"Nothing will change my purpose—nothing can change it." Then, though it seemed almost sacrilege to bring to light what lay like a fount of hidden joy in her heart, she looked steadily into the face of the world-worn man, who quailed before the clear glance of those young pure eyes. "Nothing can change my purpose, sir; and for this reason—I am pledged to another."
"Ha! ha!" broke out almost involuntarily from Sir Maxwell "I understand. Lady Betty, let me warn you that this fair lady is in some danger from designing folk, who frequent the lowest purlieus of the city. I warn you; and now"—with a low bow—"I take my leave." And casting a Parthian arrow behind as he made another low bow at the door, he said: "And unless you receive my warning in good part, you will see cause to repent it. It may be you will have to repent it through another."
Griselda's face blanched with fear as she turned to Lady Betty:
"Tell me," she exclaimed, "what that bad man has been saying of—of me, and of another!"
"Saying! That you have misbehaved yourself, miss; and that you have been taken to Crown Alley by that canting hypocrite whom I detest. Speak to him again, and you leave this house. Dare to refuse Sir Maxwell Danby's offer, and I cast you off. You had better take care, for your poor mother disgraced herself, and——"
"Stop!" Griselda said; "not a word about my mother. I will not hear it. But, Aunt Betty, I will not listen to the proposal made me by Sir Maxwell Danby. I would not, as I have told you, marry him were there no other man in the world; but, as it is," she said proudly, the fire of her eyes being suddenly dimmed with the mist of gentle tears—"as it is, I am the promised wife of Mr. Leslie Travers. He will see you to-morrow on this matter, and——"
"I will not see him. You shall marry Sir Maxwell; he has a fine fortune, and a fine place. You are mad; you are an idiot—a fool! Go to your room, miss, and keep out of my sight till you come to your senses. Get out of my sight, I say!"
How long this tirade might have raged I cannot tell, had not David announced "Lord Basingstoke." Shallow waters are easily lashed into a storm, and as easily does the storm spend itself.
Lady Betty quickly recovered herself, and as Griselda left the room she heard her aunt's usual dulcet tones and the inevitable giggle as the young lord, who was sorely at a loss how to "kill time," sank down in the chair Sir Maxwell had so lately left, and the usual badinage went on and received an additional piquancy by the arrival of two or three more idle people who had been to the Pump Room for their afternoon glass of water, and missing Lady Betty, had come to inquire for her health, and to talk the usual amount of scandal, or harmless gossip, as the case might be.
The various love affairs on the tapis were discussed in their several aspects, and Mrs. Greenwood's plain daughters were made the target for the shafts of foolish satire.