"When other people don't think it."
"How do you know what other people think? You haven't asked them, I suppose?"
The young soldier treated his cousin in very much the same free–and–easy manner which he displayed towards his sister Letitia. It would have been almost difficult for him to recognise any degree in his relationship to the two girls. He loved Letitia better than Olivia; but his affection for both was of exactly the same character.
Hubert Arundel came into the garden, wearied out, like his daughter, while the two cousins were walking under the shadow of the neglected hazels. He declared his willingness to accept the invitation to Marchmont Towers, and promised to answer John's ceremonious note the next day.
"Cookson, from Kemberling, will be there, I suppose," he said, alluding to a brother parson, "and the usual set? Well, I'll come, Ned, if you wish it. You'd like to go, Olivia?"
"If you like, papa."
There was a duty to be performed now––the duty of placid obedience to her father; and Miss Arundel's manner changed from angry impatience to grave respect. She owed no special duty, be it remembered, to her cousin. She had no line or rule by which to measure her conduct to him.
She stood at the gate nearly an hour later, and watched the young man ride away in the dim moonlight. If every separate tramp of his horse's hoofs had struck upon her heart, it could scarcely have given her more pain than she felt as the sound of those slow footfalls died away in the distance.
"O my God," she cried, "is this madness to undo all that I have done? Is this folly to be the climax of my dismal life? Am I to die for the love of a frivolous, fair–haired boy, who laughs in my face when he tells me that his friend has pleased to 'take a fancy to me'?"
She walked away towards the house; then stopping, with a sudden shiver, she turned, and went back to the hazel–alley she had paced with Edward Arundel.