Lord Popplecourt must not be so glaring that he himself should be struck by the strangeness of it. There must be a little party made up. Lord Nidderdale and his wife were therefore bidden to come down, and Silverbridge, who at first consented rather unwillingly,--and Lady Mabel Grex, as to whom the Duke made a special request that she might be asked. This last invitation was sent express from Lady Mary, and included Miss Cass. So the party was made up. The careful reader will perceive that there were to be ten of them.

"Isn't it odd papa wanting to have Lady Mabel?" Mary said to Lady Cantrip.

"Does he not know her, my dear?"

"He hardly ever spoke to her. I'll tell you what; I expect Silverbridge is going to marry her."

"Why shouldn't he?"

"I don't know why he shouldn't. She is very beautiful, and very clever. But if so, papa must know all about it. It does seem so odd that papa of all people should turn match-maker, or even that he should think of it."

"So much is thrown upon him now," said Lady Cantrip

"Poor papa!" Then she remembered herself, and spoke with a little start. "Of course I am not thinking of myself. Arranging a marriage is very different from preventing any one from marrying."

"Whatever he may think to be his duty he will be sure to do it," said the elder lady very solemnly.

Lady Mabel was surprised by the invitation, but she was not slow to accept it. "Papa will be here and will be so glad to meet you," Lady Mary had said. Why should the Duke of Omnium wish to meet her? "Silverbridge will be here too," Mary had gone on to say. "It is just a family party. Papa, you know, is not going anywhere; nor am I." By all this Lady Mabel's thoughts were much stirred, and her bosom somewhat moved. And Silverbridge also was moved by it. Of course he could not but remember that he had pledged himself to his father to ask Lady Mabel to be his wife. He had faltered since. She had been, he thought, unkind to him, or at any rate indifferent. He had surely said enough to her to make her know what he meant; and yet she had taken no trouble to meet him half way. And then Isabel Boncassen had intervened. Now he was asked to dinner in a most unusual manner!

Of all the guests invited Lord Popplecourt was perhaps the least disturbed. He was quite alive to the honour of being noticed by the Duke of Omnium, and alive also to the flattering courtesy shown to him by Lady Cantrip. But justice would not be done him unless it were acknowledged that he had as yet flattered himself with no hopes in regard to Lady Mary Palliser. He, when he prepared himself for his journey down to Richmond, thought much more of the Duke than of the Duke's daughter.

"Oh yes, I can drive you down if you like that kind of thing," Silverbridge said to him on the Saturday evening.

"And bring me back?"

"If you will come when I am coming. I hate waiting for a fellow."

"Suppose we leave at half-past ten."

"I won't fix any time; but if we can't make it suit there'll be the governor's carriage."

"Will the Duke go down in his carriage?"

"I suppose so. It's quicker and less trouble than the railway." Then Lord Popplecourt reflected that he would certainly come back with the Duke if he could so manage it, and there floated before his eyes visions of under-secretaryships, all of which might owe their origin to this proposed drive up from Richmond.

At six o'clock on the Sunday evening Silverbridge called for Lord Popplecourt. "Upon my word," said he, "I didn't ever expect to see you in my cab."

"Why not me especially?"

"Because you're not one of our lot."

"You'd sooner have Tifto, I dare say."

"No, I wouldn't. Tifto is not at all a pleasant companion, though he understands horses. You're going in for heavy politics, I suppose."

"Not particularly heavy."

"If not, why on earth does my governor take you up? You won't mind my smoking, I dare say." After this there was no conversation between them.

Chapter XXXV

"Don't You Think--?"

It was pretty to see the Duke's reception of Lady Mabel. "I knew your mother many years ago," he said, "when I was young myself. Her mother and my mother were first cousins and dear friends." He held her hand as he spoke and looked at her as though he meant to love her. Lady Mabel saw that it was so. Could it be possible that the Duke had heard anything;--that he should wish to receive her? She had told herself and had told Miss Cassewary that though she had spared Silverbridge, yet she knew that she would make him a good wife. If the Duke thought so also, then surely she need not doubt.

"I knew we were cousins," she said, "and have been so proud of the connection! Lord Silverbridge does come and see us sometimes."

Soon after that Silverbridge and Popplecourt came in. If the story of the old woman in the portrait may be taken as evidence of a family connexion between Lady Cantrip and Lord Popplecourt, everybody there was more or less connected with everybody else. Nidderdale had been a first cousin of Lady Glencora, and he had married a daughter of Lady Cantrip. They were manifestly a family party,--thanks to the old woman in the picture.

It is a point of conscience among the--perhaps not ten thousand, but say one thousand of bluest blood,--that everybody should know who everybody is. Our Duke, though he had not given his mind much to the pursuit, had nevertheless learned his lesson. It is a knowledge which the possession of the blue blood itself produces. There are countries with bluer blood than our own in which to be without such knowledge is a crime.

When the old lady in the portrait had been discussed, Popplecourt was close to Lady Mary. They two had no idea why such vicinity had been planned. The Duke knew, of course, and Lady Cantrip. Lady Cantrip had whispered to her daughter that such a marriage would be suitable, and the daughter had hinted it to her husband. Lord Cantrip of course was not in the dark. Lady Mabel had expressed a hint on the matter to Miss Cass, who had not repudiated it. Even Silverbridge had suggested to himself that something of the kind might be in the wind, thinking that, if so, none of them knew much about his sister Mary. But Popplecourt himself was divinely innocent. His ideas of marriage had as yet gone no farther than a conviction that girls generally were things which would be pressed on him, and against which he must arm himself with some shield. Marriage would have to come, no doubt; but not the less was it his duty to live as though it were a pit towards which he would be tempted by female allurements. But that a net should be spread over him here he was much too humble-minded to imagine.

"Very hot," he said to Lady Mary.

"We found it warm in church to-day."

"I dare say. I came down here with your brother in his hansom cab. What a very odd thing to have a hansom cab!"

"I should like one."

"Should you indeed?"

"Particularly if I could drive it myself. Silverbridge does, at night, when he thinks people won't see him."

"Drive the cab in the streets! What does he do with his man?"

"Puts him inside. He was out once without the man and took up a fare,--an old woman, he said. And when she was going to pay him he touched his hat and said he never took money from ladies."

"Do you believe that?"

"Oh yes. I call that good fun, because it did no harm. He had his lark. The lady was taken where she wanted to go, and she saved her money."

"Suppose he had upset her," said Lord Popplecourt, looking as an old philosopher might have looked when he had found some clenching answer to another philosopher's argument.

"The real cabman might have upset her worse," said Lady Mary.

"Don't you feel it odd that we should meet here?" said Lord Silverbridge to his neighbour, Lady Mabel.

"Anything unexpected is odd," said Lady Mabel. It seemed to her to be very odd,--unless certain people had made up their minds as to the expediency of a certain event.

"That is what you call logic;--isn't it? Anything unexpected is odd!"

"Lord Silverbridge, I won't be laughed at. You have been at Oxford and ought to know what logic is."

"That at any rate is ill-natured," he replied, turning very red in the face.

"You don't think I meant it. Oh, Lord Silverbridge, say that you don't think I meant it. You cannot think I would willingly wound you. Indeed, indeed, I was not thinking." It had in truth been an accident. She could not speak aloud because they were closely surrounded by others, but she looked up in his face to see whether he were angry with her. "Say that you do not think I meant it."

"I do not think you meant it."

"I would not say a word to hurt you,--oh, for more than I can tell you."

"It is all bosh, of course," he said laughing; "but I do not like to hear the old place named. I have always made a fool of myself. Some men do it and don't care about it. But I do it, and yet it makes me miserable."

"If that be so you will soon give over making--what you call a fool of yourself. For myself I like the idea of wild oats. I look upon them like measles. Only you should have a doctor ready when the disease shows itself."

"What sort of a doctor ought I to have?"

"Ah;--you must find out that yourself. That sort of feeling which makes you feel miserable;--that is a doctor itself."

"Or a wife?"

"Or a wife,--if you can find a good one. There are wives, you know, who aggravate the disease. If I had a fast husband I should make him faster by being fast myself. There is nothing I envy so much as the power of doing half-mad things."

"Women can do that too."

"But they go to the dogs. We are dreadfully restricted. If you like champagne you can have a bucketful. I am obliged to pretend that I only want a very little. You can bet thousands. I must confine myself to gloves. You can flirt with any woman you please. I must wait till somebody comes,--and put up with it if nobody does come."

"Plenty come, no doubt."

"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!

XXXVI. Tally-Ho Lodge

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 the d---- 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 equal terms--"

"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 be d----. 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?

XXXVII. Grex

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 Miss Cass--"

"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 for money--"

"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, Miss Cass--"

"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.

XXXVIII. Crummie-Toddie

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.

XXXIX. Killancodlem

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."

"Indeed, indeed I am."

"Then I will say good-night, and think about it. Everybody is going. We will have our game to-morrow at any rate."

When he went to his room he found the ring on his dressing-table.

Chapter XL

"And Then!"

On the next morning Miss Boncassen did not appear at breakfast. Word came that she had been so fatigued by the lawn-tennis as not to be able to leave her bed. "I have been to her," said Mrs. Montacute Jones, whispering to Lord Silverbridge, as though he were particularly interested. "There's nothing really the matter. She will be down to lunch."

"I was afraid she might be ill," said Silverbridge, who was now hardly anxious to hide his admiration.

"Oh no;--nothing of that sort; but she will not be able to play again to-day. It was your fault. You should not have made her dance last night." After that Mrs. Jones said a word about it all to Lady Mabel. "I hope the Duke will not be angry with me."

"Why should he be angry with you?"

"I don't suppose he will approve of it, and perhaps he'll say I brought them together on purpose."

Soon afterwards Mabel asked Silverbridge to walk with her to the waterfall. She had worked herself into such a state of mind that she hardly knew what to do, what to wish, or how to act. At one moment she would tell herself that it was better in every respect that she should cease to think of being Duchess of Omnium. It was not fit that she should think of it. She herself cared but little for the young man, and he--she would tell herself--now appeared to care as little for her. And yet to be Duchess of Omnium! But was it not clear that he was absolutely in love with this other girl? She had played her cards so badly that the game was now beyond her powers. Then other thoughts would come. Was it beyond her powers? Had he not told her in London that he loved her? Had he not given her the ring which she well knew he valued? Ah;--if she could but have been aware of all that had passed between Silverbridge and the Duke, how different would have been her feelings! And then would it not be so much better for him that he should marry her, one of his own class, than this American girl, of whom nobody knew anything? And then,--to be the daughter of the Duke of Omnium, to be the future Duchess, to escape from all the cares which her father's vices and follies had brought upon her, to have come to an end of all her troubles! Would it not be sweet?

She had made her mind up to nothing when she asked him to walk up to the waterfall. There was present to her only the glimmer of an idea that she ought to caution him not to play with the American girl's feelings. She knew herself to be aware that, when the time for her own action came, her feminine feelings would get the better of her purpose. She could not craftily bring him to the necessity of bestowing himself upon her. Had that been within the compass of her powers, opportunities had not been lacking to her. On such occasions she had always "spared him." And should the opportunity come again, again she would spare him. But she might perhaps do some good,--not to herself, that was now out of the question,--but to him, by showing him how wrong he was in trifling with this girl's feelings.

And so they started for their walk. He of course would have avoided it had it been possible. When men in such matters have two strings to their bow, much inconvenience is felt when the two become entangled. Silverbridge no doubt had come over to Killancodlem for the sake of making love to Mabel Grex, and instead of doing so he had made love to Isabel Boncassen. And during the watches of the night, and as he had dressed himself in the morning, and while Mrs. Jones had been whispering to him her little bulletin as to the state of the young lady's health, he had not repented himself of the change. Mabel had been, he thought, so little gracious to him that he would have given up that notion earlier, but for his indiscreet declaration to his father. On the other hand, making love to Isabel Boncassen seemed to him to possess some divine afflatus of joy which made it of all imaginable occupations the sweetest and most charming. She had admitted of no embrace. Indeed he had attempted none, unless that touch of the hand might be so called, from which she had immediately withdrawn. Her conduct had been such that he had felt it to be incumbent on him, at the very moment, to justify the touch by a declaration of love. Then she had told him that she would not promise to love him in return. And yet it had been so sweet, so heavenly sweet!

During the morning he had almost forgotten Mabel. When Mrs. Jones told him that Isabel would keep her room, he longed to ask for leave to go and make some inquiry at the door. She would not play lawn-tennis with him. Well;--he did not now care much for that. After what he had said to her she must at any rate give him some answer. She had been so gracious to him that his hopes ran very high. It never occurred to him to fancy that she might be gracious to him because he was heir to the Dukedom of Omnium. She herself was so infinitely superior to all wealth, to all rank, to all sublunary arrangements, conventions, and considerations, that there was no room for confidence of that nature. But he was confident because her smile had been sweet, and her eyes bright,--and because he was conscious, though unconsciously conscious, of something of the sympathy of love.

But he had to go to the waterfall with Mabel. Lady Mabel was always dressed perfectly,--having great gifts of her own in that direction. There was a freshness about her which made her morning costume more charming than that of the evening, and never did she look so well as when arrayed for a walk. On this occasion she had certainly done her best. But he, poor blind idiot, saw nothing of this. The white gauzy fabric which had covered Isabel's satin petticoat on the previous evening still filled his eyes. Those perfect boots, the little glimpses of party-coloured stockings above them, the looped-up skirt, the jacket fitting but never binding that lovely body and waist, the jaunty hat with its small fresh feathers, all were nothing to him. Nor was the bright honest face beneath the hat anything to him now;--for it was an honest face, though misfortunes which had come had somewhat marred the honesty of the heart.

At first the conversation was about indifferent things,--Killancodlem and Mrs. Jones, Crummie-Toddie and Reginald Dobbes. They had gone along the high-road as far as the post-office, and had turned up through the wood and reached a seat whence there was a beautiful view down upon the Archay, before a word was said affecting either Miss Boncassen or the ring. "You got the ring safe?" she said.

"Oh yes."

"How could you be so foolish as to risk it?"

"I did not regard it as mine. You had accepted it,--I thought."

"But if I had, and then repented of my fault in doing so, should you not have been willing to help me in setting myself right with myself? Of course, after what had passed, it was a trouble to me when it came. What was I to do? For a day or two I thought I would take it, not as liking to take it, but as getting rid of the trouble in that way. Then I remembered its value, its history, the fact that all who knew you would want to know what had become of it,--and I felt that it should be given back. There is only one person to whom you must give it."

"Who is that?" he said quickly.

"Your wife;--or to her who is to become your wife. No other woman can be justified in accepting such a present."

"There has been a great deal more said about it than it's worth," said he, not anxious at the present moment to discuss any matrimonial projects with her. "Shall we go on to the Fall?" Then she got up and led the way till they came to the little bridge from which they could see the Falls of the Codlem below them. "I call that very pretty," he said.

"I thought you would like it."

"I never saw anything of that kind more jolly. Do you care for scenery, Mabel?"

"Very much. I know no pleasure equal to it. You have never seen Grex?"

"Is it like this?"

"Not in the least. It is wilder than this, and there are not so many trees; but to my eyes it is very beautiful. I wish you had seen it."

"Perhaps I may some day."

"That is not likely now," she said. "The house is in ruins. If I had just money enough to keep it for myself, I think I could live alone there and be happy."

"You;--alone! Of course you mean to marry?"

"Mean to marry! Do persons marry because they mean it? With nineteen men out of twenty the idea of marrying them would convey the idea of hating them. You can mean to marry. No doubt you do mean it."

"I suppose I shall,--some day. How very well the house looks from here." It was incumbent upon him at the present moment to turn the conversation.

But when she had a project in her head it was not so easy to turn her away. "Yes, indeed," she said, "very well. But as I was saying,--you can mean to marry."

"Anybody can mean it."

"But you can carry out a purpose. What are you thinking of doing now?"

"Upon my honour, Mabel, that is unfair."

"Are we not friends?"

"I think so."

"Dear friends?"

"I hope so."

"Then may I not tell you what I think? If you do not mean to marry that American young lady you should not raise false hopes."

"False--hopes!" He had hopes, but he had never thought that Isabel could have any.

"False hopes;--certainly. Do you not know that everyone was looking at you last night?"

"Certainly not."

"And that that old woman is going about talking of it as her doing, pretending to be afraid of your father, whereas nothing would please her better than to humble a family so high as yours."

"Humble!" exclaimed Lord Silverbridge.

"Do you think your father would like it? Would you think that another man would be doing well for himself by marrying Miss Boncassen?"

"I do," said he energetically.

"Then you must be very much in love with her."

"I say nothing about that."

"If you are so much in love with her that you mean to face the displeasure of all your friends--"

"I do not say what I mean. I could talk more freely to you than to any one else, but I won't talk about that even to you. As regards Miss Boncassen, I think that any man might marry her, without discredit. I won't have it said that she can be inferior to me,--or to anybody."

There was a steady manliness in this which took Lady Mabel by surprise. She was convinced that he intended to offer his hand to the girl, and now was actuated chiefly by a feeling that his doing so would be an outrage to all English propriety. If a word might have an effect it would be her duty to speak that word. "I think you are wrong there, Lord Silverbridge."

"I am sure I am right."

"What have you yourself felt about your sister and Mr. Tregear?"

"It is altogether different;--altogether. Frank's wife will be simply his wife. Mine, should I outlive my father, will be Duchess of Omnium."

"But your father? I have heard you speak with bitter regret of this affair of Lady Mary's, because it vexes him. Would your marriage with an American lady vex him less?"

"Why should it vex him at all? Is she vulgar, or ill to look at, or stupid?"

"Think of her mother."

"I am not going to marry her mother. Nor for the matter of that am I going to marry her. You are taking all that for granted in a most unfair way."

"How can I help it after what I saw yesterday?"

"I will not talk any more about it. We had better go down or we shall get no lunch." Lady Mabel, as she followed him, tried to make herself believe that all her sorrow came from regret that so fine a scion of the British nobility should throw himself away upon an American adventuress.

The guests were still at lunch when they entered the dining-room, and Isabel was seated close to Mrs. Jones. Silverbridge at once went up to her,--and place was made for him as though he had almost a right to be next to her. Miss Boncassen herself bore her honours well, seeming to regard the little change at table as though it was of no moment. "I became so eager about that game," she said, "that I went on too long."

"I hope you are now none the worse."

"At six o'clock this morning I thought I should never use my legs again."

"Were you awake at six?" said Silverbridge, with pitying voice.

"That was it. I could not sleep. Now I begin to hope that sooner or later I shall unstiffen."

During every moment, at every word that he uttered, he was thinking of the declaration of love which he had made to her. But it seemed to him as though the matter had not dwelt on her mind. When they drew their chairs away from the table he thought that not a moment was to be lost before some further explanation of their feelings for each other should be made. Was not the matter which had been so far discussed of vital importance for both of them? And, glorious as she was above all other women, the offer which he had made must have some weight with her. He did not think that he proposed to give more than she deserved, but still, that which he was so willing to give was not a little. Or was it possible that she had not understood his meaning? If so, he would not willingly lose a moment before he made it plain to her. But she seemed content to hang about with the other women, and when she sauntered about the grounds seated herself on a garden-chair with Lady Mabel, and discussed with great eloquence the general beauty of Scottish scenery. An hour went on in this way. Could it be that she knew that he had offered to make her his wife? During this time he went and returned more than once, but still she was there, on the same garden-seat, talking to those who came in her way.

Then on a sudden she got up and put her hand on his arm. "Come and take a turn with me," she said. "Lord Silverbridge, do you remember anything of last night?"

"Remember!"

"I thought for a while this morning that I would let it pass as though it had been mere trifling."

"It would have wanted two to let it pass in that way," he said, almost indignantly.

On hearing this she looked up at him, and there came over her face that brilliant smile, which to him was perhaps the most potent of her spells. "What do you mean by--wanting two?"

"I must have a voice in that as well as you."

"And what is your voice?"

"My voice is this. I told you last night that I loved you. This morning I ask you to be my wife."

"It is a very clear voice," she said,--almost in a whisper; but in a tone so serious that it startled him.

"It ought to be clear," he said doggedly.

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think that if I liked you well last night I don't like you better now?"

"But do you--like me?"

"That is just the thing I am going to say nothing about."

"Isabel!"

"Just the one thing I will not allude to. Now you must listen to me."

"Certainly."

"I know a great deal about you. We Americans are an inquiring people, and I have found out pretty much everything." His mind misgave him as he felt she had ascertained his former purpose respecting Mabel. "You," she said, "among young men in England are about the foremost, and therefore,--as I think,--about the foremost in the world. And you have all personal gifts;--youth and spirits-- Well, I will not go on and name the others. You are, no doubt, supposed to be entitled to the best and sweetest of God's feminine creatures."

"You are she."

"Whether you be entitled to me or not I cannot yet say. Now I will tell you something of myself. My father's father came to New York as a labourer from Holland, and worked upon the quays in that city. Then he built houses, and became rich, and was almost a miser;--with the good sense, however, to educate his only son. What my father is you see. To me he is sterling gold, but he is not like your people. My dear mother is not at all like your ladies. She is not a lady in your sense,--though with her unselfish devotion to others she is something infinitely better. For myself I am,--well, meaning to speak honestly, I will call myself pretty and smart. I think I know how to be true."

"I am sure you do."

"But what right have you to suppose I shall know how to be a Duchess?"

"I am sure you will."

"Now listen to me. Go to your friends and ask them. Ask that Lady Mabel;--ask your father;--ask that Lady Cantrip. And above all, ask yourself. And allow me to require you to take three months to do this. Do not come to see me for three months."

"And then?"

"What may happen then I cannot tell, for I want three months also to think of it myself. Till then, good-bye." She gave him her hand and left it in his for a few seconds. He tried to draw her to him; but she resisted him, still smiling. Then she left him.