“Never allude to the subject again, Alice, unless you wish to drive me frantic. You could not share this trouble with me, no one could. Perhaps some day I may tell you, not now. You must go to bed at once, it is past two o’clock,” he added authoritatively.
“No, no,” she replied firmly; “I am going to sit up with Maurice.”
“Indeed you will do nothing of the kind; I will stay with him if it is necessary; but you are to go to bed this instant,” he replied in a tone that effectually repelled argument. And in spite of all Alice could say she was obliged to obey, and, very reluctantly, retired.
CHAPTER V.
A TRAVELLER’S TALES.
Maurice, with a broad piece of flannel round his throat, appeared at breakfast next morning as well as ever; and Alice, pale and languid, took her place before the teapot as usual. She observed a change in her husband. On other mornings he disappeared after breakfast, and was never seen till luncheon, excusing himself on the plea of business with the bailiff; and, in fact, unless absolutely obliged to ride or play lawn-tennis, they saw nothing of him all day.
Alice had reason to know that many of his spare hours were spent with Maurice. More than once she had come across the pair in the park, Maurice riding Tweedle Dum, his father holding the bridle and relating long and thrilling fairy tales—accounts of dwarfs, giants, and fairy-princesses with golden hair; or they would be discovered on the edge of a pond, sailing boats, or under the lee of a haycock, sharing a leaf of strawberries. Maurice idolised his father, and Alice could see that she no longer had the first and only place in his affections. She felt no twinge of jealousy as she made this discovery; she was very ready to share his heart with Reginald.
This particular morning her husband did not vanish as usual the instant breakfast was over. He loitered about the grounds with the ladies, made suggestions about the garden, and gave them a lesson in budding roses.
He distinctly put a veto on lawn-tennis as far as Alice was concerned, but he fetched a chair, a book, and a shawl, and established her under a tree, where she could look on. She caught his eyes fixed on her more than once with a look of anxiety and concern in their dark depths that puzzled her extremely.
What did this change mean? Could he be going to forgive her after all? Her colour and her spirits rose at the thought; a little happiness goes a long way at twenty. Revived by a whole morning’s rest, she was meditating a move, when Geoffrey, with a broad smirk on his face and a fat frog in his handkerchief, lounged up to her.
“Here,” said he, “is the frog who would a-wooing go;” and he added, as he uncovered the treasure, “he is come to pay his addresses to you, Alice,” making a feint of putting him in her lap.