"Poor old creature! What an unhappy age! So you say Marmaduke's admiration for Blanche meant nothing? And she—did she like him?"
"For 'like' read 'love' I suppose? My dearest Phyllis, have you, who have been so long under the same roof with Blanche, yet to discover how impossible it would be for her to love any one but Blanche Going. Yet stay; I wrong her partly; once she did love, and does so still, I believe."
"Whom do you mean?" ask I, bending forward eagerly.
"Have you no notion? How surprised you look! You will wonder still more when I tell you the hero of her romance is at present in your house."
"Here, in this house!" I stammer.
"Yes. No less a person than Mark Gore."
So I am right. And jealousy has been at the root of all her ladyship's open hostility towards me!
"Any casual observer would never think so," I remark, at last, after a very lengthened pause.
"That is because Murk's infatuation has come to an end, and he does not care to renew matters. If you watch him you may see what particular pains he takes to avoid a tete-a-tete with her. And yet there was a time when she had considerable influence over him. He was a constant visitor at her house in town—so constant that at length it began to be mooted about how he had the entree there at all hours and seasons, even when an intimate friend might expect a denial. Then people began to whisper again, and shake their wise heads and pity 'that poor colonel,' and watch eagerly for the denouement.
"Why did her mother not interfere?"