"I have not the least notion of what you mean," she said, haughtily.
"Then I will speak more plainly. I have fallen in love with you, Miss Grahame. It seems to me that I have been in love with you for years; but, as you say that is impossible, I will only date it from last week. It was not only that I saw and spoke to you, but I heard your character described in a few words by Mrs. Vandeleur, who, for all her touch of charlatanism, understands the natures of those about her. Shall I tell you her words? She said you were 'a creature of perfect purity and truth, unsullied by thoughts of love or money.' Thoughts of love would only sweeten, and not sully, such a character; but let that pass. I love you, Miss Grahame, and I want in time to persuade you to love me. That is the explanation of what you call my cowardly and offensive conduct."
Laline stopped short in her walk and looked at him intently. It was past five o'clock, but the sky was lighter since the snowfall and she could see his face clearly, the broad forehead and straight nose, the square outline, firm jaw, and handsome mouth softened now into tenderness, the clear olive skin and crisply curling black hair. Every feature seemed refined and idealised from what she remembered of the man a few years before, at which time his mouth was hidden under a heavy moustache and his brow darkened by loosely-falling hair. Only the eyes were the same in shape and colour, a clear blue, under the unusual setting of jet-black lashes and eyebrows; but in Wallace Armstrong's eyes, as they now met those of Laline's, a soft light was shining, making them unlike any she had ever yet beheld. And, as she gazed, this proud and self-reliant maiden, who so much wished to convince herself that she could never forgive this man, experienced the most unaccountable desire to creep into his arms under the protecting umbrella and whisper in his ear that she was not in the least angry with him and was really his wife all the time.
This sudden impulse Laline strongly combated. What right had this man, who knew himself to be married, to go about making love to unsuspecting girls? she asked herself, steeling her heart against him and reminding herself that to Clare also he had in all probability made similar overtures.
"I will try to forget all the absurd things you have said, Mr. Armstrong," she was beginning very gravely, when again he interrupted her.
"That is just what I don't want you to do! I want you, on the contrary, to remember every word, and to think of me when you get home, and try to get used to the idea of me. Then when you come to tea next week at my uncle's house——"
"I cannot come, as I told you, Mr. Armstrong. Dependants are not in the habit of making social calls with their employers."
"If you so greatly resent being in a position of what you call dependance, surely you will not be unwilling to change it?" he suggested.
They were close to the gates at the corner of the Gardens now, and Laline held out her hand.
"Good-bye!" she said. "I prefer to walk to the Crescent alone."
"Good-bye!" he said, and held her hand close in his. "But I can't quite let you go like this," he added, deprecatingly, still retaining her hand. "You haven't even told me whether you mean to leave off disliking me."
"I have told you before that I much object to that flirting manner!" she said, severely.
"And I have told you," he retorted, "that it's the only manner I know—or that I dare employ!" he added, in a lower voice.
"If you wish to be a friend of mine——"
"I wish to be more than a friend."
"Really, Mr. Armstrong, this is absurd! Please let my hand go at once. I cannot stand here with you like——"
"Like lovers?"
"Like two people in a Christmas number."
"I can't let you go until you promise to try and like me."
"You tell me of your dreams and presentiments and fancies," she said, with sudden fire; "perhaps I, too, have fanciful ideas about people, and in my mind may have just as much reason for disliking you as you have for liking me!"
"Not liking—loving."
"Well, and not disliking—hating!" she cried, drawing her hand sharply away from his.
"I would rather you hated me than that you were indifferent—extremes meet. You will come to my uncle's, will you not, Miss Grahame?"
"Extremes meet, but we need not!" she returned, with a sudden school-girl pertness, which made him burst out laughing. Before he had recovered his gravity she had dashed past him through the park gate, and in a few minutes' time had arrived, breathless, before the doors of 21, Queen Mary Crescent.
Up to her own room she ran as soon as Susan opened the front door.
"I declare," she exclaimed, as she saw her blushing face in the glass, "I look like a jubilant nursemaid who has just parted from her 'young man'! And so I have, I suppose; but the odd part of it is that I don't seem to feel afraid of him now. I even have a sort of sneaking regard for him—almost a liking, it might be called, if I didn't know what a fearfully bad man he is. He must be a marvellously clever actor, for he doesn't look in the least cruel or callous, or like a forger or drunkard or bully. I remember I always thought that he was very handsome, and that he had the most beautiful blue eyes. I suppose he must have come right over to England when I disappeared, and persuaded his uncle to forgive him, and reformed. He half-recognised me as soon as he saw me; but he doesn't realise that growing up and putting my hair up have altered me just as shaving his moustache and having his hair out have altered him. He must know the truth sooner or later, I suppose, and then—will he be glad or sorry, I wonder? Now, of course, he makes love to any girl he pleases, knowing quite well that he is safely married, though nobody suspects it. But if I were to turn upon him in a majestic way and say, 'Sir, I am your wife already!' he wouldn't perhaps be quite so pleased. And, by-the-bye, in all his talk he never committed himself by mentioning marriage, which was very artful of him!"
CHAPTER XIII.
In spite of Wallace Armstrong's entreaties, Laline could not alter her arrangement not to make the acquaintance of Alexander Wallace; for when Mrs. Vandeleur fixed upon the following Wednesday as the afternoon on which she would call at the bank, the young secretary had already announced to her employer her wish to remain at home.
"You are very right," the little lady had observed, "to avoid Mr. Armstrong if his society is uncongenial to you. Those strong instincts of liking and of hating are given to us women as safeguards. Although to my mind Mr. Armstrong is wholly sympathetic, if a secret voice tells you to beware of him, it is that of some beneficent spirit of the so-called dead, who see with fleshless eyes through the fleshly veil into the soul, and know that this man's society would be in some way harmful to you."
Laline was growing accustomed by this time to Mrs. Vandeleur's singular methods of expression. A strong liking had grown up between them, although the elder woman was hardly sufficiently human in her ways of thought to constitute a true friend. But Laline dared not confide in her, for many reasons, so she let her statements pass without comment. So far from cherishing any sentiment of repulsion against Wallace Armstrong, she could hardly keep her thoughts from dwelling on the subject of his tender speeches and tenderer eyes; and it was only by constantly reminding herself of the mean and cowardly trick by which he had become her husband that she was enabled to preserve any lingering resentment against him.
On the Tuesday evening before Mrs. Vandeleur's promised visit to Mr. Wallace's house Laline received the first approach to a love letter she had ever had despatched to her. Dinner was over, and she was engaged in writing in the study at Mrs. Vandeleur's dictation, when the postman's knock preluded the tap at the door of Susan and her entrance with a salver, upon which were two letters, one for the mistress of the house, and the other for Miss Lina Grahame.
"A letter for you, my child," said the elder lady, peering at the address through her eye-glass—"the first you have received since your arrival."
Long before Laline had opened it or even glanced at the handwriting on the envelope, she knew that Wallace Armstrong was her correspondent, and felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair under Mrs. Vandeleur's critical scrutiny.
"Do you know the writing?" the latter asked; and Laline replied with perfect truth that she had never seen it before.
"My dear Miss Grahame," the letter began—"I am writing to entreat you to come with Mrs. Vandeleur to-morrow. Even if you don't like me you would most certainly like my uncle, who is one of the noblest and best of men, generous and forgiving to a fault, and one who, in spite of his wealth, has suffered many deep and bitter trials in what to him has been far more important than money, his domestic affection. He is very old and very lonely, though with his chivalrous kindness towards all women he is the very man who should by rights be surrounded by a happy family circle. I owe everything to him, and can hardly with a lifelong devotion repay his more than fatherly goodness. I am sure that you are gentle and pitiful as you are beautiful—'fair, kind, and true,' as Shakspere puts it. And, being all these things, won't you come, Miss Grahame, and, by giving yourself just a little trouble, and putting up for an hour or more with the presence of some one you hate, confer a great pleasure upon one of the best old men alive? I solemnly promise not to 'flirt,' as you call it. If I may not talk to you, I will console myself by talking of you to Mrs. Vandeleur, which is the next best thing. In my dream last night you promised to come. Be as sweet as your dream-prototype is the prayer of yours always devotedly,
"Wallace L. Armstrong."
This letter moved and interested Laline deeply. Since it was now impossible for her to accompany Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece, she felt that she must send a few words in answer, lest she might be thought too unfeeling. She was also very anxious to prevent Wallace from carrying out his threat of talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur. The latter had guessed already that she was a married woman; and might she not be capable of hinting as much to Mr. Armstrong under the mistaken impression that his attentions would be disagreeable to her secretary?
Lost in thought, Laline bent over the letter which lay on her lap, ignoring the steady, curious gaze of Mrs. Vandeleur's keen, dark eyes. The fact that it was absolutely the first letter she had ever received from her husband excited her strangely, and she found herself fingering the paper with a touch that was almost affectionate. It seemed a little in the light of a confession that Wallace should expatiate so much upon his uncle's generous and forgiving nature and fatherly goodness, and on his lonely life and domestic troubles.
"I believe—I want to believe that Wallace has utterly changed," she said to herself, with flushed cheeks and moist eyes. "If he were anything like the man he was four years and a half ago, when he entered into that horrible bargain with my father, he could never have written this letter. His uncle's goodness must have changed him by gradually softening his heart. And then—my father was so much older that he may have led him into things, and Wallace was penniless—perhaps I have been too hard in my judgment on him all these years, although I am afraid if it were all to happen again I should act in just the same way."
"Have you any letters to write, dear child?" Mrs. Vandeleur's silvery tones broke in. "I shall be sending Susan to the post with mine within the next half-hour."
"There is just one I want to write, if you please," the secretary answered.
And Mrs. Vandeleur obligingly made room for her at the other end of her writing-table.
Laline took a pen between her fingers; but the letter was not so easily written. There was very much she wished to tell Wallace Armstrong, and very much again that she did not want him to know. She wanted to tell him that she would willingly come to see his uncle, since he so much desired it, but that, having once refused, she did not see her way to changing her mind without exciting comment. She would also have liked him to know that she by no means hated him, that she might even in time be induced to like him very much, but that if he wished to please her he must refrain from talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur.
But she had no idea how to word her letter, and, even before writing it, she began to rack her brains in the vain endeavour to remember whether her husband possessed or had ever seen any of her handwriting.
Finally, having wasted more than ten minutes, she seized her pen and began the heading, "Dear Mr. Armstrong," hoping that other words would come.
A little laugh, like that of a mischievous fairy, made her start and drop the pen.
"'Dear Mr. Armstrong,' and nothing more?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked, mockingly. "That is not a very fluent love-letter for the poor young gentleman, is it?"
Laline looked at once astonished and confused. But Mrs. Vandeleur's prescience in this case was easily explained. She had recognised the writing on the envelope of Wallace's letter, and had watched Laline's fingers tracing three words, which she guessed to be those she quoted.
"You seem in a difficulty over your letter," the little lady suggested, in an insinuating tone. "Can I not help you in any way? I have some judgment, and my advice may be of value to you. What is it you want to say to Mr. Armstrong?"
Laline arose, agitated and nervous, and, tearing her letter across, dropped it in the fire.
"It isn't a bit necessary to send it at all," she said; "and that is what made it difficult to write. I met Mr. Armstrong in Kensington Gardens while you were out last Saturday afternoon, and I told him I did not wish to accompany you and Miss Gavan to tea at Mr. Alexander Wallace's. But he took it into his head to want me to go, and wrote to especially ask me. I wanted to write and say I couldn't change my mind—that is all."
"You mean that is all you are going to tell me?"
"I mean that is all that happened."
"Does Clare know?"
"Clare? Oh, no! Why should she?"
Mrs. Vandeleur shook her head.
"You know what I read in the cards about you yesterday," she said, mysteriously. "You must beware of the evil done by a red-haired woman and a black-haired man. Lina, tell me—is Wallace Armstrong in love with you?"
"How can he be when he has seen so little of me?" she asked, parrying the question, and partly vexed, partly glad to talk upon the subject.
Mrs. Vandeleur studied the girl's face through her eye-glasses. There was something about it which she did not understand and which she mistrusted. It was not yet the tremulous softness of love she read in the girl's lowered eyes and lips curved into a half-smile; but there was about her a look suggesting that she was secretly happy and amused over some knowledge she did not mean to share with others.
"You cannot love him, Lina," Mrs. Vandeleur reminded her, softly. "You are not free."
"No," Laline repeated—and her half-smile deepened—"I am not free. And now we won't talk about him, will we, dear Mrs. Vandeleur? And I sha'n't write the letter; I shall just stop away."
"Do you wish to go?"
Laline's lips were framing "No," when she stopped.
"I hardly know," she said, after a pause. "But I think I should like to go."
"I shall be strangely disappointed in you, Lina," said Mrs. Vandeleur, coldly, "if you encourage Mr. Armstrong to love you solely for vanity's sake."
The girl knelt down at Mrs. Vandeleur's feet and gazed earnestly up into her face.
"Trust me, dear Mrs. Vandeleur," she said, "for I shall never do that! But—but I heard a good deal about Mr. Armstrong before I came to your house at all, and there is much more about him that I want to find out."
"Does he know that you had any previous acquaintance with him?"
"He has no idea of it."
"He doesn't recognise you? That's strange! Was he at all in love with you before?"
"Oh, no!" the girl answered, with a very sad little smile. "If he had been——"
She did not finish her speech. In her own mind she was saying that, if Wallace Armstrong had indeed loved her at Boulogne, she would have been living by his side as his wife all these years in that very house to which she was hidden as a guest on the following day.
"Does Wallace Armstrong know your husband?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked, suddenly.
The blood swept over Laline's face as she answered,—
"Yes."
"And you want to find out about him?" pursued Mrs. Vandeleur. "Surely, if you detest and dread him so much, it would be wiser to restrain your curiosity."
"I want also to learn, if I can, whether my father is alive."
Mrs. Vandeleur threw up her little hands and sighed.
"Like all women," she murmured—"hankering after chains and slavery after being once freed from them. Our work together should absorb you, to the exclusion of such thoughts. But you shall go with me to-morrow, if you like. I knew that Wallace Armstrong's spirit was too fine to assimilate with that of Clare. Her destiny will lead her, late in life, to the arms of some stout and bald-headed stock-broker. When he is asleep, after dinner, she will flirt with his clerks or his partner, and be very happy; but you—life holds something very different in store for you. I suppose you must dree your weird. But remember, once you let love come into your life, trouble—terrible trouble—will come too!"
Secretly, Mrs. Vandeleur was very curious to see Laline and Wallace together. She interested herself readily in other people's affairs when these latter attracted her in any way—she liked to constitute herself a sort of deus ex machina in the lives of her friends, to pull the strings which moved their destinies; and the fact that both Laline and Wallace, whom she sincerely admired, declined to confide in her wholly, piqued her curiosity the more.
Against her niece Clare, on the other hand, Mrs. Vandeleur entertained a sentiment which was almost dislike; and she was annoyed to notice, on the following afternoon, when the two girls came down into the hall, ready dressed for their drive, that Clare, in a picturesque costume of red-brown cloth and beaver fur, appeared far more strikingly handsome at first sight than Laline, in the quietest of blue serge gowns and small black felt hat.
"Why have you those horrid, plain, masculine clothes on?" she inquired crossly of her secretary.
"They are my only walking things," Laline replied. "You know, dear Mrs. Vandeleur, I can't pay an afternoon call in those trailing white garments I wear in your room."
"Dear Lina would look like a ghost dropping into afternoon tea!" purred Clare, happy under the becoming framework of a red-brown velvet 'picture' hat and feathers. "I think she looks so sweet and neat in that dear little black felt hat and black cloth jacket!"
Mrs. Vandeleur snapped her glasses to and shut her mouth very hard. Then she ordered the girls into the brougham, and gave the coachman some order which they did not hear, but in consequence of which he drew up before a particularly smart millinery establishment on the way to the Strand.
Here Mrs. Vandeleur insisted that Laline should get out with her while Clare remained in the carriage, to which the little lady presently returned in triumph by the side of her secretary, in whose appearance a transformation had taken place by the substitution of a costly black velvet "picture" hat and graceful black velvet cape, trimmed with fur and lined with wine-coloured silk, for her former dowdy garments.
A flash of genuine anger passed into Clare's green eyes; but she was far too much afraid of her aunt to enter a protest, and declared, with apparent enthusiasm, that "dear Lina looked perfectly lovely; but then she looked that before!"
Wallace's Bank was a vast gloomy-looking building, of which a considerable frontage faced the Strand. It was built in a square, with a paved courtyard in the middle, which led from one portion of the Bank to the other. Alexander Wallace possessed many commodious houses in different parts of London, and notably a charming family mansion and estate at Hampstead. But he hated change and he hated moving a little more every year. His father and his grandfather had lived over the Bank, and what was good enough for them was good enough for him. His tastes were very simple, and in his personal expenses he was economical almost to miserliness; but his kindness of heart and generosity in cases of real distress were well known.
A sedate elderly man-servant opened the big doors which led into the private portion of the house, and the visitors found themselves in a small but very lofty hall, papered in old-fashioned unæsthetic drab, in which a fire was burning. Would the ladies mind coming up-stairs? the man asked, and proceeded to lead the way up several short flights of winding stairs and through a labyrinth of passages to a door, before which he paused.
"These are Mr. Armstrong's rooms," he explained, and forthwith showed the ladies into a good-sized apartment, distinguished by an appearance of extreme cosiness and bachelor comfort. The cheeriest of fires burned within the wide hearth, the furniture was of the saddle-bag order, roomy, and easy-giving, plush curtains drawn over the windows kept out all glimpse of the snowy night, and a multitude of clever water-colour sketches, chiefly of picturesque foreign scenery and of pretty girls, covered all the available wall space.
On a round table, set unfashionably in the centre of the room, a tempting array of cakes and sweets awaited the visitors; and the two occupants of the room—Wallace Armstrong and his uncle Alexander Wallace—rose at the visitors' entrance and advanced to greet them.
Laline's heart beat fast as she was formally introduced to the man who had long ago by letter welcomed her so warmly as a daughter. She felt she hardly dared to look up into his face lest he should read her secret in her eyes; but when she did at last summon up sufficient courage to do so, she was struck by the extreme benevolence of the old Scotchman's regard. Light gray eyes, at once keen and kind, looked out from his pale and deeply-furrowed face, which possessed but little of his nephew's beauty of outline. In spite of his great wealth, the banker's manner towards the three ladies was constrained and even shy, but full of a gentleness and consideration which won the heart of Laline.
"How kind a father he might have been to me all these years!" she thought.
CHAPTER XIV.
It seemed to Laline that Wallace Armstrong made no attempt to disguise the look of triumphant delight which spread over his face when she placed her hand in his.
"I was so afraid you wouldn't come!" he murmured.
"I was much pleased to accept your kind invitation," she returned, demurely, while Clare shot a quick glance of jealous inquiry from one to the other.
Miss Cavan could not, however, complain that the companion whose presence she so much objected to endeavoured in any way to outshine her in conversation. Laline scarcely spoke at all during tea, at which meal she presided behind the tea-urn, her manipulation of which filled Wallace with secret rapture. There was something so delightfully domestic in the sight of her slim wrists peeping from her neat blue-serge sleeves as she filled the cups, something so suggestive of honeymoon-breakfasts and little tête-à-tête meals on winter evenings, that it was as much as he could do to refrain from springing from his seat and proposing to her there and then, and prefacing his remarks with a kiss on each enchanting wrist.
Old Mr. Wallace sat stroking his silver-gray beard and gazing with much satisfaction on the assembled guests after they had taken their place round the tea-table. At length he turned to Mrs. Vandeleur, and addressed her in his usual slow tones, marked by a strong Scotch accent.
"I believe, madam," he said, "that I am very much behind the times. But I am an old man, and I live in a very old house and carry on a very old business, and that must be my excuse. My boy Wallace humours me; he knows I like a table to be where I'm used to seeing it—in the middle of the room—and the chairs drawn up round it, and so he puts it there. And now I am wondering whether the two charming young ladies you have brought with you to-day will humour me too?"
"In what, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Would they take off their hats while they are here?" he asked, with a wistful eagerness which touched Laline deeply. "You see," he added, apologetically, "this is not a fashionable call, and there are no fashionable people to meet you. And when I see young people about me without their hats it makes me feel for the time that they are not only visitors, but my own family."
Long before he had finished speaking Laline had removed her hat, much to Wallace's delight, and had confided it to him to place on one side for her, thus enabling him to feast his eyes upon her white brow and soft hair, waving in Madonna-like fashion over her temples and across the tips of her little pink ears.
"Have you no women-relations at all, then?" Mrs. Vandeleur inquired.
Alexander Wallace sighed and shook his head.
"None that I see now," he answered. "Of my twin-sisters, one, this boy's mother, is dead, and the other has married for the second time and lives in South America. Of my two nieces—this boy's sisters—one is dead, and the other married a German baron and lives with him in the Black Forest. I never see any of them. Once, more than four years ago, I expected a daughter to come into my house as my nephew's wife, a gentle and beautiful young girl, whom I longed to welcome to my heart. But it was not to be."
"Don't speak of that now, Uncle Alec," put in Wallace, quickly, throwing an uneasy glance in the direction of his guests; "it only makes you unhappy to recall that time!"
Laline watched both men with a fluttering heart. It was quite clear that Wallace wished to keep his uncle from the topic of the niece who never arrived, and as patent that the old gentleman was anxious to prose on the subject to sympathetic feminine listeners. The younger man at once strove to create a diversion by drawing Mrs. Vandeleur's attention to his sketches on the walls of the room; but old Mr. Wallace, who was very obstinate, returned to his former subject before the little lady had had time to express an opinion.
"This boy thinks of nothing but art and society, spelt with capital letters, you must know, Mrs. Vandeleur!" he broke in, testily. "I am fond of good pictures myself; but pictures won't fill an empty house with sunshine and laughter. That is what this house wants—young voices, music, and pattering feet to drive the ghosts away. My niece Laline would have been twenty-one by this time. I had prepared one entire floor for her at the Hampstead house, as well as three rooms here on the floor below this. Just what I thought a very young newly-married woman would like I put there—the newest novels, and fresh flowers, and pretty hangings, and cut-glass scent-bottles, and plenty of looking-glasses—all pretty girls like looking-glasses, and plain ones, too, for the matter of that. And I bought a canary for her, and a white Persian kitten, and a King Charles spaniel; that was the popular dog that year, and I know girls like pets and prefer them to be in the fashion. Then, when everything was prepared, and I was counting the hours until my nephew brought home his wife, I received a telegram to say that at the moment of starting she had been seized with typhoid fever and was already dangerously ill."
"How terribly sad!" ejaculated Mrs. Vandeleur, politely, while Clare yawned furtively, and Laline kept her eyes fixed on her plate lest they might betray her.
"You are making Mrs. Vandeleur quite miserable, Uncle Alec," put in Wallace, his black brows contracting into an impatient frown.
"My boy," observed his uncle, doggedly, "I am telling a story and I have not yet finished. As you know the end and do not appear to want to hear it again, I should advise you to make a tour of the room with the young ladies and show them your sketches!"
Clare rose with alacrity; but Laline declared that she preferred to listen to Mr. Wallace; so, much against his will, Mr. Armstrong had to pair off with Miss Gavan. Laline could see clearly how he tried to catch his uncle's words, even while conducting Clare round the walls and explaining to her his various drawings; but her interest was so centred in the story told by old Mr. Wallace that she had little attention to spare for his nephew.
"Constant telegrams were sent to me," the old gentleman proceeded, in great satisfaction at securing so absorbed a listener as Laline, "and I was making arrangements for going over to see for myself that the poor girl had the best of nursing, when I received a message telling me that my niece had succumbed to the disease and was already dead. Only seventeen, and a bride of a few weeks! It was indeed a cruel blow! But the part that especially grieved me, and of which I never think without the keenest self-reproach, is that when my nephew first arrived in Europe from the Colonies he was in dire straits for money and too proud to apply to me. His poor little bride had relatives in the town of Boulogne, and thither they made their way; but these relations were extremely poor and could do little for them. One of them, a Captain Garth, wrote me a most touching letter after the poor child's death—which I fear was hastened by the privations she had undergone—in which he detailed her last moments and her pitiful disappointment at not being able to see her beautiful English home. Poor little Laline! No one mourned her more sincerely than I. Her rooms in this house and at Hampstead have never been used since that time, and never will be until my nephew marries."
"You wish him to marry, then?" Mrs. Vandeleur suggested.
"Most earnestly I do. But, though I have nothing to complain of about him, and he is making amends to me in every way for the terrible trouble I have had, he seems strangely averse to settling down, and talks a great deal about failing to meet his ideal, and not being able to put up with any one else, and so on. Young men nowadays are too fond of talking about themselves and their feelings; and this boy is so popular, and gets invited out so much, that in the multitudes of fresh pretty faces he is constantly meeting he is in danger, I fear, of frittering his time away. Boating-parties in summer, perpetual racing and punting, riding, tennis, and golf, and in the winter balls and skating-parties—his time is so filled up that he doesn't have a moment left for love-making. With all that, he's an excellent man of business and invaluable to me at the Bank. Oh, I have nothing to complain of about the boy!"
To Laline's sensitive ears there was something a little disparaging in Alexander Wallace's praise of his nephew, some note which almost suggested that he regretted not being able to find fault with him. For her own part, the knowledge of her husband's deceitful treachery towards his over-indulgent uncle filled her with disgust, and she had been hardly able to restrain her indignation when Alexander Wallace alluded to Captain Garth's "pathetic letter" containing his "niece" Laline's last words. Unable to account for her disappearance, and unwilling to give themselves the trouble of searching for her, it was clear to Laline that her father and her husband had invented the story of her seizure and death by typhoid fever in order to extract further sympathy and further funds from the kind and credulous old banker, and she grew hot with shame to think that she should have almost allowed herself to pardon and to like a man so mercenary and deceitful as Wallace Armstrong must be.
"Would you like to look over the house, Miss Grahame? There are some rather interesting rooms, one especially, in which a great ball was given on the very day when that prodigious swindle, the South Sea Bubble, burst. It is called the 'South Sea Room,' and has a wonderful Chinese paper; I think it would interest you."
It was her husband's voice, and a little shiver of repulsion passed through Laline at the sound. Nevertheless she rose, and Alexander Wallace rose also. Adams, the discreet-looking man-servant, was summoned with his key, and the tour of the old house began.
Clare Cavan was inquisitive. Moreover, she fully intended, if that were possible, installing herself as mistress in this gloomy old mansion at some future date. She therefore peered and peeped about her, noting the size and number of the rooms, and perpetually asking questions in what seemed like overflowing girlish vivacity. Mr. Armstrong's suite of apartments comprised the sitting-room, in which tea had been served, a bedroom and dressing-room adjoining, and up another flight of stairs, a spacious studio, lighted entirely from above, and containing casts, clay models, canvases, easels, and innumerable sketches placed along the dado of the room, the walls of which were painted Indian-red. To this room, at Clare's urgent request, Wallace conducted the two girls, passing, as he did so, the closed door of another attic of equal dimensions.
"Is this another studio of yours?" Clare inquired, stopping before the closed door.
"It is a disused lumber-room," Wallace answered, "and kept locked, as you see," he added, shaking the handle of the door before leading the way into his studio adjoining.
Clare lingered behind the other two and bent to examine the keyhole.
"It may be locked," she said to herself, "but the key is on the inside. I wonder why Mr. Armstrong tried to deceive me? Is it some pretty model he is keeping here on the sly?"
Resolved to settle this point to her own satisfaction so soon as an opportunity should arise, Clare followed the others into the studio, and affected great admiration of Wallace's sketches, which were in truth far too fanciful and unconventional to arouse her interest.
"This is where my heart is," he said to Laline on her first introduction to the studio; "or, rather"—glancing quickly round and perceiving that Clare had not yet joined them—"this is where it was."
Laline glanced at him coldly and turned to examine some drawings. Nothing, she told herself, should ever induce her to forgive him; but his pictures interested her, and especially a pencil sketch, as yet uncompleted, of extreme delicacy and beauty, entitled "Evelyn Hope."
The figure of the dead girl, exquisitely youthful and pure in outline, lay stretched upon the bed, touched and glorified by two long rays of light that stole through the hinges of the close shutters. A dark-haired young man sat, with face averted from the spectator, gazing intently at the still white figure, into whose hand he was gently thrusting a single geranium leaf.
"'So hush—I will give you this leaf to keep!
See—I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There—that is our secret; go to sleep.
You will wake and remember and understand.'"
Wallace came behind Laline as she stood before the easel examining the picture, and softly quoted Browning's lines, which she had never heard before, and which touched her with a keen delight.
"I should like to read you the entire poem," he said.
"But who did you take for your heroine—I mean, who sat for it?"
"No one. It was a memory. I did it on my return from that walk in Kensington Gardens."
He spoke very low, so as not to be heard by Clare, who was at the farther end of the room turning over some sketches in a portfolio against the wall. Laline had already recognised her own profile in "Evelyn Hope," and was not ill-pleased by the dreamy loveliness which characterised the drawing.
She learned that Wallace frequently exhibited at the minor picture-shows, and, further, that he was a regular contributor of black-and-white drawings to more than one English and American magazine.
"You see I can't give the work the time I would like," he explained, "though luckily banking hours are not onerous. I sit down-stairs from ten until four, with a calculating-machine clicking away in my brain; but in the early summer mornings or the long winter evenings I bring my heart and mind up here."
At this point Clare, tired of a conversation which was no longer specially addressed to her, suggested a move to the South Sea Room, which she declared herself "dying to see;" and to the first floor they forthwith descended to a vast apartment, with floor of shining polished oak and an immense mantelpiece in carved and coloured marble, an apartment in which the electric-light, shining down from bosses in the elaborately-carved ceiling, seemed a glaring anachronism, and in which a few old-fashioned chairs and sofas, covered with moth-eaten brocade and set in far corners of the room, suggested ghostly dowagers and wall-flowers silently watching a rustling fleshless ball.
Mrs. Vandeleur was delighted, and went about with upraised eye-glasses, "sniffling the air for ghosts," as Clare irreverently whispered to Wallace Armstrong.
"You have done your very worst," the little lady observed with much severity to old Alexander, "with your odious glaring electric-light. And, as I perceive, some Vandal forefather of yours has gilded and whitened over all the lovely woodwork of the ceiling! As to your dreadful Chinese wall-paper, sticky with varnish and most inartistic and patchy in effect, I haven't a doubt that it is plastered all over the original beautiful oak-panelled walls, and that the spirits of the malevolent little pigtailed horrors who designed and executed it have driven away all the dear, charming, picturesque people in patches and powder and stiff brocade who used to congregate here a hundred years ago. I declare I can hardly hear a rustle of their silk petticoats or a tap of their high-heeled shoes!"
"If you hear as much as that, madam, you are cleverer than I," said the old Scotchman, drily.
"If I had my way with this room," pursued Mrs. Vandeleur, "I'd have all the paper and all the paint and varnish off, and take down your nasty electric-light and substitute wax candles. And I would have an old spinet in the corner and play it softly in the evenings, until I had reconstituted the entire scene. As it is, it hurts me to see a place so desecrated. Is there no corner in the entire house left sacred for the poor spirits to come back to and feel themselves at home?"
But here Adams, who had been listening, equally scared and scandalised, interposed to suggest that if the lady liked old things she might admire the banqueting-hall, which had never yet been "properly restored;" and thither he led the way, followed by Mrs. Vandeleur, still intent upon demonstrating to the old Scotchman his enormities and that of his predecessors in the arrangement of the old rooms.
Laline, who had been examining with interest the odd designs upon the walls, turned to follow her employer; but Clare had already gone out, and Wallace detained her as she tried to pass him.
"Don't go yet!" he whispered, quickly. "I must speak to you. Why are you so cold to me again to-day?"
"Nonsense, Mr. Armstrong! Remember, we are strangers."
"We are not! Feel my heart!"—and, suddenly seizing her hand, he pressed it against his heart, so that she felt its quick strong throbs. "Could a stranger make my heart beat like this? Miss Grahame—Lina——Oh, I don't mind if you are angry! You are Lina to me in my thoughts and dreams. Lina, why do you try so hard to hate me? For you are trying; I can see it in your eyes, which seek mine until you hastily avert them; I can feel it in your hand, which half returns my pressure before you snatch your fingers from me. Lina, why do you try to steel your heart against me? What have I done, dear, that you should refuse to follow your heart and love me as I love you?"
CHAPTER XV.
A sudden rage seized Laline against both Wallace and herself. She hated herself for tolerating and even liking him, and she hated him for what she regarded as his unparalleled duplicity.
"You are asking me a great many questions!" she said, turning a white, angry face upon him. "Now I want to question you! Tell me, if you have the slightest regard for truth—do you know of no tie, no responsibility, which should prevent you from making love to me?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, falling back a step and speaking in low troubled tones, quite unlike the passionate accents of his first love-avowal.
"You answer my question by asking another!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot impatiently. "What I want you to tell me is this—is there nothing and no one to stand between us—no barrier which should keep you and me apart?"
The flush of excitement faded from his dark face, which in a moment seemed to age and grow stern and sad. For the first time he averted his eyes from hers.
"What have you heard?" he asked, abruptly.
"Tell me the truth," she said, "and then I will tell you whether it is what I have heard."
He looked at her doubtfully.
"It is for you to decide," he said at last, in a very low voice. "If what you have learned about a tie, a responsibility, which I undertook more than four years ago, is sufficient to part us, I must bow to your decision. I cannot undo what I have done."
"You are not free!" she whispered, as he turned away.
"I am free to love you!" he cried, suddenly clasping her hands in his and drawing them up against his heart again. "Lina, we can't talk here, and I can see that we have both much to say. On Saturday your time is your own, is it not? Well, Saturday next I will come to you so soon as you are free. What time shall it be? Two o'clock or half-past two? Fix the time, or I shall burst in before you have finished luncheon!"
"You cannot come to the house for me," exclaimed Laline—"it is out of the question! What do you imagine you could say to Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece to explain such conduct—'If you please, ma'am, I understand it's your secretary's afternoon out, and I've come to take her out walking?' Do you really suppose that earning one's living quite destroys one's sense of what is due to the position of a lady?"
"Don't be angry, Lina," he was beginning, when she cut him short again.
"I will not permit you to call me by my Christian name, Mr. Armstrong!"
"As you like. At what time shall I call for you on Saturday?"
"Call for me? It is out of the question! I would not for the world let Mrs. Vandeleur know of your silly conduct!"
"Well, we'll keep her in the dark at present, if you wish it, although I would far rather go direct to her and tell her I fell in love with you at first sight. I feel sure she'd sympathise. I'll be waiting, then, just by the little gate that leads into the Gardens—the gate by which we came out last time. At two o'clock I will be there; and, if you are not there by the half-hour, I will go to the house and ask for you."
"This is persecution——"
"No—it is love! Lina, I hear footsteps on the stairs. There is no real barrier between us. In another moment we shall be interrupted. Kiss me, dear—just once first!"
"Mr. Armstrong, you are insulting!"
He bent his handsome, eager, dark face close down towards her own; and that ill-regulated little heart of hers began to tremble and flutter as though this man were not a heartless deceiver and an utterly worthless person.
After all he was her husband, and kissing one's husband is not considered a crime; added to which, she was almost afraid she loved him a little. Half insensibly her head inclined towards his, and in another moment their lips would have met, when Clare Cavan darted at astonishing speed into the room, and stood before them, wide-eyed and panting, her brilliant flesh-tints changed for a chalky pallor, and abject fear clearly marked in every line of her face.
"I've had a fright!" she faltered. "I—I wanted to have another look at these lovely sketches of yours, Mr. Armstrong; so I stole up-stairs to the top floor by myself, and—somehow I had forgotten—and I opened the wrong door!"
"The wrong door?" Wallace repeated, with a clearly startled expression in his eyes. "Do you mean that you went into the lumber-room? Wasn't the door locked?"
"Yes—no—that is to say, I fell over a box or something near the door, and slipped and hurt myself in the dark! And, being very absurdly nervous, it gave me such a shock!"
Laline glanced at Clare and then at Mr. Armstrong. It was clear that Clare was lying, and equally clear that he knew it. There was nothing for him to do, however, but to express his regret at her accident, and to suggest that a glass of wine or a little brandy might assist in restoring her nerves—a proposition to which Clare assented without much protest; and the three proceeded to the dining-room together.
Here they found Mrs. Vandeleur inspecting the choicest curiosity of the bank—a centenarian clerk, who had been employed there for over eighty-five years, and who invariably alluded to his septuagenarian employer as "Master Alec."
"I've been here, man and boy, for nigh on eighty-six years," he was piping, as Wallace and the young ladies entered, "and disgrace has only once come upon the bank since I entered it! That was Master Wallace, to be sure. Oh, he's quiet enough now—butter wouldn't melt in his mouth! But he's a rank bad 'un—a rank bad 'un; and so I've always told Master Alec! Never trust him is what I've always said. Wine or whiskey, women or money, he can't resist any of 'em, for all he looks so quiet. He's a bad man, sir—a bad man is Wallace Armstrong!"
Laline heard every word, and turned to look at Wallace. He flushed and lowered his eyes under her inquiring gaze. Presently, drawing her apart, he confided to her in a whisper that old Farquharson was "quite off his head, and hadn't a notion what he was talking about."
A little later the ladies left, after being pressed by old Mr. Wallace to fix an early date for another visit, and drove home through the snow-covered streets in the early gloom of a winter's evening.
Clare was unusually quiet on the return journey; and it was only after the girls had retired to their rooms that night that she crept into Laline's room, looking very ghostly in her loose white flannel dressing-gown, with her long reddish-gold hair falling about her shoulders.
"Aren't you longing to know about my ghost-fright this evening?" she asked. "Of course I didn't tell Mr. Armstrong the truth. The fact is he's got some one in that other room he's keeping quiet—some one who rushed out at me in the dark with a sort of curse, and threw me out of the room. It was a woman, of course, and I suppose she was jealous, and that would account for her savagery."
"Clare," exclaimed Laline, "are you inventing this? How can I tell that you are speaking the truth now?"
For answer Clare slipped off her dressing-grown, and, pushing up the sleeve of her night-dress, displayed four black bruises, as of finger-marks, on the dazzling whiteness of her shoulder.
Laline uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"Clare, why didn't you tell Mr. Armstrong?"
"I don't think he would much have relished that!" Clare answered, with a disagreeable smile. "I am afraid, Laline, that he is a dreadfully bad lot—too bad even for me! There were lots of little things I noticed. For one, that the keys of the wine and of the spirits also were kept in old Mr. Wallace's possession. He doesn't even trust his nephew with a bottle of wine; for, when the sideboard was opened in the sitting-room, where we had tea, I particularly noticed that there were no bottles there. That might not mean anything if I hadn't heard that Mr. Armstrong drinks terribly at times. I think that must be the reason for that sort of sad saturnine look he gets in his eyes sometimes. I've noticed it before in people who drink. And then you know what old Farquharson said about him, and he ought to know."
"He's so old that I think he's lost his wits," said Laline. "Anyhow, it's rather hard to suppose a man is a drunkard simply because there are no bottles about his rooms."
"Why, I thought you didn't like Mr. Armstrong," Clare exclaimed, innocently, "and here you are defending him! This is a change indeed! Was he so very agreeable to-day as to destroy your old prejudice, or did the sight of the house and the banking business soften your hard heart towards him?"
There was no mistaking the unkindness of the sneer in this instance. Clare was indeed so profoundly jealous at the kind of understanding which she thought she had detected between Laline and Wallace during the latter part of the afternoon that her ordinary sweetness of manner was for the time forgotten. But Laline was in no mood for quarrelling. She wanted to be left alone with her thoughts and plans; so she contented herself with observing that Mr. Armstrong certainly improved on acquaintance, but that he appeared to have acquired, rightly or wrongly, a bad reputation. Then she yawned, and asked Clare to put out the candle before she left the room, upon which hint to retire Miss Cavan in considerable indignation acted.
All through Thursday and Friday and the morning of Saturday, Laline was going over in her mind the conversation she meant to have with Wallace Armstrong when she joined him at the gate of the Gardens that afternoon.
Concerning the lumber-room incident, she hardly felt justified in questioning him, so little reliance did she place upon Clare's statements. There was no doubt that Miss Cavan had been violently ejected from a room which Wallace had declared to be empty; but even now Laline's keen susceptibilities taught her that Clare was concealing something. As to the rumour concerning Wallace's occasional excesses, that was to Laline a far more serious matter. Long ago Captain Garth had styled him a drunkard, and Laline well remembered the copious and constant draughts of cognac in which her husband had indulged at Boulogne. But of these excesses there seemed no trace in Wallace's present manner. Save for the sudden infatuation he had conceived for her, and for an occasionally dreamy and fanciful habit of speech, there was nothing about him to suggest that he was not the sanest and most well-conducted of athletic and art-loving young English gentlemen.
The more she thought about Wallace the less she understood him; and what puzzled her most of all was that, while he admitted the fact of a responsibility he had incurred more than four years ago, he should still continue to pay her his addresses, without apparently ever troubling his head with the consideration that he was a married man.
Saturday dawned in clear cold sunshine, an ideal winter's day. Most fortunately for Laline, Clare was engaged to lunch at a friend's house, and afterwards to accompany a skating-party on the Long Water. Mrs. Vandeleur was absent-minded and absorbed in taking notes to be used at an interview with a very celebrated American spiritualist who was to visit her that afternoon, and by two o'clock there was nothing in the world to prevent Laline from walking out of the house to fulfil her appointment.
For the first time in her life she felt inclined to linger before her looking-glass, arranging and rearranging the set of her new hat, wondering whether she would look prettier with a regular curled fringe instead of the natural waves of hair which shaded her brow, taking her veil on and off because she was not quite sure that it suited her, desperately anxious to look her best, and wholly dissatisfied with her appearance, in spite of the fact that she had never in her life looked half so handsome as she did now, with a bright light of excitement in her hazel eyes and the pink colour coming and going in her cheeks.
So beautiful indeed did she appear to the love-stricken Wallace, waiting for her by the gate, as arranged, that the sight of her almost took his breath away.
"By Jove, you are lovely!" he exclaimed, half under his breath, like a school-boy.
"That sounds genuine, at any rate!" she said, laughing. "But, please, Mr. Armstrong, don't stand staring at me like that. Since you began by being personal, I will follow suit and say what a lovely fur-lined coat you have! It is so gorgeous that you look quite like a duke!"
"Or an actor," he suggested, laughing. "Actors are very partial to fur-lined coats, and being clean shaved makes me look still more like one."
"You used to wear a moustache?" she said, more as a statement than a question.
"Yes; but it was such a bad one that I abolished it. The reason for this coat is that I thought it might be cold driving."
"Driving?" she repeated, in surprise.
"Yes. Don't you see my cart waiting? I've brought a warm fur rug for you; but I'm afraid you'll be cold about the shoulders. It's only a few minutes past two, however, and we shall be able to buy a cape or a boa or something in one of the shops in the High Street."
Stepping up to the groom, who was driving a handsome bay mare in the neatest of dog-carts, Wallace directed him to follow while he turned back with Laline in the direction of the shops.
"You must choose it yourself," he explained to Laline. "Something very warm in fur."
"What are you thinking of?" she exclaimed. "You cannot for one moment suppose that I would accept valuable presents from a stranger?"
She had stopped in her walk, and he stopped, too, and looked down for a moment into her face, his blue eyes shining with a soft light, the sight of which brought sudden blushes to her cheek.
"I had forgotten," he said. "There is something else we must buy first."
In an instant she knew what he meant. Had she not been through the same experience with him before, years ago? She could almost have laughed aloud as he hurried her into a jeweller's shop, and they stood together before the counter while Wallace asked again, as he had done in Boulogne, to be shown some engagement-rings, "to fit this lady's finger."
The man's half-smile was just the same as it had been years ago. Surely some faint recollection of that former scene would come back to Wallace now, as he stood by her side and gently drew off her glove, just as he had done before, to try the rings!
"Which one do you like best?" he asked; and, breaking into a hysterical laugh, Laline declared that she must have "a turquoise heart surrounded by small diamonds."
"The price will be one hundred francs," she said, and almost expected that Wallace would at once proceed to purchase, as before, the wedding-ring as well.
But he did not do so. He only looked rather surprised, and inquired of the jeweller whether he had a ring of the description given. The man answered in the negative; and Laline, blushing and confused, allowed a moonstone-and-diamond heart and lovers'-knot to be slipped on her finger, and declared herself to be perfectly satisfied with it. The price this time was twenty guineas instead of one hundred francs; and, being now for the second time formally engaged to her husband, as she expressed it in her thoughts, Mrs. Wallace Armstrong left the shop with him.
She was still so overwhelmed by the way in which her little outburst had fallen flat that she behaved with great docility, and hardly uttered a protest as Wallace took her into a fashionable millinery establishment and purchased for her a deep sable collar, which he at once proceeded to fasten round her neck over her velvet cape.
"Now you will be safe from cold," he said, triumphantly. "As soon as my dear old uncle heard that to-day I was coming courting, he simply lined my pockets with bank-notes."
"Did you tell him?"
"Of course I did! And he was in a state of the highest delight. 'Not the red-haired one, I hope—I didn't like her mouth,' was his only objection. When he heard that it was you I was in love with, it was all I could do to prevent him from coming with me to plead my cause."
"You seem to have been very confident," observes Laline, "and very sure of winning my consent."
"I knew I should get it sooner or later by dint of asking," he answered, as he helped her into the dog-cart and carefully wrapped a fur rug round her knees. "Ever since I saw the lamplight shine on your face that first evening at Mrs. Vandeleur's I knew that I should never have a moment's peace until I had made you my wife."
"You have never even asked me to marry you!" said Laline, her spirits rising under the strangeness of her surroundings. "You have only met me four times, and have talked a lot of sentiment and abstract love-making; then to-day, before I had time to think, you dragged me into a jeweller's shop and bought me a ring. But you have never proposed to me, and I have never accepted you. Consequently we cannot be engaged."
"Lina Grahame," he said bending his head to look in her face as he took his seat by her side, "will you be my wife?"
"Wallace Armstrong," she returned, in quick staccato utterance, "what has become of Laline Garth?"
CHAPTER XVI.
As soon as the words "Wallace Armstrong, what has become of Laline Garth?" had left her lips, Laline's heart sank within her. On Wallace's answer very much depended. And at first he did not answer, but only drew his level black brows near together and stared straight before him at his horse's head.
"I cannot imagine," he said at length, after a pause which seemed interminable to the girl by his side, "why you ask me that now. It is such a sad and painful subject, and I meant to-day to be so happy. What is the use of trying to revive a dead past?"
"Do you never think of it?" she asked.
"Never, if I can help it! I suppose you heard the whole affair from my uncle? Whether you blame me or not, I don't see that I could have acted otherwise."
"And you never think of her?"
"Never!" he answered, calmly. "Why should I? The poor child is long ago dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes. Surely my uncle told you that?"
"Yes—no—I don't remember. How do you know that she is dead?"
"I saw her grave. Why, how white you are, and how excited you seem! Why do you take such a strange interest in the girl?"
"I—I am sorry for her," faltered Laline.
She could not understand it. Was it some trick of her father's, she wondered—and did Wallace really believe her to be dead?
"What became of that Captain Garth who wrote the letter to your uncle?" she inquired, suddenly.
"Oh, that old sinner? He died of apoplexy two years ago, having enjoyed a handsome annuity from my soft-hearted uncle on the strength of the poor girl Laline having been his niece. But, dearest, if you knew how much I hate the subject, you would not, I am sure, compel me to discuss it."
"I will say no more about it now," she observed, quietly.
In spite of the quick drive through the keen air she was very pale. His news had strangely affected her, and the certainty that her father was dead moved her deeply. She tried to remember all that was good about him, and recalled on the instant many little acts of careless kindness which until then she had forgotten. All the Boulogne life came before her again in its sordid daily details, and she saw herself as Wallace had first seen her—an over-grown child in a short blue-cotton gown, with her long hair floating over her shoulders under her "Zulu" hat.
A barrier seemed suddenly to have arisen between her and Wallace. His belief that she was dead complicated things; and the fact that he clearly disliked all allusion to the events which occurred at Boulogne distressed Laline. Sooner or later she would have to enlighten him as to her identity; and might not this news go far to weaken his passion for her? Troubled with these thoughts, she sat still and silent, with big tears gathering in her eyes, hearing without listening to Wallace's light-hearted talk about indifferent subjects.
"Lina," he suddenly exclaimed, "you have tears in your eyes! What is the matter, darling?"
"I don't know. A fit of the blues, I suppose."
"You want exercise and amusement, that's what it is," he said, decisively. "My plan for to-day will do you all the good in the world. That room of Mrs. Vandeleur's isn't good for you. The mental atmosphere is unnatural; you are growing to look ghostlike yourself in it!"
"I am quite well," she said, rousing herself from her reverie. "But where are we? I don't know much about London yet, and I am very near-sighted, and have been thinking of something else. But surely this is a part of the world I haven't been in before?"
"This is Baker Street, and we are on our way to Regent's Park and Hampstead. We shall stop at my uncle's Hampstead house, the Homestead, and have some skating in the grounds; then Mrs. Sylvester the housekeeper will give us tea, and I will drive you back home in good time this evening."
"But it's just like an elopement!" she protested.
"Well, you must blame my uncle for that, and not me. It is he who arranged the whole thing, and telegraphed to Mrs. Sylvester that we were coming. I always run over to the Homestead once or twice a week to see that the horses aren't eating their heads off. I intended driving over this afternoon if I had not been going out with you; and it was my uncle who declared that you must see the place and judge whether you would like to live in it."
"To live in it!" she repeated, in astonishment. "You and your uncle," she added, "seemed to have settled everything between you in a very remarkable manner, without the preliminary formality of consulting me. Pray, when did you arrange these nice little plans together?"
"As soon as you had left the house last Wednesday. My uncle was already aware that I was in love with one of you two younger ladies, but did not know which, and he was overjoyed when he found it was you. You won his heart by listening to his long stories, even if he hadn't been charmed by your lovely face and voice."
"I always understood," Laline put in, demurely, "that you made your first visit to Mrs. Vandeleur's house in the character of Clare Cavan's admirer?"
"I did and do admire Miss Cavan very much," he answered, promptly. "I should like to paint her as Vivien charming Merlin, both of them in modern evening-dress, with Miss Cavan showing off her beautiful white neck and arms for a senile and rather Jewish-looking Merlin's edification. Miss Cavan represents a very attractive type, but not the type I should care to marry."
"You talk," she said, with a touch of impatience in her tone, "as though any girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!"
"I certainly don't mean to convey that impression," he retorted; "although I am sorry to say that many girls I meet would be delighted to marry Alexander Wallace's nephew, whatever he might be like—old, ugly, deformed, or hateful—just for the sake of Alexander Wallace's money!"
"And is it that belief," she asked, blushing hotly, "which made you so confident in my case?"
"Lina," he exclaimed, in reproachful tones, "why do you ask me such a question? It is neither fair to yourself nor to me."
"Well, I get annoyed when you show how sure you felt of winning me," she explained, apologetically.
"Of course," he said, flicking his horse's ears reflectively with his whip—"of course I knew that in time I should worry you into saying 'Yes.' But at first I own I was a good deal troubled by the strange look of repulsion and even a fear that came into your lovely eyes when you looked at me. You remember when, as I left the house after my first visit, I turned and looked back and caught you watching my departure from a window on the ground-floor?"
"I remember."
"Well, your look then was one of terror and dislike combined, which simply struck dismay into my soul. Tell me, Lina—why did you look at me like that?"
"You reminded me of some one whom I used to know and dislike four years and a half ago," she answered, faintly.
She half hoped that the date she gave would form a link in his mind; but her words evidently conveyed to him no hint of her intention, for he only laughed.
"Four years and a half ago you must have been such a very little girl that your prejudices were probably wholly unreasonable," he said, cheerfully. "How old are you now, Lina?"
"Twenty."
"As old as that? I thought you were fully two years younger. Well, Lina, there is just the right difference between us. What does Shakspere say?—
'Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart.'
Our marriage will be ideal in every way."