She wanted to give thanks that Frank had become so wholly and avowedly hers, and for that deep intense affection that had gone on, unfed, uncherished, for years; but the overflow of delight was checked with foreboding—there was the instinctive terror of a basilisk eye gazing into her paradise of joy—the thanksgiving ran into a half-despairing deprecation.
And she knew that Frank was under Camilla’s spell, and admired and trusted her still; nor had she been able to utter a word of caution to undeceive him. Should she have the power on the morrow? Camilla really loved skating, and surrounded as she was sure to be, there was hope of escaping her vigilant eye once more. To-morrow there would be another meeting with Frank! perhaps another walk with him!
That anticipation was soothing enough to bring back the power of joyful gratitude, and therewith of hopeful prayer.
CHAPTER XV
Plot and Counterplot
A lady a party of pleasure made,
And she planned her scheme full well,
And day and night the party filled
The head of the demoiselle.—FABER
Though Frank had no reason to expect that the tidings of his success would be hailed with much satisfaction at home, yet his habit of turning to his mother for sympathy would have been too much for his prudence, but for the fact that Terry De Lancey had dragged into her room a massive volume of prints from the Uffizi Gallery, and was looking it over with her, with a zest she had not seen since the days when her father gloried in his collection.
His victory could only be confided to Charlie, who might laugh, but fully appreciated the repose of mind with which he could now encounter the examiners, and promised to do his part to cover the meetings of the lovers the next day. But even then the chances of another performance on the lake, or of a walk among the icicles afterwards, were departing. Thaw was setting in and by breakfast-time there was a down-pouring rain. Frank lingered about Cecil in hopes of a message to serve as an excuse for a rush to Sirenwood; but she proved to be going to drive to the working-room, and then to lunch at Mrs. Duncombe’s, to meet the Americans and the ladies from Sirenwood, according to a note sent over in early morning at first sight of the wet.
Thereupon Frank found he had a last reference to make to his tutor, and begged for a lift. A touch of warmth in Cecil would have opened the flood-gates of his confidence, but she was exercised about a mistake in the accounts, and claimed his aid in tracking a defective seven-pence. When she heard him utter the monstrous statement that a hundred and five farthings were almost nine shillings, she looked at him with withering compassion, as sure to fail, and a small loss to Her Majesty; nor would she listen to any of his hints that he was very curious to see her working-room.
His question to the tutor judiciously lasted till twelve, when he dropped in to consult Captain Duncombe about horse-hire in London; and that gentleman, who had been undergoing a course of political economy all the morning, eagerly pounced on him for a tour of his stables, which lasted till luncheon was due, and he could casually enter the dining-room, where Lady Tyrrell held out her hand good-naturedly to him, laughing at the blankness he could not entirely conceal. “Only me!” she said. “It can’t be helped! Poor Lenore caught such a dreadful sore throat last night, that I have shut her up in her room with a mustard poultice.”
“Indeed! I am very sorry.”