"I don't think I can go on," gasped Jim, in answer to inquiries as to how he was—"that is, not to be of any use, you know; that confounded cannon has not only knocked all the wind out of me, but knocked me half foolish besides. I feel so faint and sick, you must get on as you best can without me for half an hour."
The other sufferer now gave signs of returning animation; and as, after looking at him, the doctor pronounced him only stunned by the fall and a good deal shaken, it was decided to draw a man from each side and so continue the game. Lionel Beauchamp made the best of his way back with his report.
"No sort of cause, Lady Mary, for being in the least alarmed. Bloxam is sensible; says there is nothing the matter, further than that they have knocked all the wind out of his body, and that he is too shaken to go on with the game at present; he will be all right again in a couple of hours. See, there he is, walking away to the dressing-rooms at the other side, along with his antagonist, who is in a similar case. It was an awkward collision, and it is well the results were no worse." And, as he finished his speech, Beauchamp rather ruefully contrasted the cool reception that Blanche gave to his intelligence with the bright smile with which Sylla rewarded him.
Under no circumstances, perhaps, would it have been otherwise. Blanche was of a calmer disposition, very different from the vivacious emotional temperament of Sylla Chipchase; and then she had never felt the nervous apprehension as to its results that had so terrified Sylla. Miss Bloxam loved her brother very dearly, but it would never occur to her to feel any great anxiety at seeing Jim fall. She would have told you quietly that "Jim knew how to fall." But she was filled with exceeding bitterness about one thing,—that her secret love-test had resulted in failure, and that her heart was, to a considerable extent, out of her possession before it had been asked for. No, her difference with Lionel Beauchamp was not to be passed over so lightly as all that. If he could refuse the slight request that she had made him, he could care very little about her. "As if any man, honestly in love, would hesitate to break a mere promise made to another woman!" And to the best of my belief, the majority of her sex would be quite of Blanche's opinion.
"He does not get up," thought Mrs. Wriothesley, as she drove home from Hurlingham. "Yes, Sylla, my dear, you have told me something to-day that I honestly don't believe you knew yourself before. When accidents happen in the plural, and young ladies remark upon them only in the singular number, it is a sign of absorbing interest in somebody concerned. People generally, I think, would have observed, 'They don't get up.'" But Mrs. Wriothesley wisely kept all these reflections to herself.
CHAPTER X.
MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER.
The accident at Hurlingham had opened Sylla's eyes. She became conscious of what her feeling for Jim Bloxam was fast ripening into. It made her thoughtful. She was suddenly aware that she cared considerably more about him than it was wise that a maiden should for any man not her avowed lover. She was a good deal startled by the discovery; for had she asked herself the question previous to seeing him stretched, as she thought, badly hurt, or perhaps even killed, on the grass at that polo match, she would have answered, as she believed truthfully, that she liked Captain Bloxam very much: he was a very pleasant acquaintance; but as to his being anything more to her, she would have scouted the idea. She knew now that he was more to her than that, and Sylla pondered gravely upon what was her best course to pursue. One thing was quite clear, and that was, a previous intention of hers must be abandoned. She accordingly dispatched a note to Lionel Beauchamp, telling him that he need take no further trouble about her commission, which elicited a speedy reply to the effect that it was already executed.
One result of Sylla's discovery of the state of her feelings towards Captain Bloxam was a strong desire to cultivate her acquaintance with his mother and sister. She got on fairly with Blanche down at Todborough, but was quite aware that she was no favourite with Lady Mary. It most certainly was not because she fancied this would give her greater opportunities of meeting Jim. Far from it. She knew very well that she was more likely to meet Captain Bloxam in Hans Place than at his mother's house; for when he came up from Aldershot, as he did pretty constantly, it was rarely that Jim failed to appear in Mrs. Wriothesley's drawing-room; but the truth is the girl was rather shy of meeting Captain Bloxam just now. That Sylla's overtures should be coldly received was only what might be expected. Both Blanche and her mother regarded her as a dangerous rival. Indeed, Lady Mary's dislike to her from the first had proceeded from no other cause, so that Sylla's attempts to improve the acquaintance met with little success. Had Mrs. Wriothesley not obtained the keynote at Hurlingham, she would have been puzzled to understand what had come to her niece. The wand of the enchanter had transformed the girl. Her vivacity was wonderfully toned down; her whole manner softened; and Sylla, most self-possessed of young ladies, was unmistakably shy in the presence of Jim Bloxam. Diffidence is rarely an attribute of Hussars, and Jim was not without experience of women. The more retiring Miss Chipchase became, the more ardent became the attentions of her admirer.
Mrs. Wriothesley of course comprehended how matters were, and viewed the progress of events with entire satisfaction. She saw that projected scheme of hers rapidly approaching completion, and requiring but little help from her fostering hand; still it would be just as well, to use her own expression, "to assist nature;" and, with that view, she wrote a note to Jim Bloxam, suggesting that an early dinner and a night at the play were the proper restoratives for an invalid's nerves. She has seen Jim several times since his fall at Hurlingham, and knows very well that he got over the effects of that shaking in two or three days; but she has affected to regard him as a convalescent ever since, and insists upon it that quiet society is what he requires, meaning that, whenever he comes to town, the little house in Hans Place is the haven of rest best suited to him.