Mopsy and Dopsy looked at each other despairingly. Here was a golden opportunity lost. If it were only possible to sprain an ankle on the instant.
Jack Vandeleur was a good brother—so long as fraternal kindness did not cost money—and he saw that look of blank despair in poor Dopsy's eyes and lips.
"I think Mr. Hamleigh is wise," he said. "This bright morning will end in broken weather. Hadn't you two girls better stay at home? The rain will spoil your gowns."
"Our gowns won't hurt," said Mopsy brightening. "But do you really think there will be rain? We had so set our hearts on going with you; but it is rather miserable to be out on those hills in a blinding rain. One might walk over the edge of a cliff."
"Keep on the safe side and stay at home," said Leonard, with that air of rough good nature which is such an excellent excuse for bad manners. "Come Ponto, come Juno, hi Delia," this to the lovely lemon and white spaniels, fawning upon him with mute affection.
"I think we may as well give it up," said Dopsy, "we shall be a nuisance to the shooters if it rains."
So they stayed, and beguiled Mr. Hamleigh to the billiard room, where they both played against him, and were beaten—after which Mopsy entreated him to give her a lesson in the art, declaring that he played divinely—in such a quite style—so very superior to Jack's or Mr. Tregonell's, though both those gentlemen were good players. Angus consented, kindly enough, and gave both ladies the most careful instruction in the art of making pockets and cannons; but he was wondering all the while how Christabel was spending her morning, and thinking how sweet it would have been to have strolled with her across the hills to the quiet little church in the dingle where he had once dreamed they two might be married.
"I was a fool to submit to delay," he thought, remembering all the pain and madness of the past. "If I had insisted on being married here—and at once—how happy—oh God!—how happy we might have been. Well, it matters little, now that the road is so near the end. I suppose the dismal close would have come just as soon if my way of life had been strewed with flowers."
It was luncheon-time before the Miss Vandeleurs consented to release him. Once having got him in their clutch he was as firmly held as if he had been caught by an octopus. Christabel wondered a little that Angus Hamleigh should find amusement for his morning in the billiard room, and in such society.
"Perhaps, after all, the Miss Vandeleurs are the kind of girls whom all gentlemen admire," she said to Jessie. "I know I thought it odd that Leonard should admire them; but you see Mr. Hamleigh is equally pleased with them."