It was only now and then that he showed this; in the ordinary give and take of society he passed muster well enough, and no one would more readily have spurned the notion of doing what others did not do—that being the poor boy's code of conduct,—yet he is not to be hardly judged if occasionally it failed him at a pinch. Wherefore if when passing through the Abbey woods on the afternoon in question, he heard voices and crept near to peep and listen, let it be believed that the feeling which arrested his footsteps was in its way innocent. His curiosity was roused, and he had a hearty sympathy with sylvan lovers; so if Jack and Jill were courting, there was no reason why he should not see which Jack and Jill it was? He would not tell tales, not he.
But when, instead of the expected rustic figures, his starting eyes beheld Paul Foster and—not Paul's betrothed—not the girl with whom alone he had a right to wander in that dim solitude at that mystic hour—but Leonore, Leonore who was nothing, or should have been nothing to her sister's lover, curiosity gave place to another feeling.
So how? He would spy if he chose.
He would jolly well discover what the devil those two were about? They were up to no good hiding away by themselves in the woods, and, damnation! holding each other's hands.
That beast Paul—he had always thought him a beast—no, he hadn't, but he did now—so he was playing a double game, was he? Engaged to Maud, and flirting with Leo under the rose?
Leo could flirt, of course; she had made a fool of himself once,—but he had got it into his head that she rather disliked Paul;—she had never cracked him up as the rest did,—oh, she was a cunning, crafty little jade, and he would put a spoke in her wheel, be hanged if he didn't!
The undergrowth was so thick at the point to which Paul had half led, half dragged his trembling companion at this juncture, that it was easy for a third person to draw very near unperceived,—and though much that now passed was unintelligible to one not possessed of the key of the mystery, Val heard enough.
He did not indeed hear any love-making,—but instinct guided him straight to the mark which another by reasoning might have failed to reach. He was as fully convinced that Maud had been supplanted as if he had heard the fact avowed a hundred times; and though he stole off, afraid to linger, before Paul's final adjuration which might have puzzled and mystified him, he had got as much as his brain could carry, and got it in very good order.
The next day he presented himself at Boldero Abbey. His plan of campaign, conned over and over with ever-increasing wrath and valour, was not confided to gran. Gran had never liked Maud, and in old days he would often affect a hopeless passion for the latter for the sake of getting amusement out of the old lady. Then an argument would ensue, and he very nearly felt the passion. He could not see that one Boldero was not as good as another; and as he could not be bluntly told that Leonore had money while her sister had not, he held to it that gran was prejudiced to the point of injustice. Accordingly he kept his own counsel now, and plumed himself thereon mightily.
And Fortune favoured him; for though all the ladies were at home, the one he sought was by herself in the drawing-room, when he was ushered in.