"Perhaps, Downie dear," said she, after a little consideration, "we are too fearful. I have read somewhere that 'boy and girl cousins never fraternise.'"
"Don't they, by Jove!" growled Downie; "especially when they come to the age of puberty, without having known each other previously. Then the Scots have a proverb about 'blood being thicker than water,' though I can't see it in that way myself. The girl is remarkably handsome, and Audley's affair with her must have made considerable progress ere her letter came into my possession in London."
"Handsome? dear, dear! do you really think so? I thought her very saucy in expression, and a positive dowdy, in a dress made, no doubt, by some Penzance milliner," replied the lady, while contemplating complacently her own magnificent black moire, for she did not entertain more charitable opinions respecting the daughter than the mother.
Though more advanced in life than Constance (for she had been married some years before her), the wife of Downie had still considerable remains of beauty, and, despite time and dimples turning fast to wrinkles, she was bent upon being gay, young, and beautiful still. She had an air that decidedly denoted high breeding, with much of languor and indifference to all that passed around her. She had completely attained that bearing of placidity, utter vacuity or unimpressionability, so sedulously affected or adopted by many among the upper class of English society, and even by their middle-class imitators. However, all the little spirit or energy she ever possessed fired up now, in the conviction that she was the Right Honourable Lady Lamorna, that Audley was one of "England's Honourable Misters," and that Gartha should find a husband among the tufts and strawberry leaves at least.
Downie had not her ambition even in these matters, but had naturally avarice; and his profession had, of course, taught him trickery. "Despair of no man," it has been said: "there are touches of kindness in natures the very roughest, that redeem whole lives of harshness;" but to have sought for charity or kindness at the hands of Downie were a task as easy as taking a bone from a famished tiger.
That day, at the dinner-table, after the ladies had withdrawn, and Downie, the General, and Audley were lingering over their wine (or wines rather), the conversation naturally turned to the recent visit of Constance and her daughter; and a painful theme it proved to the young officer.
From General Trecarrel he had previously obtained a narrative of all that had passed, and though he thanked Heaven that he had been absent, his heart was preyed upon by many keen and conflicting emotions. He loved Sybil tenderly, he acknowledged to himself; but could he think of marriage with her, when she was the daughter of a woman in a position as dubious as that of Constance was now openly declared to be—one, moreover, whose claims were so startling, and whose allegations were, as his father called them, so daring as to merit criminal prosecution,—for so had the lawyer said in his wrath and the strength of his own position!
Intense pity for the girl mingled with his passion for her, and added to his great perplexity; and thus, while his cheek alternately flushed and grew pale, he sat with half-averted face, and the fingers of one hand buried among his thick brown hair, irritated by the conviction that his father's cold, keen, and scrutinising eyes were bent loweringly upon him, while in silence he heard the General bluntly urging him "if he had any tender views in that quarter, to get rid of them as soon as possible, and be off to join his regiment;" for to Trecarrel military service seemed a cure for every human ill.
"But the letter she showed you?" pled Audley.
"That letter, sir, I have already denounced as a most daring forgery!" replied Downie, with as much energy as his usually quiet manner permitted.