“That’s a good thing; what time do we lunch, Morris?”
“Two o’clock, sir,” said the servant.
“Ah, it is one now,” said Lionel, looking at his watch. “I shall have time to dress and have ten minutes’ walk to collect my faculties for an introduction to her ladyship, your mistress.”
“Yes, sir,” said Morris, depositing waistcoats and trousers, and hanging up coats and caps and swords in the ample wardrobe; “shall I ring for hot water, sir?”
“No, thank you, Morris; the news has made me hot. Never mind undoing that leather case.”
“All right, sir,” said Morris. “You are looking a good deal bronzed with the sun, but glad to see you so well. Anything else I can do, sir?”
“No, thank you, Morris,” said Lionel, taking no notice of the servitor’s remark about his brown face, but wondering how Arthur Phillips had taken his disappointment. “Somehow I never thought the poor fellow had the slightest chance of marrying Phœbe. Poor Arthur! Such a sentimental fellow, too, he was; it would almost break his heart I should think; I will hunt him up to-morrow. Fancy George, Earl Verner, my whimsical, apathetic, luxurious, moping brother, falling in love with that pretty face at Barton, and marrying it! Wonders will never cease! I suppose he must have seen her on one of his calls on Tallant about those humbugging shares. Some people believe in the exercise of a sort of electrical sympathy influencing friends at the longest distances. Did that worry me in India? A stroke of fate, I suspect, in the whole thing. Well, we shall see.”
Thus rambled on the current of Lionel’s thoughts as he washed and dressed and gave his toilette sundry extra touches in view of the new society which now graced the castle. What a terrible shock of disappointment and surprise awaited him! It seemed as though fortune were playing off some grim joke upon him.
As she passed through the principal drawing-room on her way to the library, the Countess saw her brother-in-law walking towards the lake. It was a fine manly figure, in a loose morning costume that set off the broad shoulders and the stalwart limbs to perfection. How she had loved that man! How she had listened for his footsteps and trembled at his voice! She dared not think of the past; she would not think of it, she would crush it out of memory. She clenched her fair white hand as she made the vow, clenched it in an agony of resolve until her fingers pained her; and she went in unto her husband crushing out that forbidden, that cruel memory!
“Well, my darling, have you seen the Indian?” said his lordship, when, the Countess entered the library. “I declare the fellow is as brown as a gipsy.”