Lady Vale smiled and placed her hand in Roger’s. “Then you do not insist upon an engagement, or a formal announcement of marriage until Victoria is her own mistress? I have no need to write to Sir William.”
“That is for Victoria to decide, Lady Vale. I leave her free to do as she chooses. Whatever she thinks is right will please me.”
Lady Vale cordially shook his hand, and after kissing Mary, left the room in search of Victoria. She had already decided that the quicker they left for England, the better it would be for all concerned. Victoria, parted from Roger, would soon forget him, and once back at Valecourt, Lady Vale would see to it that her daughter never held any communication with her blind lover. She found Victoria in their private apartments, busily engaged in giving her French poodle a bath.
“So my daughter, who has never seemed anything but a child to me, loves somebody else better than her old mother, and is going to forsake her,” and Lady Vale kissed Victoria while a convenient tear dropped on her cheek.
“Oh, no, mamma, I am not going to forsake you. We can all live here so cosily together, and you ought not to say that I love somebody better than you. Did you love grandma less because you loved papa too? Of course I love Roger, but it is a different love than that which I bear you.”
“You forget, my love, how impossible it would be for me to live here altogether. I must be at Valecourt a part of the year. It is high time we were returning now. We had better start in a few days. It is considered highly improper to remain in the house with your fiancé.
Victoria stopped scrubbing the poodle, and looked with astonished eyes at her mother. “But, mamma, I cannot leave Roger. We are to be married so soon it would be hardly worth our while to leave and then come back. It would be better to all go together.”
“Indeed?” interrogated Lady Vale, slightly raising her eyebrows, “and may I ask when you intend becoming Mrs. Willing?”
“Well, we thought in a month, sure, mamma. Roger needs me now if at any time, and I don’t see what we want to wait for. Of course we shall be married quietly, and that will please both of us.”
“You certainly have not lost any time in arranging matters, Victoria; you seem to have forgotten that Sir William must be consulted, and that your mother requires a certain amount of obedience shown her.”