"Indeed, sir, indeed——"
"I may be, but time alone will show. When she first came back here, a poor bit widow-creature, more child than woman, it would have touched a heart of stone to see her and what's more, I saw they were not going the right way to work with her. She was put into a sort of strait-jacket. She was made to appear just what the Bolderos thought she ought to appear. They made no account of the sort of lassie she really was. I saw, for I was often at the house that winter. And I think Leonore was glad to be ill sometimes—(she caught colds and chills that year)—just for the sake of having something to think about, and even old me to talk to. But of late—I don't know—I seem to fancy she's altered. She breaks loose. Her face has a kind of reckless look. And it struck me she'd been angered and fretted till she was ripe for mischief. Did she—did she let you make love to her, Tommy?"
"Never, sir. There was never a word of the kind between us. I told you so before."
"Aye; words aren't always needed. You and she were walking in a maze, and a maze neither of you had the wit to look beyond. Heaven knows where you would have found yourselves—or, rather, where you would have found yourself—if I had not brought you up sharp. But don't imagine I think the worse of you for it, Tommy; and don't you go and fret and gloom by yourself. The thing's done and can't be undone, and I'll not deny I'm sorry it is so. Still—" he rubbed his chin thoughtfully,—"perhaps you have learnt something you would have learnt no other way, and for the rest, my advice is—forget. Forget as fast as you can, for," a grim smile, "of one thing you may take your oath, Tommy Andrews, however quick you may be, the little lady who's gone to London to-day will be quicker still."
And of course Leonore was. There is no need to indicate the precise moment at which the figure of her humble village admirer faded clean out of sight after having hovered reproachfully over a few brief penitential musings, but certain it is that it vanished, to return no more.
London in the season was a revelation to our heroine. Hitherto her sole experience of it was confined to passing through, and that mainly at other periods of the year,—since it was an article of faith with her husband that one big town was as good as another, and he had all he wanted of town life at home.
So that all was new, strange, wonderful, glorious—and at first she was utterly dazzled. True, a modern girl would have laughed in her sleeve could she have heard Leo's idea of the gay world. She would have said this unsophisticated creature went nowhere and knew nothing. She would have marvelled—perhaps as much as Leo would have marvelled at her.
Leo did more than marvel, she was secretly shocked and disgusted on several occasions, but with the fidelity of the young to the young she said nothing to Sue. Sue thought the houses she took her young sister to all that was prudent and respectable. Some of them were rather great houses—the Bolderos, when they did seek society, moved on a high plane, and the very fact that they seldom sought it, told in their favour.
The sisters were not overwhelmed with invitations, but they had enough to gratify the elder and delight the younger. Leo did not dance; indeed, she did not know how, so the one ball to which she was bidden was declined, but the two went to a fair amount of dinner-parties, not of the most lively order, but pictorial and majestic. They were invited to opera boxes—generally on the grand tier. Leo was on the box seat of a coach occasionally. As for teas, they overran every afternoon, and concerts, bazaars, charity entertainments, Hurlingham and Ranelagh filled up the interstices.