Sir George may, perhaps, have heard these last words, as he ascended the terrace steps. Whether he heard them or not, he could scarce fail to mark his wife’s excited gestures—her brightened eyes—her raised colour—and the sudden check in the conversation, caused by his own arrival.
Again that dull pain seemed to gnaw at his heart, when he thought how bright and eager and amused she always seemed in Florian’s company.
He had seen the two on the terrace as he rode home across the park, and joined them by the shortest way from the stable, without a tinge of that suspicion he might not be wanted, which was so painful now. Still he kept down all such unworthy feelings as he would have trampled an adder under his heavy riding-boots.
“Bring me a rose, Cerise,” he said, cheerily, as he passed his wife. “There are not many of them left now. Here, Florian,” he added, tossing him a packet he held in his hand. “A note from pretty Alice at the ‘Hamilton Arms.’ Have a care, man! there are a host of rivals in the field.”
Florian looked at the writing on the cover, and turned pale. This might easily be accounted for, but why should Cerise, at the same instant, have blushed so red—redder even than the rose she was plucking for her husband?
Perhaps that was the question Sir George asked himself as he walked moodily into the house to dress.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE “HAMILTON ARMS”
Like many old country places of the time, Hamilton Hill had a village belonging to it, which seemed to have nestled itself into the valley under shelter of the great house, just near enough to reap the benefits of so august a neighbourhood, but at such a distance as not to infringe on the sacred precincts of the deer-park, or on the romantic privacy of the pleasure-grounds.