Mallender promptly accepted the invitation, and as he descended the steps, in the lady's wake, the old shikari looked after them, and muttered half aloud, "Got him!"
CHAPTER XIII
As Mrs. Villars gracefully proceeded along a path, not wide enough for two abreast, and offered her companion a full view of a perfectly-fitting back, and coils of lustrous hair—she had several new ideas simmering in her head. She liked the handsome boy, now treading in her footsteps, and had flirted and amused herself with him, as was her custom; also, because Fanny had given her a somewhat shame-faced hint to keep Geoffrey fast, and urge him to accompany his friends to the Hills, adding mysteriously, that there was an important reason for detaining him. When she had asked for further particulars, Fanny replied:
"It is a family matter. Much depends on tying the young man to my, or rather to your apron strings."
"And so I am to play the syren?"
"Yes, my dear, a nice, amiable, harmless syren," and to this she had agreeably consented.
But now, as the lady preceded her slave, stepping delicately over the ground, in her high-heeled grey suede shoes, she asked herself, why she should not play the syren in real earnest?
Relieved from Sir William's formidable presence, and the questioning glances of his torpid, but suspicious eyes, she felt once more young, and free! Of course, there was Sir William's great fortune figuratively at her feet, but its master was old, unattractive, and irritable; when they were man and wife, and he had paid her debts, possibly he might not be so devoted or so docile.
As for Geoffrey Mallender, dear, simple boy! he was the soul of chivalry, generosity, and good-humour. He had a fine old place, and seven or eight thousand a year. Why should she not have, so to speak, "a new deal," be serious, encourage his timid homage, and marry him? It was true, that she was fourteen years his senior, but who would suspect it? Like her family, she had been endowed with the priceless gift of perennial youth. Fanny, her old school-fellow, who knew her age to a day, would possibly disapprove, and make difficulties. After all, why should she consider Fanny Tallboys? Naturally her first object was her own interest.