He was all the more relieved at the thought that she would, by her brilliant marriage with the future Earl of Northborough, at once retrieve the mistake he himself had made twenty years ago in wedding Clare Carewe, and relieve his mind from all lurking anxiety on her account. Lord Carthew was evidently a man of originality and strength of purpose; even Sir Philip, who cherished a chronic contempt for nearly all his kind, was compelled to recognize this, and he congratulated himself heartily on his own sagacity in keeping as secret, even from herself, his daughter’s half humble origin.
After luncheon Lord Carthew, instead of joining his host in the smoking-room, repaired to the drawing-room, which Stella quitted almost as soon as he entered.
He noted her action, and erroneously attributed it to her natural modesty and shyness in not wishing his offer of marriage to be discussed before her mother. But in truth, Stella was not thinking of him at all. She merely wished to be alone that she might think over the emotions of the morning, and she had hardly given a moment’s thought to Lord Carthew and his proposal after that brief but momentous interview with Hilary Pritchard.
It was easy enough, so Lord Carthew found, to win Lady Cranstoun’s approval of the match. Seating himself near her sofa, he told her in a few well-chosen words of his love for her daughter, and the ruse he had practised in pleading his cause in his friend’s name.
“I can never understand my dear Stella’s extraordinary objections against wealth and position!” exclaimed Lady Cranstoun. “For my part I am delighted about the whole affair. I thought from the moment when I first saw you that you had the Douglas eyes. Do you know, with her strange opinions, I have always been nervous as to whom Stella would marry? She is so utterly unlike ordinary girls, you see, and I am the more relieved that it has all turned out so well.”
“You really think she will have me, then?”
“Certainly I do,” returned Lady Cranstoun, opening her pale blue eyes in surprise. “Of course, as she says, she has not known you long enough to love you; but she has a very high regard for you, and you seem to have similar tastes. She even—I hope I am not betraying her confidence—but she even asked me if I should like to go for a voyage with you after you were married, and drew a most charming picture of the deck of a ship with all of us assembled there.”
A faint color came into the poor lady’s face as she spoke. The prospect of leaving the Chase, and her husband’s cold, tyrannical dislike, seemed to momentarily restore her lost youth and health. Lord Carthew was delighted at her encouraging words.
“There is no breach of confidence,” he said. “Your daughter said as much to me. I think I may consider myself as the happiest man in England at this moment.”
Meanwhile, under the trees of the same shrubbery where her grandfather, Hiram Carewe, was shot down and murdered nineteen years before, Stella Cranstoun walked, with feet that seemed hardly to touch the ground, her thoughts absorbed by Hilary. She would not think of the future. The fact that he loved her should be enough for her for one happy day at least, until she could hear from him.