“But I never, never meant him to be made unhappy or anxious!” Hero exclaimed, looking quite oppressed.
“Very like you did not. You are a silly little puss, my love. My grandson has more sense, it appears, for he certainly means Anthony to be excessively anxious.”
“Oh, he must not! That would be worse than all the rest!” Hero cried distressfully.
“Nonsense! It is high time that boy was made to think, which I’ll be bound he has never done in his life. I do not scruple to tell you, my love, that I have been agreeably surprised by what you have told me. It appears that Anthony has behaved towards you with more consideration that I should have expected in one reared to consider nothing but his own convenience. I dare swear he has been in love with you all this while without having the least notion of it. It will do him a great deal of good to miss you.”
Hero regarded her hopefully. “Do you think so indeed, dear ma’am? But perhaps you do not perfectly understand that he only married me because Isabella Milborne refused to accept his hand?”
“Do not talk to me about this Miss Milborne! She sounds to me just the insipid sort of girl who passes for a beauty in these days! Now, when I was young — However, that’s neither here nor there! I shall be surprised if we find that Anthony cares a fig for her. Soon or late, mark my words! we shall have him posting down here to find you, and I will tell you now, my child, that if you mean to let him discover you halfway to a decline, I shall wash my hands of you! That is no way to handle a man. A little jealousy will work wonders with that boy: he has been too sure of you! I must tell you, my love, that these Verelsts are all the same! Like Pug there! Let no one wish to touch his bone, and ten to one he will not look at it. Lay but a finger on it, and all at once he knows that there is nothing he wants more in the world, and he will snarl, and show his teeth, and stand guard over it with all his bristles on end! I am determined that if Anthony comes to look for you, he shall find you living in tolerable comfort without him.”
Hero looked doubtful, but the idea of Sherry’s coming to look for her was so precious to her that she raised no further demur at the programme outlined for her by her worldly-wise hostess.
Mr Ringwood, though not generally held to be a good correspondent, wrote with painstaking regularity, reporting on Sherry’s progress. Hero shed tears in secret over these letters, and had she not made up her mind to allow Sherry time to forget her, if he should wish to do so, she would have written to set his mind at rest at least a dozen times. When she heard that he had plunged into an orgy of gaiety, she really did feel as though her heart must break, and believed that he had ceased to grieve over her disappearance. When she could command her voice, she sought out Lady Saltash, and tried, for the third or fourth time, to broach the question of her applying for a post in a Young Ladies’ Seminary.
Her ladyship cut her short. “Don’t put on those missish airs with me, Hero! What has happened to make you start on that nonsense again, pray?”
“Only that I have had a letter from Gil, ma’am, which — which — ’’