“Have you known anything of the earl’s intention to get married?”
“Well, really, now you mention it, I did hear some time ago that he was on the lookout for a suitable spouse, but I fancy the old party hasn’t turned up yet.”
“Just what I think. Lady Elizabeth has simply been teasing me.”
“Why, my dear, do you happen to know anything definite about the matter?”
Appealed to thus directly, Lady Elizabeth replied guardedly, “I have really been given to understand that my father would like to get married. But I am not at liberty to disclose the name of the lady whom he would like to marry.”
“At least tell me whether she is old or young,” appealed Belle, anxiously.
“Oh, she is several years younger than my father, I believe.”
With this answer Belle was forced to be satisfied, and shortly afterward we all left the breakfast-room.
As for me, I had listened to the foregoing conversation with considerable interest, but not with the absorbed attention which might perhaps have been aroused in me, if I had had the least idea that the doings of the Earl of Greatlands could possibly affect myself. After all, I was really sorry for Belle. But perhaps the earl’s marriage might not affect her so adversely as she feared.
At eleven o’clock Lord Egreville came to see Belle. I do not know the exact purport of their conversation with each other, but I do know that when Belle’s fiancé left the drawing-room he looked much less pleasant than when he entered it, and hardly seemed to have time to speak to the earl, who was announced at this juncture. Thinking I would have an hour’s uninterrupted practice on my violin, I went up to my own room, but was summoned thence by-and-by.