“It’s not my business to say what it was,” was my discreet answer.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“I was thinking-,” said I, “which I would rather be—the man you will marry, or the man you would like—-”
“How dare you? It’s not true. Oh, Mr. Wynne, indeed it’s not true!”
Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had been, Miss Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very much in the way in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to be extravagantly attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was present, and markedly neglectful of him in the curate’s absence. It also fitted in very well with the theory which I had ventured to hint, that her bearing towards Mrs. Went worth was distinguished by a stately civility, and her remarks about that lady by a superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two distinguishing marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my favorite books and learn from them—more folly. And if Trix’s manners were all that they should be, praise no less high must be accorded to Mrs. Wentworth’s; she attained an altitude of admirable unconsciousness, and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely interested in all his aims and hopes.
“What does she want?” I asked Dora, despairingly. “She can’t want to marry him.” I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs. Wentworth.
“Good gracious, no!” answered Dora, irritably. “It’s simple jealousy. She won’t let the poor boy alone till he’s in love with her again. It’s a horrible shame!”
“Oh, well, he has great recuperative power,” said I.
“She’d better be careful, though. It’s a very dangerous game. How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?”
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running. Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven’s voice raised above his ordinary tones.