His first visit was to his starving aunt, who gave him an excellent luncheon, accompanied by claret of undeniable quality; the impression left upon his mind at their first interview, that he had found an extremely pleasant acquaintance, was confirmed. Mrs. Sinclair was a "good comrade," and Melville became one of her most frequent visitors and her usual squire to the theatre and other places where the world amuses itself. He liked her unaffectedly, and she liked him, and the little house in The Vale would have had unalloyed charm for Melville but for the constant presence there of two other people.
The first of these was Mrs. Sinclair's maid, Lucille, who had admitted him on the occasion of his first visit. Entirely devoted to her mistress, with whom she had lived for many years, she had done her utmost to dissuade Lavender from writing to Melville and thus introducing an element of difficulty into a career now undisturbed, and likely to end in a marriage so desirable as that with the wealthy Scotch baronet, Sir Ross Buchanan.
The other was Sir Ross Buchanan himself, who was with Mrs. Sinclair in the Casino at Monte Carlo on the night when Melville became the recipient of the viaticum. Subject to the limitations suggested by his native Scotch caution, he intended to bestow his large fortune and his small person upon Mrs. Sinclair, and, knowing nothing of Melville's relationship by marriage to the object of his passion, he regarded him with dislike and jealous mistrust. He took no pains to conceal his dislike of Melville, and told Mrs. Sinclair in so many words that he disapproved of his visits.
"Have you any more grown-up relations to spring upon me?" he asked sarcastically.
"Now you're being stupid," she replied. "He is related to me and I like him, and now that I've opened my doors to him, I'm not going to close them again to gratify your caprice."
Sir Ross frowned.
"I hate the brute," he said viciously, "and I object to his visiting you."
"Then I had better arrange that you should not meet him," Mrs. Sinclair answered; "there will be no difficulty about that."
"I object to his visiting you at all," Sir Ross repeated. "You are too fond of him as it is; your attentions are quite marked. If you are so much attached to him now, there is no reason why you should not insist upon receiving him after we are married, and that I have no intention of permitting."
Mrs. Sinclair was not the woman to brook dictation.