'Rather let us say au revoir,' said he bowing. 'I have with me at the camp a necklace of Champac beads which I brought from India, and I have just promised them to your daughter; if you will permit me to send—or to call——'
'We shall be so happy to see you—but you are too kind, and are you not depriving some other little, or fairer friend——'
'No, Mrs. Trelawney; I have scarcely a lady friend in the world now,' said he, laughing, though his speech seemed a grave one.
A few minutes after and the little party had separated; Lord Cadbury remained behind, to the intense annoyance of Goring, who, with his two companions, went back to the camp at a canter to be in time for mess; and while Sir Ranald—Cadbury's senior by some fifteen years—dozed and slept after dinner in his easy chair, Alison, till she was weary and well-nigh desperate, had to undergo the prolonged visit, the society, and the unconcealed tenderness, or would-be love-making, of her odious old admirer.
When Alison retired that night, Bevil's rosebud was carefully placed in a flower glass upon her toilette table, while Cadbury's Provence rose was left to repose in the coal-scuttle; and Bevil Goring, in his hut in the infantry lines—a hut in which he chummed with Jerry Wilmot—lay awake far into the hours of the morning, till the cannon announcing dawn boomed from Gun Hill over the sleeping camp, thinking again and again of the little promenade round the old house at Chilcote, the eyes that had looked so sweetly into his; of the little he had hinted—still more of the vast amount he had left unsaid, and marvelling when again he should see Alison Cheyne.
The fact is that Bevil Goring was very much in love—certainly more than he had ever been in his life before, and frankly confessed to himself that he had been 'hit at last, and hit very hard indeed.'
Thus it may be imagined how much he felt stung when next day at breakfast, while the trio were talking of the day before, Dalton said, quite unwittingly—
'Mrs. Trelawney assured me that it is almost completely arranged that Miss Cheyne is to become the wife of Lord Cadbury, who can make a princely settlement upon her; while her father is, we all know, so poor.'
'What selfishness—what sacrilege!' exclaimed Jerry, slashing the top off an egg, 'to sacrifice her to that old duffer!'
'For her father's sake I have little doubt the girl will comply—she seems of a most affectionate nature.'