Edith looked up at her kindly, with a smothered sigh.
"I believe you, Trix; but then you are different from me." She half-raised herself, looking dreamily out on the sunlit prospect of lawn, and coppice, and woodland. "Here it is: I love Charley, but I love myself better. O Trix, child, don't let us talk about it; I am tired, and my head aches." She pushed back the heavy, dark hair wearily off her temples with both hands. "I am what you call me, a selfish wretch—a heartless little brute—and I am going to marry Sir Victor Catheron. Pity him, if you like, poor fellow! for he loves me with his whole heart, and he is a brave and loyal gentleman. But don't pity your brother, my dear; believe me, he doesn't need it. He's a good fellow, Charley, and he likes me, but he won't break his heart or commit suicide while he has a cigar left."
"Here he comes!" exclaimed Trix, "and I believe he has heard us."
"Let him come," Edith returns, lying listlessly back among her cushions once more. "It doesn't matter if he has. It will be no news to him."
"It is a pity you should miss each other, though," Trix says sarcastically, as she turns to go; "such thorough philosophers both; I believe you were made for each other, and, as far as easy-going selfishness is concerned, there is little to choose between you. It's a thousand pities Sir Victor can't hear all this."
"He might if he liked," is Edith's answer. "I shouldn't care. Charley!" as Charley comes in and Trix goes out, "have you been eavesdropping? Don't deny it, sir, if you have!"
Charley takes a position in an easy-chair some yards distant, and looks at her lying there, languid and lovely.
"I have been eavesdropping—I never deny my small vices. Hammond left me to go to the stables, and, strolling under the window, I overheard you and Trix. Open confession is beneficial, no doubt; but, my dear cousin, you really shouldn't make it in so audible a tone. It might have been Sir Victor instead of me."
She says nothing. The sombre look he has learned to know is in her dusk eyes, on her dark, colorless face.
"Poor Sir Victor!" he goes on; "he loves you—not a doubt of that, Dithy—to the depths of idiocy, where you know so well how to cast your victims; but hard hit as he is, I wonder what he would say if he heard all this!"