“Well, see that you never saddle him for her again. Those are my orders,” he said, turning away. “She must have thought that I wanted to break her neck. Ignorance has certainly been bliss in my case. Many a wretched hour I would have spent had I known that Alice had adopted Cardigan as her park hack,” he muttered to himself as he walked towards the house in answer to the gong which summoned him to breakfast.
The same afternoon the Mayhews and Geoffrey arrived. After five-o’clock tea under the cedar, and a turn round the garden with Reginald, Helen was escorted to her room by her hostess.
“Shut the door and come here, Alice; I want to speak to you,” she said imperatively.
Alice, knowing from the tone of her voice that a lecture was coming, took a seat in the deep window-sill, and clasping her hands round her knees, looked up at her mentor with grave expectant eyes.
“There is no use in your looking at me with the air of a Christian martyr, you tiresome girl. What is this amazing piece of folly that I hear from Reginald?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied Alice innocently.
“He tells me that you received him as an utter stranger!”
“Of course I did.”
“I assure you, Alice, most solemnly,” said her friend, brandishing her hairbrush to give emphasis to her words, “that his patience is well-nigh exhausted, and you have bitterly, sorely disappointed him. Your power over him is rapidly waning, and no wonder. He told me in plain English that he would trouble himself no longer about you. He came home softened towards you by illness, time, and absence, and, little as you deserved it, laid his laurels at your feet. From all accounts you flung them in his face! What a foolish reckless girl you are! Your happiness comes to you, and you spurn it. ‘Too late, too late!’ will be the answer when you yourself go to seek it ere long.”
“But listen to me for one second, Helen,” interrupted Alice, vainly endeavouring to stem the torrent of her friend’s eloquence. “Hear me for an instant. I never expected him to come here; he took me utterly by surprise. Would you have had me volunteer an embrace—after our chilly parting, after three years’ absolute silence? I did humble myself to the very dust before him, and all in vain.”