“Did you? Well, he was engaged to a friend of mine,” went on Lady Sibyl—“I myself think she has had a lucky escape, because though he was an agreeable man enough in society, he was a great gambler, and very extravagant, and he would have run through her fortune very quickly. But she cannot be brought to see it in that light,—she is dreadfully upset. She had set her heart on being a Viscountess.”
“I guess,” said Miss Chesney demurely, with a sly sparkle of her eyes—“it’s not only Americans who run after titles. Since I’ve been over here I’ve known several real nice girls marry downright mean dough-heads just for the sake of being called ‘my lady’ or ‘your grace.’ I like a title very well myself—but I also like a man attached to it.”
The Earl smothered a chuckling laugh,—Lady Sibyl gazed meditatively into the fire and went on as though she had not heard.
“Of course my friend will have other chances,—she is young and handsome—but I really think, apart from the social point of view, that she was a little in love with the Viscount——”
[p 134]
“Nonsense! nonsense!” said her father somewhat testily. “You always have some romantic notion or other in your head Sibyl,—one ‘season’ ought to have cured you of sentiment—ha-ha-ha! She always knew he was a dissolute rascal, and she was going to marry him with her eyes wide open to the fact. When I read in the papers that he had blown his brains out in a hansom, I said ‘Bad taste—bad taste! spoiling a poor cabby’s stock-in-trade to satisfy a selfish whim!’ ha-ha!—but I thought it was a good riddance of bad rubbish. He would have made any woman’s life utterly miserable.”
“No doubt he would!” responded Lady Sibyl, listlessly; “But, all the same, there is such a thing as love sometimes.”
She raised her beautiful liquid eyes to Lucio’s face, but he was not looking her way, and her stedfast gaze met mine instead. What my looks expressed I know not; but I saw the rich blood mantle warmly in her cheeks, and a tremor seemed to pass through her frame,—then she grew very pale. At that moment one of the gorgeous footmen appeared at the doorway.
“Dinner is served, my lud.”
“Good!” and the Earl proceeded to ‘pair’ us all. “Prince, will you take Miss Fitzroy,—Mr Tempest, my daughter falls to your escort,—I will follow with Miss Chesney.”
We set off in this order down the stairs, and as I walked behind Lucio with Lady Sibyl on my arm, I could not help smiling at the extreme gravity and earnestness with which he was discussing church matters with Miss Charlotte, and the sudden enthusiasm that apparently seized that dignified spinster at some of his remarks on the clergy, which took the form of the most affectionate and respectful eulogies, and were totally the reverse of the ideas he had exchanged with me on the same subject. Some spirit of mischief was evidently moving him to have a solemn joke with the high-bred lady he escorted, and I noted his behaviour with a good deal of inward amusement.