When once more in the ball-room, Berwick made his way straight to his sister. Even before he stood by her, the expression on his face had aroused her quick anxious attention. But Arabella had learnt to spare her brother feminine comment.
"Have you yet spoken to Mrs. Boringdon?" he asked her, rather sharply.
"No, I have not even seen her; do you wish me to speak to her? I think she must know many of the people here. Where is she?"
"Over there, sitting with that old lady. I should be glad if you would tell her that we—that is, that you—are going to drive Mrs. Rebell back to Chancton to-night. The Boringdons have to leave early, and it would of course be absurd for Mrs. Rebell to go away just when you have arrived, and when the Duke has arranged for her to sit at supper next to Monsieur Parisot."
Now Monsieur Parisot was the French Ambassador.
"Of course, if you really wish it, it can be managed." Miss Berwick spoke hesitatingly; in these little matters she did not like to have her hand forced. "But, James, it will not be very convenient." And she looked at her brother with puzzled eyes.
Was it possible, after all, that Albinia had been right and she wrong? If so, why that obedient following of Louise Marshall out of the gallery half an hour before, and why this strange look on his face now? Miss Berwick had just spoken to Barbara Rebell, but her eyes were still holden; indeed, her feeling as to Madame Sampiero's god-daughter, or rather as to her beautiful gown and superb jewels, had not been unlike that of Mrs. Boringdon, and would have translated itself into the homely phrase, "Fine feathers make fine birds." Arabella did not credit, for one moment, the Duchess's belief that the mistress of Chancton Priory intended to make the daughter of Richard Rebell her heiress. Miss Berwick had persuaded herself that Chancton would pass in due course into her brother's possession, and she knew that there had been some such proposal years before, in the heyday of Lord Bosworth's intimacy with Madame Sampiero. This being so, it surely seemed a pity that Mrs. Rebell should now be treated in a way that might ultimately cause disappointment.
"I do wish it, and it will be quite convenient!" Berwick's tone was very imperious. "I myself am going back to Chillingworth to-night. I offered long ago to leave here to-day, for they have every attic full. I have of course arranged for an extra carriage, so you will be put to no inconvenience,"—but his bright blue eyes, now full of strange fire, fell before his sister's challenging glance, and the altered accent with which she observed, "Oh! of course if you and Mrs. Rebell have arranged to go back together——"
Berwick's hand closed on his sister's arm and held it for a moment in a tight, to her a painful, grip.
"You have no right to say, or even to think, such a thing! The arrangement, such as it is, was made by me, Mrs. Rebell knows nothing of it; she is quite willing, and even eager, to go back now with the Boringdons. The other proposal must come from you——" he hesitated, then, more quietly, muttered, "I don't often ask you to oblige me."