Jerry was, we say, perplexed on hearing of this. Bella's refusal of Twiseldown's hand delighted him greatly, but was it born of regard for himself or regard for someone else? He had not gone near her for some time past, and knew not how many might have been hovering about her, now that, with all her beauty and brilliance apart, she was known as the virtual heiress of Wilmothurst.
It filled him with many thoughts that were difficult of arrangement and of analysis. He resolved to pay her a farewell visit anyway, and told his lady mother that he would do so.
'That girl again!' said Lady Julia, as he rode off. 'I did not think that he had actually involved himself with her.'
'Nor has he, perhaps, auntie,' sighed Cousin Emily, though her heart made her suspect otherwise.
'I believe Jerry to be, like many young men of the present day,' resumed Lady Julia, still obtuse as to the new situation, 'one of those who think they can—especially with a girl of her position in society—go to the utmost confines of love-making—can look, say, and do what they please, and yet do and say nothing that will quite compromise them, or involve their honour; and girls such as the Chevenix quite understand the matter. But that there should be more in it passes my comprehension, and yours too, darling Flossie,' she added, taking the cur out of its mother-of-pearl basket and kissing its nose tenderly.
She spoke, as usual, languidly and softly, for she was ever one of those who deem that 'feeling, or any betrayal of it, is a sure sign of an ill-bred person'—bad form, in short.
Meanwhile Jerry was tête-à-tête with Bella Chevenix in her pretty little drawing-room overlooking the ivy-clad church and the village green.
Jerry was rather grave, for Bella had been piqued by his absence, and received him, he thought, rather coldly, which led him to fear there 'was some other fellow in the field;' but anon Bella began to rally him, for she could not but remember that the letter he had written on the night before Coomassie was entered, amounted quite to a declaration.
'I begin to sicken of the world and all its bitterness, Bella,' said he, a little irrelevantly, on which she sang, softly,
'Oh, what shall I be at fifty,
If I am then alive,
If I find the world so bitter
When I am barely twenty-five?'