"Sir Nigel's guest—haw—so am I, and I mean to make the best use of my time as such. Nice girl, Miss Wilford, from York—cousin of Wilford of ours—a doocid good style of girl; but have no intentions in that quarter—can't afford to chuck myself away, as I once heard my groom observe."
"You must learn to quote another style of people to make yourself understood here. You don't mean to infer that you have any intentions concerning Lady Louisa!" said I, with an air which was really impertinent.
"Why not?" he asked, failing completely to see it. "I have often such attacks, or affections of the heart, as she has given me."
"How?"
"Just as I had the measles or the chicken-pox in childhood—a little increase of the pulse, a little restlessness at night, and then one gets over it."
"Take care how you address her in this bantering fashion," said I, turning sharply away; "excuse me, but now I must dress for dinner."
And preceded by old Mr. Binns, the white-headed old butler, who many a time in days of yore had carried me on his back, and who now welcomed me home with a hearty shake of the hand, in which there was nothing derogatory to me, though Berkeley's eyes opened very wide when he saw our greeting, I was conducted to my old room in the north wing, where a cheerful fire was blazing, with two lights on each side of the toilette-table (the manor-house was amply lit with gas from the village), and there was Willie Pitblado arranging all my traps and clothes. But dismissing him to visit his family (to his no small joy), I was left to my own reflections and proceeded to dress. A subtle and subdued tone of insolence and jealousy that pervaded the few remarks made by Berkeley irritated and chafed me; yet he had said nothing with which I could grapple, or with which I could openly find fault. I was conscious, too, that my own bearing had been the reverse of courteous and friendly, and that, if I showed my hand thus, I might as well give up the cards. Suspicion of his native character, and a foreknowledge of the man, had doubtless much to do with all this; and while making my toilet with more than my usual care—conscious that Lady Louisa was making hers in the next room—I resolved to keep a lynx-like eye upon Mr. De Warr Berkeley during our short sojourn at Calderwood Glen. My irritation was no way soothed, or my pique lessened, by the information that for some time past, and quite unknown to me, he had been residing here with Lady Louisa, enjoying all the facilities afforded by hourly propinquity and the seclusion of a country house.
Had he already declared himself? Had he already proposed? The deuce! I thrust aside the thought, and angrily gave my hair a finishing rasp with a pair of huge ivory-handled hair-brushes.
CHAPTER IV.
And, oh! the memories that cling
Around this old oak-panelled room!
The pine logs flashing through the gloom,
Sun sparkles from life's early spring.
After long years I rest again;
This ancient home it seems to me,
Wearied with travel o'er the sea.
Holds anodyne for carking pain.