Edward played his game, having Ida herself as his partner. It cannot be said that the set was a pleasant one for the latter, who, poor woman, was doing her utmost to bring up her courage to the point necessary to the carrying out of the appeal ad misericordiam, which she had decided to make as soon as the game was over. However, chance put an opportunity in her way, for Edward Cossey, who had a curious weakness for flowers, asked her if she would show him her chrysanthemums, of which she was very proud. She consented readily enough. They crossed the lawn, and passing through some shrubbery reached the greenhouse, which was placed at the end of the Castle itself. Here for some minutes they looked at the flowers, just now bursting into bloom. Ida, who felt exceedingly nervous, was all the while wondering how on earth she could broach so delicate a subject, when fortunately Mr. Cossey himself gave her the necessary opening.
“I can’t imagine, Miss de la Molle,” he said, “what I have done to offend your father—he almost cut me just now.”
“Are you sure that he saw you, Mr. Cossey; he is very absent-minded sometimes?”
“Oh yes, he saw me, but when I offered to shake hands with him he only bowed in rather a crushing way and passed on.”
Ida broke off a Scarlet Turk from its stem, and nervously began to pick the bloom to pieces.
“The fact is, Mr. Cossey—the fact is, my father, and indeed I also, are in great trouble just now, about money matters you know, and my father is very apt to be prejudiced,—in short, I rather believe that he thinks you may have something to do with his difficulties—but perhaps you know all about it.”
“I know something, Miss de la Molle,” said he gravely, “and I hope and trust you do not believe that I have anything to do with the action which Cossey and Son have thought fit to take.”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “I never thought anything of the sort—but I know that you have influence—and, well, to be plain, Mr. Cossey, I implore of you to use it. Perhaps you will understand that this is very humiliating for me to be obliged to ask this, though you can never guess how humiliating. Believe me, Mr. Cossey, I would never ask it for myself, but it is for my father—he loves this place better than his life; it would be much better he should die than that he should be obliged to leave it; and if this money is called in, that is what must happen, because the place will be sold over us. I believe he would go mad, I do indeed,” and she stopped speaking and stood before him, the fragment of the flower in her hand, her breast heaving with emotion.
“What do you suggest should be done, Miss de la Molle?” said Edward Cossey gently.
“I suggest that—that—if you will be so kind, you should persuade Cossey and Son to forego their intention of calling in the money.”