“Oh, he will have other things to think about. No, I am only using him as a type of the man Fanny might respect and trust, poor child! It’s a terribly trying position with her fortune, and no father or mother, and Lord Milborough not so steady as he should be.”
As the first days passed, Millie felt each evening that the chances for his coming were by so much doubled, and her spirits rose, but when five had slipped by, they sank in waters of dejection. She fought heroically to prevent their loss being discovered, and succeeded fairly, helped by Lady Fanny, who loved fighting of any sort, especially on the side of woman, and was firing her soul with blame of Wareham. She flung herself into the breach with chatter of brilliant nonsense, for which a laugh was sufficient answer, and Millie, who was so ashamed of the unreasonableness of her suffering, that the idea of its being observed was agony, comforted herself with the assurance that she had joined gaily in the conversation, and betrayed nothing.
Chapter Sixteen.
Straws.
By Sunday Millie had given up all thought of seeing Wareham. He had told her that his stay in London could not exceed a few days, business might keep him there so long, but he had even talked of a quicker escape, and laughed at his probable solitude and discomfort at a club where workmen would be in possession, and he’d be hunted out of his favourite corners. The difference in comfort between a train on and off the line, he declared. “Women manage better in their worst domestic emergencies, but man is a helpless animal.”
“From what you have told me, though, you have liked to rough it in other places?” Millie remarked in wonder.
“To rough it—yes. That is easy enough. To be uncomfortable in the midst of luxury is quite another matter, and there I rebel. If the best cook in London is in the kitchen, why should I dine on a burnt chop?”
He laughed as he said it, and she consoled herself for what seemed the blemish of self-indulgence in her hero, by the conviction that he spoke in jest. But it came back to her, and she reflected with a sigh that he had probably found his conditions irksome, and fled from them. She was spared shock to vanity, for she had never thought of her own attractions as strong enough to influence his staying, and it had only been a modest hope that they had become so friendly that he would keep his promise to see them which was disappointed. When Sunday afternoon came, it was not expectation which held her at home, but a dislike to Miss Burton, to whose house Lady Fanny, accompanied by Mrs Ravenhill, had dutifully betaken herself. She sat with a book on her lap, languidly idle, when Wareham was introduced. Pleasure leapt into her eyes.