A Sybarite! A pleasure-seeker! I thought of him wandering at will through the countries of the world, steeping his senses in every luxury that money could buy, and living at ease and in comfort, and I thought of my father, also a wanderer on the face of the earth, seeking neither comfort nor pleasure nor ease, at war with the world and with himself, with no joy in the present or hope for the future, seeking only for a chance to throw his life away in the miserable quarrels of any pettifogging country who would accept his sword! Mr. Holdern watched me in silence while I walked up and down the room for a few minutes almost beside myself with compressed passion. Then he walked up to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Devereux," he said, earnestly, "I can understand your feeling like this, but you must try and keep it under control, or I'm afraid there will be trouble soon."
"What do you mean?" I asked, turning round and facing him.
He hesitated, and then answered slowly—
"I have just heard that young Francis Devereux, your cousin, is expected down here for Christmas."
CHAPTER XX
AMONGST THE BULRUSHES
It wanted but three days to Christmas, and it had been a frost. Upon the bare fields and the shivering landscape had fallen a hand of iron—no gentle hoar-frost, making the fields and country look like a glittering panorama, but a stern, merciless black frost which had come in with the east wind, and lay upon the land like a cruel blight. Agricultural work of all sort was at a standstill, and hunting was impossible. The only thing to be done out of doors was to skate, and that every one who owned a pair of skates was doing.
There was a large party at Devereux Court, but I had contrived to see very little of them. Two of Lady Olive's sisters, some former schoolfellows of Maud Devereux's, Francis Devereux, and some town friends, were all stopping there, and Maud was playing hostess while Sir Francis kept himself partially shut up. Once or twice I had come across them in the park, a laughing, chattering group, but I had passed with a bow, and had chosen not to see Lady Olive's mute command to stop. I had seen him, my cousin, and I hated him. What freak of nature had made him the brother of such a sister?—this pale, effeminate-looking man, with leaden eyes and insolent stare, and the manners of a fop. "What did Sir Francis think of him," I wonder, "as the future head of the family of Devereux?" Bah! It was a profitless thought.
Early in the morning I sallied out with Mr. Holdern and Marian for an hour or two's skating; there was nothing else for me to do. There were two lakes, and we chose the smaller that we might have it all to ourselves. No sooner had we our skates on than the inevitable happened. Hand in hand Marian and Holdern swept away together to the farther end where the bulrushes were many and the ice was bad, and I was left alone.
I commenced to make the best of it by selecting a smooth piece of ice and setting myself an impossible task in figure skating. Far away on the other lake I could hear the hum of many skates and the sound of merry voices, and it made me feel lonely and discontented. I would like to have been with them, skating hand in hand with Maud—Maud whom I had not spoken a single word to since our last ride home together; Maud whose face was seldom absent from my thoughts; Maud whom, alas! I loved.