"I used to stay there occasionally when old Lord Daintree was alive, if you mean that," says Nolly, meekly. "As far as I can recollect, I was always shipped there when naughty, or troublesome, or in the way at home; and as a rule I was always in the way. There is a connection between the Eatons and my mother, and Anadale saw a good deal of me off and on during the holidays. It was a sort of rod in pickle, or dark closet, that used to be held over my head when in disgrace."
"Lilias must have been quite a child then," says Lady Rodney.
"She was never a child: she was born quite grown up. But the ancient Britons had not come into favor at that time: so she was a degree more tolerable. Bless me," says Mr. Darling, with sudden animation, "what horrid times I put in there. The rooms were ghastly enough to freeze the blood in one's veins, and no candles would light 'em. The beds were all four-posters, with heavy curtains round them, so high that one had to get a small ladder to mount into bed. I remember one time—it was during harvest, and the mowers were about—I suggested to Lord Daintree he should get the men in to mow down the beds; but no one took any notice of my proposal, so it fell to the ground. I was frightened to death, and indeed was more in awe of the four-posters than of the old man, who wasn't perhaps half bad."
Dorothy from her corner laughs gayly. "Poor old Noll," she says: "it was his unhappy childhood that blighted his later years and made him the melancholy object he is."
"Well, you know, it was much too much,—it was really," says Mr. Darling, very earnestly. "Mrs. Geoffrey, won't you come to my rescue?".
Mrs. Geoffrey, thus addressed, rouses herself, and says, "What can I do for you?" in a far-away tone that proves she has been in thought-land miles away from every one. Through her brain some words are surging. Her mind has gone back to that scene in the conservatory last night when she and Paul Rodney had been together. What was it he had said? What were the exact words he had used? She lays two fingers on her smooth white brow, and lets a little frown—born only of bewildered thought—contract its fairness.
"A scheme," he had said; and then in a moment the right words flash across her brain. "A brilliant chance, a splendid scheme." What words for an honest man to use! Could he be honest? Was there any flaw, any damning clause anywhere in all this careful plot, so cleverly constructed to bring ruin upon the heads of these people who have crept into her tender heart?
"Where are you now, Mona?" asks Geoffrey, suddenly, laying his hand with a loving pressure on her shoulder. "In Afghanistan or Timbuctoo? Far from us, at least." There is a little vague reproach and uneasiness in his tone.
"No; very near you,—nearer than you think," says Mona, quick to notice any variation in his tone, awaking from her reverie with a start, and laying one of her hands over his. "Geoffrey," earnestly, "what is the exact meaning of the word 'scheme'? Would an honest man (surely he would not) talk of scheming?" Which absurd question only shows how unlearned she yet is in the great lessons of life.
"Well, that is rather a difficult question to answer," says Geoffrey. "Monsieur de Lesseps, when dreaming out the Suez Canal, called it a scheme; and he, I presume, is an honest man. Whereas, on the other side, if a burglar were arranging to steal all your old silver, I suppose he would call that a scheme too. What have you on the brain now, darling? You are not going to defraud your neighbor, I hope."