“Did I understand you to say that you would be ready in a quarter of an hour, Cecilia?” he interrupted calmly. “Permit me to order your horses to be put up.” And he moved across the room towards the bell and rang it.
She hesitated, bit her lip, and turned towards the door without another word. A servant stood upon the threshold, summoned by the bell.
“Let Mrs. Ross attend Lady Silchester at once,” Mr. Ravenor ordered. “Her ladyship will take tea in her room, and will dine with me in the library at half-past eight.”
“Very good, sir.”
The door was closed and we were alone again. Mr. Ravenor returned to his letter, with his lips slightly parted in a quiet smile. I stood still, hot and uncomfortable, wondering in what possible manner I could have offended Lady Silchester. The meaning of the little scene which had just taken place was beyond my comprehension. But I knew that it had a meaning, and that I was somehow concerned in it.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CRY IN THE AVENUE.
The letter which Mr. Ravenor had been writing to my mother was finished and sealed at last. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked steadily at me.
“I shall not see you again before you go, Philip Morton,” he said, “so I wish to impress upon you once more what I said to you about my nephew, who is Lady Silchester’s son, by-the-bye. I know that he is going on badly, but I wish to know how badly. Unfortunately, he has no father, and, from what I can remember of him, I should imagine that he is quite easily led, and would be very amenable to the influence of a stronger mind. If yours should be that mind—and I do not see why it should not—it will be well for him. That delightfully Utopian optimism of yours is, at any rate, healthy,” he added dryly.
I felt my cheeks burn and would have spoken, but Mr. Ravenor checked me.
“Let there be no misunderstanding between us,” he said. “I desire no gratitude from you and I deserve none. What I am doing I am doing for my own gratification—perhaps for my own ultimate advantage. That you are a gainer by it is purely a matter of chance. The whim might just as well have been the other way. I might have taken a fancy to have you turned out of the place and, if so, I would have done it. On the whole, it is I who should be grateful to you for not baulking me in my scheme and for letting me have my own way. So understand, please, after this explanation, that I shall look upon any expression of gratitude from you as a glaring mark of imbecility, apart from which it will annoy me exceedingly.”