"I might not, perhaps, live to be introduced," answered the old gentleman demurely. "And I could lay a bet that, as long as I exist, we shall never have Captain De Crespigny in the peerage. If you happen, however, to know any young lady at all impatient to become Marchioness of Doncaster, let her consult me, and I could, perhaps, suggest a shorter cut to that situation, than by waiting for Louis De Crespigny."
"How!" exclaimed Agnes, with a bewildered look. "Quite impossible!"
"Unless by accepting the present Marquis, who ought, by your description, to go very cheap, old, whimsical, and infirm as he is!" replied the stranger, with a sly smile, and a graceful bow. "The report you have heard of Lord Doncaster is such, that I feel almost tempted to forswear my own name!"
Agnes never in her life approached more nearly to a genuine fainting fit, than on hearing these words, and to have been swallowed up in an earthquake would have been quite a relief. She felt now like Abon Hassan, when he made the vizier bite his finger to ascertain if he were really awake, while, with a look of vacant wonder, she became aware that the middle-aged, nearly good-looking, and very elegant man beside her, was actually the old, worn-out, almost dead, and all but buried uncle, whose demise Captain De Crespigny had led her daily or hourly to expect for the last two years. If his ghost had appeared, she would not have been half so much astonished, while he seemed evidently more amused than he chose to acknowledge, at having created such a sensation, which he was by no means inclined to diminish, while silently admiring the beautiful fluctuations of expression in Agnes' resplendent eyes, fixed on himself with almost incredulous amazement. At length he rose to take leave, with a smiling, supercilious bow, and beckoned in an authoritative manner to a clerical-looking gentleman at some distance, to follow him, who spoke in a voice of almost feminine softness, though Agnes thought the expression of his countenance peculiarly sinister and forbidding.
"That, then, must be the Abbe Mordaunt!" exclaimed Agnes, almost aloud, while she gazed at his stern, sallow countenance, his shaggy eyebrows, low forehead, and artful-looking smile. "He might act the villain in any melo-drama! I would rather not stand between that man and any earthly object he may set his heart on! He is the most Jesuitical-looking Jesuit I ever beheld!"
Though Agnes' first recontre with the Marquis of Doncaster had been so calamitous, and her first prejudice against his shadow, the Abbe, had seemed most inveterate, she yet spent much of her time for the next few days in their society, and was delighted to engross the attention and the evident admiration of the two most distinguished-looking personages at the ordinary, while, without scruple, she flattered the Marquis most flagrantly, by laughing to excess at her own very mistaken ideas of him previous to their meeting, and hinting that this had rendered her subsequent surprise the more agreeable. Lord Doncaster in return amused himself with talking to her in a style suited to the female society in which most of his own time had hitherto been spent, though it should not certainly have suited any young girl educated like Agnes, who stretched her complaisance, however, to the utmost for a nobleman, and the uncle of her intended, Captain De Crespigny.
Marion's refined and delicate feelings shrunk at once from the libertine freedom of look and manner which she could not but observe in the old Marquis' tone to ladies, and though he repeatedly tried to engage her in the flippant and almost dissolute conversation which, in a low lover-like tone, he addressed to her sister, and made an ostentatious display of his admiration for both, Marion, disgusted and shocked at what seemed so utterly unsuitable to his years, gently but decidedly evaded all intercourse, being of opinion that the coquetry which was dishonorable in the nephew, became ridiculous and contemptible in the uncle, therefore she behaved to him with distant politeness, and a degree of gravity by no means natural to her in general. Marion devoted herself almost exclusively to Sir Arthur, leading him about in his walks, and enlivening his conversation with old Captain Ogilvy, while she could not but frequently compare the age and respectability of her venerable uncle, with the almost equal age and very opposite character of the Roman Catholic Marquis, whose thin skeleton figure, hollow ghost-like laugh and old stories, as broad as they were long, formed as unsuitable a contrast to his juvenile dress and manners, as his withered aspect did, to the fresh and fragrant flowers he constantly wore in his button-hole, and of which he lavished a splendid profusion on Agnes.
Marion observed with increasing surprise and regret, that the lively persiflage of her sister with the Marquis, was varied very frequently by long and apparently grave discussions, with the Abbe Mordaunt, and at the end of a week, she became startled to observe that Agnes wore round her neck a black ribbon, from which hung conspicuously suspended a large gold crucifix of very beautiful workmanship. On many former occasions, Marion had found reason to dread the bitter vengeance of Agnes' tongue, but at no loss to guess the source from whence this unusual ornament had been derived, she inwardly resolved not to let it pass unnoticed, but warmly to remonstrate with her sister on the growing influence of the Abbe, which seemed surprising and unaccountable, while an undefined feeling of alarm respecting the rapidly increasing intimacy of Agnes with Lord Doncaster, caused her to long impatiently for the arrival of Sir Patrick, as she felt unwilling to distress her uncle on the subject of Agnes' extraordinary conduct, trusting that the whole affair was a mere girlish whim—a piece of missyish coquetry to please Lord Doncaster, who in the mean time laughingly boasted that never before had he made a proselyte so young and beautiful.
CHAPTER XXX.
"Patrick," exclaimed Agnes, hurrying into Sir Arthur's sitting-room the morning after her brother's arrival at the Granby, while a brilliant color lighted up her cheek, and her eyes sparkled with animation, "Lord Wigton is coming in a few minutes to hear me sing that new song of Bellini's, therefore pray tell the waiters we are not at home to any living mortal, and do hold this music till I give a last touch to my ringlets."