“What things, bad boy? Poor, poor little fellow! There! he shall be told the worst at once and get it over. Miss Christmas, sir, has been offered a husband by her guardian.”
“What husband?”
“O, not you, sir—don’t think it. It is Lord Sycamore. He is very tall, and very silly, but only fairly well off; and he has no roof to his mouth, or to his head—I forget which; but anyhow, if it was the dome of St Paul’s, I shouldn’t want him.”
“I should hope not. And Lord Skene thinks to impose this ass on you?”
“Richard, don’t shout so. Yes; and he is enormously angry over my refusal.”
“I owe a debt to my grandfather for it. He seems determined to add to my obligations to him. And Lady Skene, Ira?”
She answered very softly, the dew of love in her eyes:
“She is not angry, Richard. I think, if one knew, she is your friend now. She is very quiet and unself-assertive—always now since she came back to us. Once I saw her looking so strangely at me, and I hurried to her, and knelt and took her hands in mine without a word. ‘Be a good wife to him,’ she whispered suddenly; ‘he has suffered such wrong from us all’—and she was crying, Richard, as she got up and left me. And afterwards, as I passed the nursery door, she was sitting huddled on the floor by baby’s cot; and I could not see her face because her hands were held quite still to it, and the firelight was dancing in her beautiful hair. She has grown so humble, it makes me cry. And, Richard, I think Uncle Charlie feels the change in her; and it has made him more masterful—more peremptory. Once Mr Pugsley came, and he would not let him see her, but got rid of him without ceremony, and she did not say anything when she heard. It is as if she knows that she has forfeited her right to a voice in the conduct of her own affairs.”
“I have no quarrel with her, Ira; and now less than ever. She will always be my mother in my heart—God forgive me, and her. But with Lord Skene it is another matter. He knows how I stand with you, and this persecution of his only shows his determination to resist all natural claims of mine on his consideration.”
“He scoffs at the whole story, Richard. I think he looks upon it as the fabrication of a pretender.”