Virginia had to be the moving spirit in it all. She elected to settle at Wayhurst, because there is an excellent public school there, and, as a day boy, Antony, who was nearly fourteen, might obtain the education of a gentleman. For nearly two years now such had been the girl's life. Yet even Miriam did not guess the truth—did not guess the drudgery and devotion of Virginia's daily round.
Mr. Rosenberg was what is described as rolling in money. He had social ambitions, and was very well pleased when his daughter made friends at school with the daughter of Bernard Mynors. The Rosenbergs, brother and sister, had more than once accepted the whole-hearted hospitality of Lissendean. Their father could not, therefore, with any good grace, make objections to Miriam's pleading when she begged to have Virginia to stay with her.
Miriam had a great deal too much pocket-money. She sent a substantial cheque to Virginia, that she might provide herself with an outfit and railway fares for the projected visit. Virginia was able to devote part of this cheque to the providing of what was locally known as a "supply" to do the housework while she herself was away. She belonged, indeed, to that wonderful type of woman who can make a pound, expended upon clothes, go as far as another woman makes five, or even ten. She arrived in Bryanston Square for her visit with exactly the right frocks, with her spirits high, and her bloom unimpaired, in spite of the hard life she led. Youth and high spirit will carry all before them. Mr. Rosenberg, when his astute eye rested upon the charming creature, became suddenly aware of her as an incarnate temptation to his son Gerald, upon whom all his hopes were concentrated.
Mr. Rosenberg was not without good impulses. He desired to befriend this beautiful girl to whom Fate had shown herself so cruel. It was, however, more than could be demanded of human nature that he should be ready to console her for her misfortunes with the gift of all his wealth and all his social ambition. As a man of business, he divined her mother to have been the ruin of the family. He knew Mrs. Mynors as a lovely, vain, shallow and selfish person, who all her life had lived for her own amusement. Such a mother-in-law would be a burden that Gerald could never carry. Moreover, there were two younger children, of whom one, the little girl, was badly crippled—a permanent invalid.
Had Virginia, being her father's daughter, stood alone, it is just possible that her extreme beauty would have brought Mr. Rosenberg to the point of allowing the match. With her encumbrances he felt it to be impossible. He did not know that it was at Gerald's instigation that Mims had gone to the length of actually financing the scheme of the visit. Yet his shrewdness rather suspected something of the sort. During the whole fortnight of Virginia's sojourn he had been on tenter-hooks—manœuvring to keep his son out of the way without seeming to do so.
They had—thanks, he felt sure, to his policy—arrived safely at the last day of Miss Mynors' stay. Last moments, however, are fraught with particular danger. Mr. Rosenberg could not feel that he was as yet "out of the wood," and would probably have undergone even worse apprehensions had he known of Gerald's appointment to meet the two girls at Hertford House and give them tea.
"If we hadn't arranged to meet Gerald here, I would just walk right away, out of the place," muttered Mims presently. "I wish that man would not dog us like this."
"Let us leave off looking at the pictures," suggested Virginia, "and go and sit at the top of the staircase, in that recess. Then we shall see Mr. Rosenberg as he comes up—and the man could hardly pursue us there without being openly offensive."
"Good!" replied Mims with satisfaction. They left the Boucher room, in which the stranger seemed to be absorbed in contemplation, and seated themselves in the alcove, behind the statue of "Triumphant Love."
They made a dainty picture in the fuller light which fell upon them there; and they sat on undisturbed until they saw the head of their escort appearing above the edge of the staircase.