"But I woke up the first day Sir Henry came home. I was looking my best, and he took care I should know he thought so before he had been five minutes in the room. At dinner, too, he was perfectly odious, and the way he helped me to claret, after three hours' acquaintance, was an insult in itself. Can you believe the man wrote me a letter that very night, and had the effrontery to put it on my pincushion himself after I had gone down to breakfast? Such a letter! excusing the outrageous nature of the whole proceeding, and thus showing he knew perfectly well how badly he was behaving, on the score, if you please, of his age and experience in such matters! He had often fancied himself in love before, he said, but he now knew that he had met his fate for the first and last time. He should leave home, he protested, that same day, and unless I could give him some hope of toleration, if not of forgiveness, should probably never return, for he dreaded my displeasure more even than he loved the very ground I trod on, &c., &c. All in the worst and washiest style, as silly and vulgar as a Valentine! But he didn't leave home; for, to my dismay, he appeared at tea-time, on the best possible terms with himself, having been out all the morning with the Bragford hounds, and lunched, as he told us, in very charming society at the 'Peacock.'"
A Red Indian displays, I believe, wonderful fortitude and self-command under punishment, but a woman tortured by another woman far surpasses the savage in the calm hypocrisy with which she masks and subdues her pangs. Not a quiver in her voice, not a shadow on her face, betrayed more than natural curiosity, while Mrs. Lascelles inquired, in a tone of perfect unconcern:
"Do you remember, by chance, whether it was the day of the railway accident?"
The day of the railway accident was impressed on her memory, less indeed by the collision, which only damaged a few trucks in a goods-train, than by an interview she held with Sir Henry after luncheon, in which he had given her to understand, as distinctly as he could without saying it in so many words, that amongst all the women of the world there was but one for him, and her name was Rose Lascelles!
"I do remember something about a smash that same day at Bragford Station," answered Miss Ross, "and it seemed to me miraculous that nobody was hurt. I only saw it in the papers next morning, for Sir Henry never mentioned the subject—I suppose he was so full of other matters."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Lascelles, getting up to stir the fire, and so turning her face from her companion. "You think I am interested in Sir Henry Hallaton, and you have got something more to tell me about him. Frankly, I am interested—to a certain extent. Be as open with me as I am with you, and tell me all you know."
Miss Ross took the pug on her lap, settled herself in a comfortable attitude, and proceeded calmly with her narrative.
"That same evening, when the girls went to bed, Sir Henry detained me, almost by force, in the library. Without the slightest reserve or hesitation, he related all the particulars of his interview that afternoon with yourself. He assured me solemnly, that you were avowedly attached to him, and ready at any time to become his wife. He showed me a letter you wrote him, and a ring you had given him to keep."
"He took it to be mended!" interrupted the other, with great indignation. "I never gave it him—I insisted on having it back that very day."
"It wouldn't come off," proceeded Miss Ross, "for I own I was malicious enough to ask for it as a proof of his sincerity, and I couldn't help laughing while he tugged and tugged to get it over the joint of his little finger. Then he told me that he had thought of marrying only for the sake of his daughters; that he had looked about him for what the advertisements call 'a suitable person,' and had selected Mrs. Lascelles—I use his own words—as a lady-like woman, with a good fortune, not at all bad-looking, and thoroughly devoted to himself."