A faint colour suffused her lovely face. She looked at him, furtively. "Some people may care for that sort of thing--I don't!" she bluntly said. "Oh, Lord Vansittart! why will you not, can you not, see and understand that all I want of--of--everyone is to be let alone? I have my own ideas of what my life should be; surely any one professing interest in me ought to respect them!"
"I respect your every thought," he eagerly, if somewhat perplexedly returned. "Only--I should like thoroughly to understand the kind of life you wish to lead. Because--well, I will not beat about the bush. Joan! you know I love you! You are my very life! And if I cannot be nearer than I am now, my only happiness and motive for living must be to serve you in some way, to see you, speak to you, help you, be your very slave----"
Just as his voice was most impassioned his appeal was interrupted. An elderly gentleman rode swiftly up and tapped him on the arm.
"Why, Vansittart! can I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed, somewhat breathlessly. "Joan, where has he dropped from?"
It was Sir Thomas Thorne, the wealthy uncle who had adopted Joan, his late brother's only child, at her mother's death a few years previously. The admired beauty, whose only flaw seemed to be her adamantine pose in regard to her many suitors, was known to be sole heiress of the wealthy baronet and his wife, who were not only childless, but curiously devoid of near relations.
"From Paris, Sir Thomas," he replied, as easily as he could. Then he gave a brief account of his wanderings. He seemed to have roamed and ranged over the earth, prowling about for some interest, which evaded him from Dan to Beersheba. Sir Thomas listened with a peculiar twist of his thin, fine lips and a curious twinkle in his shrewd, handsome old eyes.
"Come in to lunch," he genially, if abruptly, proposed, as they left the park. "My lady will be delighted to see you--you are one of her particular favourites."
What could Vansittart do but accept? With many deprecatory glances at Joan--which, as she rode on looking straight before her, she either did not, or would not see,--he accompanied uncle and niece through the pale sunshine which now bathed the wet streets and shone upon the dripping bushes and bright green foliage of the trees, to the door of Sir Thomas' tastefully beflowered mansion in one of the largest West-end squares.
Here, before the groom had had time to wait upon his mistress, he was off his horse, and at her stirrup.
"Forgive me," he pleaded, as she eluded his help and sprang lightly down. "I could not resist the temptation!"