Except Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, who disliked him as much as she could be at the trouble of disliking anybody--which, indeed, was not much, for her real nature was essentially trivial, and her affections, except for herself and her enmities, alike wavering, weak, and contemptible. Mr. Felton neither liked nor respected the brilliant woman who was so much admired and so very much "talked about" at Homburg; but he said nothing of his contumacious dissent from the general opinion except to George, and was gravely courteous and acquiescent when the lady, her dress, her ponies, her "dash," and her wealth--the latter estimated with the usual liberality of society in such cases--were discussed in his presence. They had been pretty freely discussed during a few days which preceded the conversation concerning her which had taken place between the uncle and nephew. When they met again on the following morning, George asked Mr. Felton when he intended to visit Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and was informed that his uncle purposed writing to the lady to inquire at what time it be her pleasure and convenience to receive him. George looked a little doubtful on hearing this. The remembrance of Harriet's strongly expressed opinion was in his mind, and he had a notion that his uncle would have done more wisely had he sought her presence unannounced. But such a proceeding would have been entirely inconsistent with Mr. Felton's notions of the proper and polite, and his nephew dismissed the subject; reflecting that, after all, as she had said "he knows where to find me if he wants to know what I can tell him," she could not refuse to see him. So Mr. Felton's note was written and sent, and an answer returned which perfectly justified George's misgiving that if Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge were afforded an opportunity of offering Mr. Felton an impertinence, she would not hesitate to avail herself of it.
The answer was curt and decisive. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was particularly engaged that day, and would be particularly engaged the next; on the third she would receive Mr. Felton at three o'clock. Mr. Felton handed the missive to his nephew with an expression of countenance partly disconcerted and partly amused.
"I thought so," said George, as he tossed the dainty sheet of paper, with its undecipherable monogram and its perfume of the latest fashion, upon the table--"I thought so. We must only wait until Thursday, that is, unless we chance to meet your fair correspondent in our walks between to-day and Thursday."
But Mr. Felton and his nephew did not chance to meet Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge either on that or on the succeeding day. Once they saw her pony-carriage coming towards them, but it turned off into another road, and was out of sight before they reached the turn.
"I am pretty sure she saw and recognized us," George Dallas thought; "but why she should avoid my uncle, except out of sheer spite, I cannot imagine."
There was no farther to look for the lady's motive. Sheer spite was the highest flight of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's powers of revenge or anger. She was an accomplished and systematic coquette; and, having more brains than heart, however mediocre her endowments in either sense, she was perfectly successful. She disliked Mr. Felton, because he had never betrayed any admiration or even consciousness of her beauty, and it was very annoying to a woman of her stamp to have tried her arts unsuccessfully on an elderly man. She had tried them merely in an idle hour, and with the amiable purpose of enjoying the novelty of such a conquest; but she had failed, and she was irritated by her failure.
If Mr. Felton had even sheltered himself behind the rampart of his years, it would have been more tolerable--if he had extended a kind of paternal protection to her, for instance. But he did not; he simply paid her ordinary attentions in his customary grave way, whenever he was brought in contact with her, and, for the rest, calmly ignored her. When his son appeared in her train, she had not the satisfaction of believing she could make the father wretched by encouraging him. Mr. Felton had graver cause than any she could help to procure for him, for disapproval of his son's conduct in most respects. She counted for nothing in the sum of his dissatisfaction, but she certainly became more distasteful to him when she was added to the number of its components. Mark Felton had wounded the sensitive self-love of a woman who knew no deeper passion. She was animated by genuine spite towards him, when she declined to accede to his request for an immediate interview.
By what feeling was Stewart Routh, who was with her when she received Mr. Felton's note, and who strongly urged the answer she sent to it, actuated t He would have found it difficult to tell. Not jealousy; the tone in which she had spoken of Arthur Felton precluded that feeling. Routh had felt that it was genuine, even while he knew that this woman was deliberately enslaving him, and therefore was naturally suspicious of every tone in which she spoke of any one. But his judgment was not yet entirely clouded by passion; he had felt, in their brief conversation relative to Arthur Felton, that her tone had been true. He hated George Dallas now; he did not deceive himself about that. There was a vague dread and trouble in his thoughts concerning the young man. Once he had only despised him. He no longer despised him; but he hated him instead. And this hatred, further reaching than love, included all who were connected with George, and especially Mr. Felton, whose grave and distant manner, whose calm and penetrating glance, conveyed keen offence to Stewart Routh. They had not spoken of the matter to each other; but Routh had felt, as soon and as strongly as Harriet, that his influence over Dallas was at an end. As it happened, he had successfully used that influence for the last time in which he could foresee any need for its employment, and therefore Mr. Felton had not done him any practical injury; but that did not matter: he hated him all the same.
He had watched the smile with which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge read Mr. Felton's note a little anxiously. He did not dare to ask her from whom the missive came, but she graciously gave him the information.
"He wants to see me, to find out Master Arthur's doings," she said, with a ringing mischievous laugh. "Not that I know anything about him since he left Paris, and I shall have to look serious and listen to more preaching than goes well with the sunshine of to-day. It's rather a nuisance;" and the lady pouted her scarlet lips very effectively.