The dinner-party at Lady Cheriton’s offered no such chances, though it was a gathering together quite unexpected by some of the party. Lady Cheriton, when the question of a school for Nettie had been discussed, had renewed her offer of having her to share the studies of her younger daughters; and Cheriton, who thought that Nettie in a London boarding-school would be very troublesome to others and very unhappy herself, had succeeded in getting the plan adopted. So here she was, dignified and polished, in her long black dress, and bent, so said her aunt, in a silent and grudging fashion, on acquiring sufficient knowledge to hold her own among other girls. She was wonderfully handsome, and so tall that her height and presence marked her out as much as her intensely red-and-white complexion and yellow hair. There, too, were Virginia and her brother Dick, Cherry being guilty of assuring his aunt that there was no reason why Alvar should not meet them. For Dick’s examination had at length been successfully passed, and an arrangement had been made that he should board with some friends of Mr Stanforth’s, and Virginia had availed herself of an invitation from Lady Cheriton to come to London with him.
“You did not tell me she was coming,” said Alvar angrily to Cheriton.
“It is impossible that you should avoid so near a neighbour,” replied Cherry.
“I do not like it,” said Alvar; and the effect on him was to shake his graceful self-possession, make him uncertain of what he was saying, and watch Virginia as she talked to Cherry of Dick’s prospects, with a look that was no more indifferent than the elaborate politeness of Jack’s greeting to Miss Stanforth. She was more self-controlled, but she missed no word or look. But if Cheriton had played a trick on his brother, he himself received a startling surprise when Mr and Mrs Rupert Lester were announced. “You cannot avoid meeting your cousins” was as true as his excuse to Alvar; but he could not help feeling himself watched; and as for Ruth, her brilliant, expressive face showed a consciousness which perhaps she hardly meant to conceal from him as she looked at him with all the past in her eyes. Ruth liked excitement, and the situation was not quite disagreeable to her; but while her look thrilled Cheriton through and through, the fact that she could give it, broke the last thread of his bondage to her. She made him feel with a curious revulsion that Rupert was his own cousin, and that she had tried to make him forget that she was his cousin’s wife; and as, being a man, he attributed far too distinct a meaning to the glance of an excitable, sentimental girl, it repelled him, though the pain of the repulsion was perhaps as keen as any that she had made him suffer. He did not betray himself, and it was left to Jack to frown like a thunder-cloud.
When Cheriton came out of the dining-room, Nettie pursued him into a corner, and began abruptly,—
“Cherry, I want to speak to you. When Jack went to Spain did he tell you anything about me?”
“Nothing that I recollect especially,” said Cherry, surprised.
“Well, I am going to tell you about it. Mind, I think I was perfectly right, and Jack ought to have known I should be.”
“Have you and Jack had a quarrel, then?”
“Yes,” said Nettie, standing straight upright, and making her communication as she looked down on Cherry, as he sat on a low chair. “I taught Dick to pass his examination.”