For a while Kate Mellon stood motionless, then stamped her foot violently, and sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands, through which the tears welled slowly. Rousing herself at length, she hurried to a writing-table, pulled out a gaudily-decorated papier-mâché blotting-book, and commenced scrawling a letter. She wrote hurriedly, passionately, until she had covered the sheet, running her gold pen-holder through the tangled mass of hair at the back of her head, and twisting a stick of sealing-wax with her teeth the while. The letter finished, she skimmed through it hastily, put it in an envelope, and directed it to "F. Churchill, Esq., Statesman Office, E.C."
[CHAPTER V.]
"THERE'S NOTHING HALF SO SWEET IN LIFE."
Four days had slipped away since Churchill's first arrival at Bissett Grange, and he had begun to acknowledge to himself that they had passed more pleasantly than any previous time in his recollection. The mere fact of getting out of business was a great relief to him; he revelled in the knowledge that he had nothing to do; and, in odd times and seasons,--as he lay in bed of nights, for instance,--he would chuckle at the thought that the coming morrow had for him no work and no responsibilities in store; and when he went up to dress himself for dinner, he would settle down into an easy-chair, or hang out of the open window, and delight in the prospect of a good dinner and delightful society, of music and conversation, from which no horrid clock-striking would tear him away, and send him forth to dreary rooms and brain-racking until the small hours of the morning. Society, music, and conversation! It is true that he enjoyed them all; and yet, when he came to analyse his happiness, he was fain to admit that they all meant Barbara Lexden. As in a glass darkly, that tall majestic figure moved through every thought, and sinuously wound itself round every impulse of his heart. At first he laughed at his own weakness, and tried to exorcise the spirit, to whose spells he found himself succumbing, by rough usage and hard exercise. There is probably nothing more serviceable in getting rid of a sharp attack of what is commonly known as "spooniness"--when it is accidental, be it remembered, not innate--than the eager pursuit of some healthy sport. Men try wine and cards; both of which are instantaneous but fleeting remedies, and which leave them in a state of reaction, when they are doubly vulnerable; but shooting or hunting, properly pursued, are thoroughly engrossing while they last, and when they are over necessitate an immediate recourse to slumber from the fatigue which they have induced. In the morning, even should opportunity offer, the "spoony" stage is at its lowest ebb; it is rarely possible to work oneself up to the proper pitch of silliness immediately after breakfast, and then some farther sporting expedition is started, which takes one out of harm's way. But in Churchill's case even this remedy failed; he was not much of a sportsman; not that he shot badly, but that he was perpetually distrait, and when reminded of his delinquencies by a sharp, "Your bird, sir!" from one of his companions, would fire so quickly, and with so much effect, as to mollify the speaker, and lead him to believe that it was shortsightedness, and not being a "Cockney"--that worst of imputations amongst sportsmen--that led the stranger to miss marking the rise of the covey. And yet Churchill displayed no lack of keen vision in making out the exact whereabouts of a striped petticoat and a pair of high-heeled Balmoral boots which crossed a stile a little in advance of the servants bringing the luncheon; but these once seen, and their wearer once talked to, sport was over with him for the day, and he strolled back with Miss Lexden, at a convenient distance behind Miss Townshend and Captain Lyster, who led the way.
"You are soon tired of your sport, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara; "I should have thought that you would have followed ardently any pursuit on which you entered."
"You do me a great deal too much honour, Miss Lexden," replied Churchill, laughing; "my pursuits are of a very desultory nature, and in all of them I observe Talleyrand's caution,--Point de zèle."
"And you carry that out in every thing?"
"In most things. Mine is a very easy-going, uneventful, unexcitable life; I live thoroughly quietly; da capo--all over again; and it is seldom that any thing breaks in upon the routine of my humdrum existence."
"Then," said Barbara, looking saucily up at him from under her hat--"then you do not follow the advice which your favourite Talleyrand gave to the ambassadors whom he was despatching, tenez bonne table, et soignez les femmes."
Churchill looked up, and for an instant caught her glance; then he laughed lightly, and said,