Meanwhile Jerry found the impossibility of abstaining entirely from visiting the house of Mr. Chevenix, and so days of meetings in various ways passed—meetings in which their lives seemed to be mutually merged in that sweet occupation which was not quite love-making, but yet was far, far in advance of that perilous frivolity that so often leads to it called—flirtation.
Yet Jerry was further now from disclosing himself than ever, and Bella seemed in no hurry for him to do so, for she was young enough—even after all she had seen of society—to shrink from a declaration, for to a girl there is something so seductive, so sweet in hovering on the brink, when she, as Bella did in her secret heart, loves the man.
Cousin Emily was not slow in discovering the direction in which Jerry so often turned his horse's head, and hinted thereof to Lady Julia.
'But for the dangers my poor boy will have to encounter,' said the latter, 'I would hail with pleasure his departure to the coast of Africa, as a useful means of separating him from this most artful creature.'
Meanwhile an influx of visitors and guests preluded the ball, as many came from a considerable distance. Like Goring, Jerry was in no mood for all this gaiety just then, and the latter resented that his duties as host enforced his presence at Wilmothurst, and consequent absence from Bella Chevenix.
CHAPTER XX.
THE FIREFLY.
The red sun of a clear winter day was shining on the two chalky eminences at the embouchure of the Arques, or Bethune, and on the low tongue of land between them, whereon is situated the seaport of Dieppe in Normandy, from the church of which the coast of England can be distinctly seen, when the Firefly, which really was a beautiful yacht, crept slowly along on a wind under the lee of the shore, from which she was rather more than a mile distant.
She was a taut-rigged craft of about two hundred tons, and whether one regarded the crew, the fitting of the rigging, or the cut of the sails, it was evident that in skilful hands she could do anything. For a Cowes yacht she was curiously rigged, being a hermaphrodite—brig forward and schooner aft. Her foremast, like her bowsprit, was strong and heavy, her mainmast long and tapering. Her upper spars were slender and light, with topmast, topgallant mast, and royal mast, all like slender wands, yet capable of carrying a great amount of canvas. Her flush deck was white as the driven snow, and she had eight six pounders, all brass, and polished like gold—bright as the copper with which she was sheathed to the bends.
Such was the craft on board of which Alison Cheyne found herself a species of prisoner, and compelled to take a part in an erratic and apparently a purposeless cruise. To sail for Madeira had been the first intention of Lord Cadbury, when Slagg, by his direction, inserted in the newspapers a paragraph to the effect that he had gone to the Mediterranean—a paragraph expressly designed to mislead Bevil Goring; but heavy head-winds had prevailed, and after hanging about in 'the Chops of the Channel' for a week and more, the Firefly was standing northward along the coast of France.