"Ah, but I don't stop at not liking him," said Margaret; "if I did, my conscience would not reproach me as it does. I hope his father does not perceive anything in my manner."
"Nothing more unlikely. Meredith does not observe you so closely or understand you so well as I do; and I don't think any one but myself could find out that you dislike the boy; and I was assisted, I must acknowledge, by a lively fellow-feeling. I should not wonder if Robert was perfectly aware that he is not a favourite with you."
"I am sure there is nothing in my manner or that of any one else," said Margaret, "which in any way touches himself, that he fails to perceive."
"Fortunately it does not matter. He loses nothing material by our not happening to take a fancy to him, and I don't think he is a person to suffer from any sentimental regrets. More than that, Margaret--and enough to have made me dislike him--I don't think he likes you."
"Like me! He hates me," she said vehemently. "I catch his eye sometimes when he looks at me, and wonder how so young a face can express so much bad feeling. I have seen such a diabolical sneer upon his face sometimes, particularly when either my father or his father spoke affectionately to me, as almost startled me--for my own sake, I mean."
"For your own sake?" said Mr. Baldwin in a tone of some annoyance. "How can you say such a foolish thing? Why on earth should you give such a thing a moment's thought? What can it possibly matter to you that you are the object of an impertinent dislike to a boy like young Meredith?"
"Nothing indeed," answered Margaret, "and I will never think of it again. You are all in a conspiracy to spoil me, I think, and thus I am foolish enough to be surprised and uncomfortable when any one dislikes me without a reason."
No more was said then on this subject, and Mr. Baldwin dismissed it from his mind. The conversation he had had with his wife had just so much effect upon him and no more, that he took very little notice of Robert, and displayed no more interest than politeness demanded in the discussions concerning him and his future, which just then shared the attention of the family party at Chayleigh with Captain Carteret's rapidly approaching marriage.
This circumstance the young gentleman was not slow to notice, and it had the effect of intensifying the feeling with which he regarded Margaret.
"She has put her fine husband up to snubbing me, has she?" he said to himself one day, when Mr. Baldwin had taken less notice of him than usual. "Now I wonder what that's for. Perhaps she's afraid of the goodness of my memory. I daresay she has told him a whole pack of lies about the time she was in Melbourne, and she's afraid, if I walked or rode out with him, I might get upon the subject. And I only wish he would give me a chance, that's all."