CHAPTER XVI
Not only on her own account, but on that of the Marquess, Celia regretted keenly the advent of Lord and Lady Heyton at the Hall. Of the man, Celia had formed a most unfavourable opinion, and she could not but see that his wife, beautiful as she was, was shallow, vain, and unreliable, the kind of woman who would always act on impulse, whether it were a good or evil one. Such a woman is more dangerous than a deliberately wicked and absolutely heartless one.
The coming of these two persons had broken up the quiet and serenity of the great house; she felt sorry for the Marquess, who had been forced almost into an open quarrel with his son on this first night; and she felt sorry for herself; for she had taken an instinctive dislike to Lord Heyton, and knew that she would have hard work to avoid him. There are men whose look, when it is bent upon a woman, is an insult; the touch of whose hand is a contamination; and Celia felt that Lord Heyton was one of these men. She shut herself up in the library the next morning, and though she heard him in the hall, and was afflicted by the pungent cigarette, which was rarely out of his lips, he did not intrude on her; but as she was passing through the hall, on her way for a walk, she met him coming out of the smoking-room. His was a well-groomed figure, and save for the weak and sensuous lips, and the prominent eyes with the curious expression, he was, physically, by no means a bad specimen of a young man; but Celia was acutely conscious of the feeling of repulsion, and she quickened her pace. With his hands still in his pockets, he almost intercepted her.
"Good morning, Miss Grant!" he said, with the free-and-easy manner of a man addressing a dependent. "First-rate morning, isn't it? Going for a walk?"
"Yes, my lord," replied Celia, giving him his title with a little emphasis, and speaking coldly, with her eyes fixed on the ground, her hands touching Roddy, who had not offered to go to Lord Heyton, but gazed up at Celia as if he were saying, "I don't like this man. Let us go for our walk and get away from him."
"Not a bad idea, a walk; tip-top morning," said Heyton. "I'll come with you, if you'll allow me."
Celia bit her lip, and flushed angrily; for the request for permission was so evidently a mere matter of form.
"I would rather go alone, my lord," she said. "I am going to call on a friend."
"Oh, but I can go as far as the door with you, surely," he said, with the smile of a man too self-satisfied to accept a woman's rebuff seriously. "Two's company and one's none."