"She means perhaps to tell some one else?" said Mrs. Vane, with bitterness.
"No, I believe not. She has no wish to harm you, poor child, although she thinks that the General ought not to be deceived. However, I persuaded her to abandon that idea, showing her that it was not her duty to tell a thing that would so utterly destroy his happiness." Florence turned away her head. "I felt myself a villain," Hubert continued gravely, "in counseling her to stifle her conscientious scruples, Florence; but, for your sake and your husband's sake, I pleaded with her, and prevailed on her to keep silence—she will tell no one but myself after our marriage."
"You had better not let her open the subject with you at all. It will only be productive of unhappiness." Flossy discerned the entanglement at once—she saw that Hubert meant one thing and Enid another; but out of their cross-purposes she divined a way of keeping the girl silent. "For my sake Hubert, don't discuss my terrible past between you. What good would it do? Promise me that, when you are married, you will not let her speak of it—even to you." She shed a tear or two as she spoke.
"Poor Flossy!" said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm. "Don't grieve, dear! I have no right to say anything, have I? Yes, I promise you I will not let her say a word about the matter, either now or afterwards, if I can help it, and certainly to no one beside myself."
And with this promise Flossy feigned contentment. But, when Hubert had left her, she paced up and down the room with cheeks that flamed with excitement, and eyes that glowed with the dull red light of rage.
"What was I thinking about to bring this engagement to pass?" she said to herself. "Yet, after all, it is better so. Hubert has a reason for silencing her; with any other man, she would have the matter out in a trice, and ruin me. Now what is the next move? To delay the marriage, of course. I will come round prettily to the General's view, and uphold him in his determination not to allow the marriage for at least two years. So Enid says that she will not betray me until she is married, does she? Then she will never have the chance; for a great deal may happen—to a delicate girl like Enid Vane—in two long years."
CHAPTER XXV.
Hubert had been worried and overworked of late; it had appeared to him a good thing that he should spend a few of the spring days at Beechfield, and try to recover in the society of his sister and his betrothed the serenity that he had lost. But this seemed after all no easy thing to do. He was annoyed to find himself irritated by small matters; his equanimity, usually perfect, was soon ruffled; and, although he did not always show any outward sign of vexation, he felt that his temper was not quite under his own control. And it was Enid, curiously enough, who irritated him most.
"Who is this new singer," she asked one day, "about whom people are talking so much?"