When Lauriston had taken a decorous leave of the innocent guardian in the next room, and found himself once more in the street, he was inclined to think that he had changed his identity. Some new power, horrible in its strength, seemed to have fastened upon him, and to twist and turn him like an osier. He walked on quickly and firmly, trying to recall his old, calmer self.
“I will keep my oath and go there again,” he said to himself with clenched teeth. “But by all I hold sacred, I won’t see that demon-girl again. Heaven help the man who may ever trust his happiness in her hands!”
CHAPTER V.
It was not so easy, after this second interview with the mysterious lady of Mary Street, for George Lauriston to keep the image of the little black-eyed enchantress out of his mind. Her prompt and passionate advances to himself raised strong doubts as to the result of the education which Mrs. Ellis declared to have been so careful, while on the other hand, against his better judgment, he would fain have believed that it was the romantic circumstances of their strangely made acquaintance which had broken down, for the first time, the maidenly reserve of the passionate and wayward girl. In spite of himself, a small, slim, supple form, dark sun-warm complexion, April changing moods, kisses from fresh young lips that clung to your own with frank, passionate enjoyment, had all become attributes of his ideal of womanhood. It came upon him with a shock therefore, when, a few days later, he suddenly discovered that he was expected to find his ideal in a lady who was destitute of any one of them.
It came about in this way. Chief among the houses where George Lauriston was always sure of a welcome was the town establishment of Sir Henry Millard, Lady Florencecourt’s brother, an uninteresting and rather incapable gentleman who had raised himself from poverty and obscurity by marrying, or rather letting himself be married by, an American heiress who was the possessor of a quite incalculable number of dollars. They had three daughters, Cicely, Charlotte, and Ella, all of whom would be well dowered, and who were therefore surfeited with attentions which custom had taught them to rate at their proper value. Lady Millard was a lean, restless, bright-eyed little woman, who had acquired some repose of manner only by putting the strongest constraint upon herself, and who was consumed by an ardent ambition to be the mother-in-law of an English duke. Sir Henry’s whole soul was bound up in a model farm in Norfolk, which his wife’s fortune enabled him to mismanage with impunity. He had never got over his intense disgust with his daughters for not being sons, and he left them and the disposal of them entirely in the hands of his wife and of their uncle Lord Florencecourt, who, having no daughters of his own, took an almost paternal interest in his nieces.
Lord Florencecourt had made up his mind that a marriage between his favourite, George Lauriston, and one of his nieces would be an admirable arrangement, giving to the young officer the money which would do so much to forward his advancement in the world, and to one of the girls an honourable, manly husband, who might some day do great things. The match would, besides, strengthen the bonds of mutual friendship and liking between himself and the young man.
It was one evening when the two men were driving in a hansom to dine at Sir Henry’s, that the elder broached the subject in his usual harsh, abrupt tone, but with a generous fire in his eyes, which showed the depth and the quality of his interest in the matter.
Lauriston, taken by surprise, betrayed a reluctance, almost a repugnance, to the idea which filled the elder man with anger and disappointment.
“I see,” said he, with a short dry laugh. “You have picked up with some pretty chorus-girl, and are not ready for matrimony.”
“You are mistaken, Colonel, I assure you. I have picked up nobody. But it is hardly surprising if your constant jibes at love and matrimony should have taken root in me, who honour your opinions so much.”