“You do not mean to answer? It was from no love for or goodwill to me. I know you do not—like me, Spenser Churchill!”
He looked quite shocked, and whispered:
“My dear Lady Grace, you hurt me; you do, indeed! There is no one in the charming circle to which you belong whom I more ardently admire and respect! Oh, really, you wound me! Not like you!”—he held out his soft, plump hands reproachfully—“Lady Grace Peyton possesses the whole of my esteem; and if I could do her a service——”
“You would do it!” she broke in, abruptly, with a bitter, scornful laugh.
He sighed and looked up at the sky with an injured air of patience and long suffering.
“How little you know me! How cruelly you wrong me! Alas! it is always thus! One’s best effort on behalf of others is always met with scorn and incredulity——”
“There is the marquis,” she said, as if she had been thinking deeply and had not heard his pathetic appeal. “What do you know about him? How have you got him in your power?”
“Got the marquis in my power! My dear Lady Grace——”
“Pshaw!” she said. “Do you think I am blind that I cannot see how different he treats you to others? Is there any other man who would come to Barton Towers, and be received as you have been? Is there any other man who would dare to brave him—yes, and taunt him—as you have done to-day? You know something about him—you have some hold upon him. I don’t ask what it is—oh, no,” she added, quietly, as he smiled, “for I know that you would not tell me or would palm off some smooth falsehood——”
“Oh, Lady Grace, Lady Grace!” he answered, plaintively; but there was a flicker of self-jubilation and satisfaction on his smiling face.