Deb, beaten to the wall, looked helplessly round the room, only to be conscious of enmity everywhere, from the politely-sneering portrait to her late picture-postcard rivals. She wondered vaguely what had happened to her own photograph, and concluded that Slinker’s mother had destroyed it. Meanwhile the passionless voice went on relentlessly.
“It is a fortnight since the meet, and you have not as yet seen fit to give me any information on this point. I must conclude, therefore, that you intend to be married secretly, so that you can snap your fingers in the face of disapproval, mine and that of every right-thinking individual. For I know that you do mean to marry my son. I have known it—sub-consciously, I suppose—ever since the day of Stanley’s death. You mean to marry Christian as you would have married his brother—for Crump!”
There was a pause, and then Deb said—“It is true!” as she had said once before on a similar night of storm, in the library downstairs.
The other looked at her with a certain cold wonder.
“Lyndesays are all ambitious,” she said, “all ambitious and all proud. I myself am a Lyndesay born, as you know. But you are more ambitious, prouder, surer of yourself than any of us. You would seize Crump in the teeth of all right feeling, decency and respect, grasping an honour snatched from the very hand of the dead. Was there not enough of the scandal laid to your credit, that you must force another upon the family?”
“The scandal was not of my making!” Deb replied, and the older woman gave a curious laugh.
“Stanley is listening, remember! Perhaps he could tell us how you tempted him, how the force of your passion to be mistress of Crump carried him off his feet and made him false to his vows—for a while. He would have gone back to his wife—I, his mother, tell you that. Do not flatter yourself that you would have had him, in any case, had he lived. He would have gone back to his wife! You came at a time when he was lonely and unhappy, and you drew him to you by the same spell that you have thrown over Christian. But the one escaped you, and so shall the other—ay, if he has to follow the same road!”
“Stanley came to me of his own accord!” Deb began hotly, and stopped, for the insidious atmosphere crept upon her, filling her with doubt. Perhaps, after all, she had drawn Stanley without knowing it. He had ignored her at first, but later, when she had turned on him on the subject of some ill-used servant, he had laughed at her and made friends with her; and after that he had seemed unable to keep away. His eyes had followed her hungrily and almost helplessly, and in her presence he had been generally good-humoured and even kind. Had she indeed a spell that drew these men to her whether she would or not? The thought struck her sharply that even Christian had never said he loved her. He did not love her, she felt that, but she had thought him near it. Was it just the charm working, and no more—the attraction of her longing, the magnetism of her passionate desire?
“Christian pities you!” the voice went on cruelly. “He realises all that you lost when you lost Stanley. He thinks he owes you his brother’s debt. He does not love you—surely you cannot imagine that? Christian does not care for women. He is as cold as Galahad. But he can give you as much as Stanley could have given you—his place and his prestige, his house and his money, his carriages and horses, his hothouses, hounds and men! He thinks you are breaking your heart for these—all the things after which a poor relation naturally hankers—and he is generous enough to wish that you should have them. Christian would always have given his last coin to a beggar—and this is yours. A delicate position, isn’t it?” she sneered. “Will you still take Crump at the price?”
Deb said “Yes!” faintly enough, but clinging to her determination and nebulous hopes in spite of the crushing opposition closing about her. She had had a vision of things come right, up on the hill alone with Christian, and its fragrant promise clung to her dimly even yet. Moreover, she would never crawl to this woman.