"If you do not know, I'm sure that I shall not tell you." Ralph did not know;—but he went home from his ride an unengaged man, and may perhaps have been thought to behave badly on that occasion also.
But Lady Eardham, though she was sometimes despondent and often cross, was gifted with perseverance. A picnic party up the river from Maidenhead to Cookham was got up for the 30th of May, and Ralph Newton of course was there. Just at that time the Neefit persecution was at its worst. Letters directed by various hands came to him daily, and in all of them he was asked when he meant to be on the square. He knew the meaning of that picnic as well as does the reader,—as well as did Lady Eardham; but it had come to that with him that he was willing to yield. It cannot exactly be said for him that out of all the feminine worth that he had seen, he himself had chosen Gus Eardham as being the most worthy,—or even that he had chosen her as being to him the most charming. But it was evident to him that he must get married, and why not to her as well as to another? She had style, plenty of style; and, as he told himself, style for a man in his position was more than anything else. It can hardly be said that he had made up his mind to offer to her before he started for Cookham,—though doubtless through all the remaining years of his life he would think that his mind had been so fixed,—but he had concluded, that if she were thrown at his head very hard, he might as well take her. "I don't think he ever does drink champagne," said Lady Eardham, talking it all over with Gus on the morning of the picnic.
At Cookham there is, or was, a punt,—perhaps there always will be one, kept there for such purposes;—and into this punt either Gus was tempted by Ralph, or Ralph by Gus. "My darling child, what are you doing?" shouted Lady Eardham from the bank.
"Mr. Newton says he can take me over," said Gus, standing up in the punt, shaking herself with a pretty tremor.
"Don't, Mr. Newton; pray don't!" cried Lady Eardham, with affected horror.
Lunch was over, or dinner, as it might be more properly called, and Ralph had taken a glass or two of champagne. He was a man whom no one had ever seen the "worse for wine;" but on this occasion that which might have made others drunk had made him bold. "I will not let you out, Gus, till you have promised me one thing," said Ralph.
"What is the one thing?"
"That you will go with me everywhere, always."
"You must let me out," said Gus.
"But will you promise?" Then Gus promised; and Lady Eardham, with true triumph in her voice, was able to tell her husband on the following morning that the cost of the picnic had not been thrown away.