“Everybody thought that there was a tacit engagement at least,” Margaret said, “and, of course,” she added, brightly, “everybody may have been mistaken! People are always ready to take an interest in other people’s love affairs. Hundreds of engagements are made in this way, which really have no foundation in fact.”
“It is a great pity that such busybodies have nothing better with which to employ themselves.”
“It will always be the same,” his cousin replied, indifferently, “so long as unscrupulous society papers are permitted to print the items sent in to them by vicious-minded people who make money out of their news. Still, there is rarely smoke without fire, Harold, and I was certainly under the impression that Lady Elaine favored the viscount.”
Sir Harold felt vexed and irritable, and after this he was never weary of hearing Elaine declare that she had given him her first enduring love.
“Suppose that you had never seen me?” he would say; “what then?”
The bare possibility, even in imagination, of the woman he loved ever caring for another troubled him.
His persistence became painful to Lady Elaine. It seemed that he had not implicit trust in her. She who had been so cold and haughty to others—the spoiled child of an indulgent father, the pet of society—became almost a slave to the caprices of her lover.
But my lady became indignant at last, and after their interview in the summer arbor she sent for Margaret Nugent—she sent for the cousin who knew Sir Harold’s moods, and would perhaps be able to advise her.
Miss Nugent listened, and there was a well-assumed sympathy in her eyes, in her voice—while her heart was throbbing with triumph.
“You must not let him have his way in all things, Lady Elaine,” she said. “Time enough for that after marriage. You will lose your self-respect, and he will not value you any the more for that!”