At last Mistress Peyton's sullen silence brought Cousin John back from the pleasing realms of gossip and scandal. Looking into her face he saw anger, where he had expected to witness a smile of triumph; he also saw two perfect lips closed tightly in obvious moodiness, the while he had looked forward to unstinted praise for his own share in the furtherance of her desires.
Cousin John, therefore, was vastly astonished. Puzzlement in its turn yielded to speculation. Mistress Julia was angered—why? She had desired the scandal; now she seemed to resent it. Something had gone amiss then—or had she veered round in her intentions?
Women were strange cattle in Sir John Ayloffe's estimation. Had his ambitious cousin perchance nurtured some counter-scheme of her own, which had come to naught through the success of the original intrigue? It almost seemed like it from the wrathful expression of her face.
The presence of Daniel Pye in Paris came back to Sir John as a swift memory. There had been a counter-intrigue then?
Of a truth this would trouble him but little, provided that such intrigue did not affect the due payment to himself of the twelve thousand pounds promised by the capricious lady. But of this guerdon he felt fully assured. Which is another proof of the truth of the ancient adage which says that there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, and also of the fact that women are far keener diviners of such untoward slips than are those who belong to the sterner and less intuitive sex.
Even while the prospect of those pleasing thousands was flitting—all unbeknown to him—further and further from his future grasp, Sir John, studying his cousin's unaccountable mood tried to make some of his wonted cynical maxims anent the motives and emotions of the other sex fit the present situation.
Mistress Peyton was angered when she should have been pleased. Had she perchance conceived an attachment for the romantic blackguard? Such things were possible—women's tastes ever erred on the queer side—and this would certainly account for Julia's impatient anger when she heard of Michael's interesting departure with the beautiful bride in his arms.
Nay then! if this was the case, good Cousin John had still the cream of his narrative in reserve, and the final episode which he had to relate would of a surety satisfy the most rancorous feelings of revenge harboured against a hated rival by any fair monster that wore petticoat.
And at the moment that Mistress Peyton finally decided in her own mind that an accusation of theft preferred by herself against Daniel Pye would bring that elderly reprobate to the whipping post and the stocks, Cousin John's mellifluent voice broke in upon these pleasant dreams.
"Odd's fish, fair Coz," he said loudly and emphatically, for he desired his words to rouse her from her absorption, "imagine our surprise, nay, our consternation when on our arrival at St. Denis we found one solitary turtledove mourning over the absence of the other—"