“Whatever you were about to ask me! I’m sure I’m not very clear what that was, whether to urge upon Sir Within the inexpediency of giving away a large portion of his fortune to a stranger, or the impropriety of falling into idiocy and the hands of Commissioners in Lunacy.”
Again was Mr. M’Kinlay driven to the limit of his temper, but he saw, or thought he saw, that this man’s levity was his nature, and must be borne with.
“And you advise my consulting Miss Courtenay upon it?”
“I know of none so capable to give good counsel; and here she comes. She has deposited the old man in that easy-chair for a doze, I fancy. Strange enough, the faculties that do nothing occasionally stand in need of rest and repose!”
Miss Courtenay, after consigning Sir Within to the comforts of a deep arm-chair, turned again into the garden. There was the first quarter of a clear sharp moon in the sky, and the season, though mid-winter, was mild and genial, like spring. Mr. M’Kinlay was not sorry to have received this piece of advice from Grrenfell. There was a little suit of his own he wanted to press, and, by a lucky chance, he could now do so, while affecting to be engaged by other interests. Down the steps he hastened at once, and came up with her as she stood at the little balustrade over the sea. Had he been a fine observer, or had he even had the common tact of those who frequent women’s society, he would have seen that she was not pleased to have been followed, and that it was her humour to be alone, and with her own thoughts. To his little commonplaces about the lovely night and the perfumed air, she merely muttered an indistinct assent. He tried a higher strain, and enlisted the stars and the moon, but she only answered with a dry “Yes, very bright.”
“Very few more of such exquisite nights are to fall to my lot, Miss Georgina,” said he, sighing. “A day or two more must see me plodding my weary way north’ard, over the Mont Cenis pass.”
“I wonder you don’t go by Marseilles, or by the Cornich,” said she, carelessly, as though the route itself was the point at issue.
“What matters the road which leads me away from where I have been so—happy?” He was going to say “blest;” but he had not been blessed, and he was too technically honest to misdirect in his brief. No rejoinder of any kind followed on this declaration. He paused, and asked himself, “What next? Is the Court with me?” Oh! what stores of law lore, what wealth of Crown cases reserved, what arguments in Banco, would he not have given, at that moment, for a little insight into that cunning labyrinth, a woman’s heart! Willingly would he have bartered the craft it had taken years to accumulate for that small knowledge of the sex your raw Attaché or rawer Ensign seem to have as a birthright. “I am too abrupt,” thought he. “I must make my approaches more patiently—more insidiously. I’ll mask my attack, and begin with Sir Within.”
“I have been plotting all day, Miss Courtenay,” said he, in a calmer tone, “how to get speech of you. I am in great want of your wise counsel and kindly assistance. May I indulge the hope that they will not be denied me?”
“Let me learn something of the cause, Sir, in which they are to be exercised.”