Bella's smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave.
“I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen in the same company with Alice Lyle—Trafford, I mean—and her sister; but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events, the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it, papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey; but so hurriedly—for the car was at the door, and we were seated on it—that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points,—the usual ones, I suppose,—that—that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.”
“I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke with a very marked gravity.
“Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of a regular narrator,—“away we went, our first care on getting back home being to prepare for Mr. Maitland's visit. We got the little green-room ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back, and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the French commander's sword on the quarter-deck of the 'Malabar:' in fact, it was as neat as could be,—but he never came. No, my dear,—never.”
“How was that?”
“You shall hear; that is, you shall hear what followed, for explanation I have none to give you. Mr. Maitland was to have come over, on the Wednesday following, to dinner. Papa said five, and he promised to be punctual; but he never came, nor did he send one line of apology. This may be some new-fangled politeness,—the latest thing in that fashionable world he lives in,—but still I cannot believe it is practised by well-bred people. Be that as it may, my dear, we never saw him again till yesterday, when he passed us in your sister's fine carriage-and-four, he lolling back this way, and making a little gesture, so, with his hand as he swept past, leaving us in a cloud of dust that totally precluded him from seeing whether we had returned his courtesy—if he cared for it. That's not all,” she said, laying her hand on Bella's arm. “The first thing he does on his arrival here is to take papa's rooms. Well,—you know what I mean,—the rooms papa always occupies here; and when Raikes remarks, 'These are always kept for Commodore Graham, sir; they go by the name of the Commodore's quarters,' his reply is, 'They 'll be better known hereafter as Mr. Norman Maitland's, Mr. Raikes.' Word for word what he said; Raikes told me himself. As for papa, he was furious; he ordered the car to the door, and dashed into our room, and told Sally to put all the things up again,—that we were going off. I assure you, it was no easy matter to calm him down. You have no idea how violent he is in one of these tempers; but we managed at last to persuade him that it was a mere accident, and Sally began telling him the wonderful things she had heard about Maitland from Mrs. Chetwyn,—his fortune and his family, and what not. At last he consented to take the Chetwyns' rooms, and down we went to meet Mr. Maitland,—I own, not exactly certain on what terms it was to be. Cordial is no name for it, Bella; he was—I won't call it affectionate, but I almost might: he held my hand so long that I was forced to draw it away; and then he gave a little final squeeze in the parting, and a look that said very plainly, 'We, at least, understand each other.' It was at that instant, my dear, Alice opened the campaign.”
“Alice! What had Alice to do with it?”
“Nothing,—nothing whatever, by right, but everything if you admit interference and—Well, I'll not say a stronger word to her own sister. I 'll keep just to fact, and leave the commentary on this to yourself. She crosses the drawing-room,—the whole width of the large drawing-room,—and, sweeping grandly past us in that fine Queen-of-Sheba style she does so well, she throws her head back,—it was that stupid portrait-painter, Hillyer, told her 'it gave action to the features,'—and says, 'Take me into dinner, will you?' But she was foiled; old Mrs. Maxwell had already bespoke him. I hope you 're satisfied now, Bella, that this is no dream of mine.”
“But I cannot see any great mischief in it, either.”
“Possibly not. I have not said that there was. Sally 's no fool, however, and her remark was,—'There 's nothing so treacherous as a widow.'”