Thus, when they parted for the night, his voice was as calm and his smile and bow as coldly polite as her own. Then he and the general withdrew to the smoking-room, to talk over Cecil's affairs, and scheme out some plan for his future, and the girls gladly sought their rooms, which adjoined each other, and plunged at once into gossip and hair-dressing.
For weeks and weeks past Mary's life had been one of dull routine; she had fed her pet birds, her pigeons, watched her flowers, and watered her ferns, as usual; it was such a relief to do, or be doing, anything: but now that Annabelle Erroll had come, she felt almost happy in her companionship—for both had enough to talk about.
'Have you met as acquaintances merely?' asked Mary, with eagerness.
'Yes; but acquaintances of a peculiar kind, certainly. How could it be otherwise, after all that has passed between us? I must studiously ignore the past,' continued Annabelle; 'nor shall his strange and sharp allusion to it move me, save in the way of annoyance and surprise.'
To her it seemed very strange and unaccountable that Leslie Fotheringhame should adopt an indignant tone with her, as if he were the wronged party, and that she had nothing to complain of in reference to his conduct with the unknown lady.
'Why did he so studiously, so cruelly deceive me?' she exclaimed, on the verge of tears; 'but that I inherit the spirit of my father, the old colonel, he would have broken my heart—I loved him so!'
'Poor Annabelle!' said Mary, caressing her; 'twice engaged, and twice separated—you are a curious pair. Let us hope that the third time may prove successful and irrevocable!'
'Never!' exclaimed Annabelle. 'Did he not openly tell me that she—that woman—is happy now? What did he mean by that?—for there was something of mournful exultation in his tone!'
'It is all very strange,' said Mary, in perplexity; 'can there have been some simple, yet perhaps inexplicable, mistake at the bottom of this unhappy business?'
'No, Mary—I tell you no!' replied Annabelle, with angry energy; 'the woman in the matter was a fact palpable enough. And what can the unexplained mystery of his interest in her be? and is it not to him degradation, and to me insult?'