“Well, I can’t ask it now. Some evening when we have talked the fire low, and our tongues are loosened. To work! To work!”
CHAPTER VII.
In the first week of February, Mrs. Clarendon spent a couple of days with the Bruce Pages at Hanford. Among a vast accumulation of county and general news which Mrs. Bruce Page emptied forth for Isabel’s benefit, there was mention of an accident that had befallen Sir Miles Lacour. Whenever, as had lately been the case, there was skating weather, Sir Miles assembled large parties of friends to enjoy this pastime on a fine piece of water that graced his grounds. One evening, when there was torchlight merriment on the ice, Sir Miles had somehow managed to catch a fall; it would have been nothing, but that unfortunately there came immediately behind him a sleigh in which a lady was being whirled along by a couple of skaters. The metal came in contact with the prostrate baronet’s head, and he had remained for an hour in unconsciousness. However, he appeared to be doing well, and probably there would be no further result.
“Do you know,” said Mrs. Bruce Page, “I ran up to town the other day, and took an opportunity of seeing the boy Vincent.”
“Did you?” said Isabel indifferently.
“Shall I tell you something that I found out? But perhaps you have already got at the explanation of that affair?”
“No, I know nothing about it. It really does not concern me.”
“Of course not,” the other lady remarked to herself. She continued aloud. “It was all Ada’s doing; so much is clear. She somehow came to hear of—-well, of things we won’t particularise. Vincent is open enough with me, and made no secret of it. I told him plainly that I was delighted; his behaviour had been simply disgraceful. Of course I can never have him here again, at all events not for a long time; whatever you do, don’t mention his name in Emily’s hearing,” her daughter, that was. “And he wasn’t aware that Ada was in town; of course I left him in his ignorance. It is to be hoped the poor girl won’t be so foolish as to give in. Naturally, one understands her—her temptations only too well. And, my dear, you know I always say just what I think—you won’t take it ill—I can’t help blaming you; it was so clearly your duty to refuse consent. You were actuated by the very highest and purest motives, that I am well aware. But you are too unworldly; to suffer ourselves to be led by our own higher instincts so often results in injustice to other people. I really don’t think principles were meant to be acted upon; they are ornaments of the mind. My set of Sèvres is exquisite, but I shouldn’t think of drinking tea out of them.”