"No; thanks. It's going to rain."
"Nothing of the sort; and Rupert is so anxious. He would have come himself, only my lady is ill to-day with one of her bad headaches, and asked him to read her to sleep; and like the good boy that he is in the main, though shockingly lazy, he obeyed. Do come, Aileen, there's a dear! Don't be selfish."
Miss Jocyln rose rather abruptly.
"I have no desire to be selfish, Miss Everard. If you will wait ten minutes while I dress, I will accompany you to Thetford Towers."
She rang the bell, and swept from the room stately and uplifted. May looked after her, fidgeting a little.
"Dear me! I suppose she is offended now at that word 'selfish.' I never did get on very well with Aileen Jocyln, and I'm afraid I never shall. I shouldn't wonder if she were jealous."
Miss Everard laughed a little silvery laugh all to herself, and slapped her kid riding-boot with her pretty toy whip.
"I hope I didn't interrupt a tender declaration that night in the conservatory; but it looked like it. If I did I am sure Rupert has had fifty chances since, and I know he hasn't availed himself of them, or Aileen would never wear that dissatisfied face. I know she's in love with him, though, to be sure, she would see me impaled with the greatest pleasure if she only thought I suspected it; but I'm not so certain about him. He's a great deal too indolent, in the first place, to get up a grand passion for anybody; and I think he's inclined to look graciously on me—poor little me—in the second. You may spare yourself the trouble, my dear Sir Rupert, for a gentleman whose chief aim in existence is to smoke Turkish pipes, and lie on the grass, and write and read poetry, is not at all the sort of man I mean to bless for life.
"Tell me not of your soft sighing lovers,
Such things may be had by the score;
I'd rather be bride to a rover,
And polish the rifle he bore."
Sang May Everard, in a gay little voice as Miss Jocyln, in a flowing riding habit, entered the room.