“Do you have suspicions of Julius, then?” asked Christian, hurriedly.
“Oh, no, no!” she protested. “Nothing is farther from my thoughts. Only I have seen it all, here. I have lived in the very heart of it—and much as I sympathize with his feelings, I can’t help feeling that he is unjust—not willfully, but still unjust. He and his son are men of great intelligence and refined tastes; they would do honor to any position. But is it quite fair of them to be so hard on cousins of theirs who were not given great intelligence, and who had no capacity whatever for refinement? That is what I mean. You saw those young men this morning. They are not up to much, certainly; their uncle Porlock and his sons averaged, perhaps, even a shade lower—you see I am speaking quite frankly—but when it is all said and done, they were not so remarkably worse than other men of their class. If any of the six had succeeded to the title, he would not have been such a startling anomaly in the peerage. I doubt if he would have attracted attention, one way or the other. But it became a fixed idea with Lord Julius years ago to get control of the estates, and to use this control to bully the elder line into the paths of sweetness and light. It didn’t succeed in the least—and I think he grew a little spiteful. That is all. And besides—what does it matter? It is all ancient history now.”
Christian was looking straight before him, with a meditative gaze. They walked for some moments in silence before he spoke. “And how did he know that he would like me?” he demanded, musingly. “How should he be confident that I was better than the others? Perhaps—do you know?—was he very fond of my father?”
“I have no idea,” she responded. It was impossible not to note the brevity of her tone.
“No one speaks willingly of my father,” he broke forth with impulsive bitterness. “Even Lord Julius would tell me nothing of him. And the young lady on the boat—she too—”
He paused, and his companion, who had been looking away, glanced again at him. “The young lady on the boat,” she said, more by way of suggesting to him a safe topic than as an inquiry.
“Oh, I much want to know who she can be,” he cried, unconsciously accepting the diversion. He described the meeting at Rouen, the conversation and, after a fashion of his own, the girl herself. “She said,” he went on, “that she had personally something to do with the story—‘remotely’ was the word she used. I asked Lord Julius, but he could not think who she might be. She earns her own living—she told me that—and she had never been out of England before. She is not well educated—in the school sense, I mean—her French was ridiculous. But she spoke very beautifully her own language, and her mind filled me with charm, but even more so her good heart. We swore friendship for all time—or at least I did.”
“Dear me!” said Lady Cressage. Her thoughts had not been idle, and they brought to her now on the instant a satisfactory clue. She pondered it for a little, before she decided to speak. “I think I know who this remarkable young lady must be,” she observed then. “This Captain Edward whom you met this morning—he has a wife.”
“Yes, I know,” put in Christian abruptly—“the actress-lady; Julius told me of her.”
“I suppose ‘actress’ would cover the thing,” she answered, with an air of amiable indifference. “She danced more than she acted, I believe, but ‘actress’ is a very general term. Well, your eternal friend is, I suspect, her younger sister. ‘I have never seen her, but by accident I happen to know that she is aware of your coming to England.”