"Nothing that is dear to you shall appear dreary to me," said Diana.
By this time they had arrived at Omega Street. Again Miss Paget made tea for her lover. Strange to say, the operation seemed to grow more agreeable with every repetition. While taking his tea from the hands of his beloved, Gustave pressed the question of Diana's visit to Normandy.
"About her Sheldon family she is adamant," he said to Captain Paget, who sipped his tea and smiled at the lovers with the air of an aristocratic patriarch. "There is to be no marriage till it pleases Mrs. Sheldon to set her free. I consent to this only as man must consent to the inevitable; but I say to her, can she not come to Normandy for a fortnight—say but one short fortnight—to see her home? She will come with you. She has but to ask a holiday of her friends, and it is done."
"Of course," exclaimed the Captain, "she shall come with me. If necessary, I myself will ask it of Sheldon.—But it will be best not to mention where you are going, Diana. There are reasons, best known to our friend Gustave and myself, which render secrecy advisable just at present. You can say Rouen. That is quite near enough to the mark to come within the limits of truth," added Horatio, with the tone of a man who had never quite outstepped those limits. "Yes, Rouen. And you will come with me."
"With us," said Gustave. "I will put off my journey for a day or two for the sake of going with you. You have to meet Fleurus in Rouen haven't you?"
"Yes; he is to be there on the fifth of March, and this is the last day of February. I had a letter from him this morning. All goes swimmingly."
Diana wondered what it could be which went swimmingly; but she was obliged to content herself with her lover's assurance that he had not allowed her father to involve him in any kind of speculation.
CHAPTER III.
AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.
Between Philip Sheldon and his brother there was at this time a state of feeling somewhat akin to the relations between a subjugated country and its conqueror. The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail against his antagonist's ace of trumps. The ace of trumps was Charlotte Halliday; and as to his mode and matter of playing this card, Mr. Sheldon was for the present profoundly mysterious.