Lady Wynde smiled, well-pleased.
“And so do I,” she acknowledged frankly. “But it is for our interest to counterfeit friendship for her. Be patient, Craven. Some day you and I may bring down her haughty pride to the dust.”
“Suppose she refuses Rufus?”
“You and I will soon be married, Craven, and in our union is strength. Tell Rufus to write to Neva, delaying her answer to his suit for a month. By that time we shall be married. If she refuses then to accept your son as her husband, we can contrive some way to compel her obedience. I am her step-mother and guardian, and have authority which I shall use if I am pushed to the wall. I promise you, Craven, that we shall secure our ten thousand a year out of Neva’s fortune, and that we shall compel the girl to marry your son. Leave it all to me. Only wait and see!”
CHAPTER XIX.
NEVA’S CHOICE FORESHADOWED.
In accordance with the advice of his scheming father, Rufus Black wrote a letter to Neva Wynde entreating her to take a month or six weeks, instead of the single week for which she had stipulated, for the consideration of his suit. And Neva, struggling between conflicting feelings, whose nature the reader already knows, and glad to be relieved of the necessity for an immediate decision, gratefully accepted the offered reprieve.
The engagement of Craven Black and Lady Wynde, now that it had been declared to Neva, was no longer kept a secret from the world. Mr. Black, in a moment of good-natured condescension, informed his host at the Wyndham inn, and the amazed landlord bruited the story through the village. The engagement was publicly announced in the court papers, Craven Black himself writing the paragraph and procuring its insertion, and this announcement was copied into the Kentish journals.
As may be imagined, the news of Lady Wynde’s intended marriage produced quite a sensation in the neighborhood of Hawkhurst. Sir Harold Wynde’s former friends were scandalized that he should have been so soon forgotten by the wife he had idolized, and that a man so palpably inferior to the baronet in character and attributes should have been chosen to take his place. Others, the three guardians of Neva’s property among the number, were ill-pleased that Craven Black should take his place during Neva’s minority as nominal master of Hawkhurst, and accordingly one morning, a fortnight after the publication of the engagement, Sir John Freise, Mr. Atkins, and Lord Towyn, rode over to Hawkhurst, and demanded an interview with Lady Wynde and Neva.
Miss Wynde appeared first in the drawing-room, simply dressed in white, and fresh from a ramble in the park. She looked a little worn and troubled, as if her nights were spent more in anxious thoughts than in slumbers, but the radiance of her wonderful red-brown eyes was undimmed, and her face had lost nothing of the piquant witchery which was its chiefest charm.
Before time had been granted Neva to more than exchange greetings with her guardians, Lady Wynde entered the room with an indolent languor of motion, and welcomed her visitors with effusion.