Chapter Thirty Six.
Margot’s Answer.
A week later Victor Druce was sitting tête-à-tête with Margot Blount in the drawing-room of her aunt’s London house, a cramped little house in a fashionable neighbourhood. The house was generally let furnished during the season, and inhabited by the impecunious owner at those odd seasons of the year when she had no invitations which made it possible to saddle other people with the cost of food and maintenance. Just now there was a gap of a few weeks between the last shooting-party and a Christmas gathering in the country, so the house had been reopened, and friends flocked to call and leave cards, foremost among them Mr Victor Druce, a young man of importance, nowadays, as the accredited heir to one of the finest properties in the kingdom.
“I am not at home to anyone else this afternoon,” Margot announced to the servant, as Victor took his seat beside her. She smiled to herself as she spoke, an odd little smile, whose meaning her visitor was puzzled to decipher. It was a great compliment to be allowed a private interview, but there was a mysterious something in Margot’s manner which detracted from his satisfaction. He watched her as she poured out tea at the inlaid Turkish table, with eyes in which admiration and anxiety were equally mingled. He had known many women more beautiful, but never one with such an air of grace and distinction; every movement of the slim body and white tapering fingers was a poem in itself, and the coils of chestnut hair shone like burnished gold. Even in the poorest of surroundings Margot would look an aristocrat, and reflect credit on her husband’s good taste.
While he was drinking his tea and listening to the pretty flow of conversation about everything in general and nothing in particular, which seems to come so naturally to women of the world, Victor was busy painting a mental picture of a wonderful, rose-coloured future where he would reign as master of Raby Court, with Margot acting chatelaine by his side. The exclusive county families might have hesitated to welcome a stranger, who was moreover a “City man,” but, with Margot Blount as his wife, he would have the entrée into any society.
Victor congratulated himself on his usual good luck, inasmuch as this desirable partner was the girl of all others whom he would have selected for her own sake. A year ago he had looked upon her as a star entirely out of his own sphere, for he had the poorest of prospects for the future, but now, as by the stroke of a magician’s wand, a fine position was almost assured, and he could approach Margot if not as an equal, still as a match whom nobody need disdain. Almost, but not quite! There lay the rub.
The old squire still lingered on, dying by inches as it were, and preserving to the last his grim enigmatical silence. Victor had not heard one word from his lips to substantiate his hopes; but actions—which, as the proverb says, speak louder than words—all seemed to range themselves in his favour. His three rivals had retired in disfavour, and, receiving no replies to their first letters, had gradually ceased writing, so that there was at present no correspondence between them and the squire, while he himself was a constant visitor, and was even allowed carte blanche in inviting and entertaining his friends. The very servants about the place spoke of him as “the young master,” and the local tradesfolk lost no opportunity of begging his patronage in the future. Surely, surely he might be done with doubts, and allow himself the joy of speaking out all that was in his heart!
“A penny for your thoughts, Mr Druce,” cried Margot gaily. “You have not been listening to me for the last ten minutes. It must have been a very pleasant day-dream to engross you so completely.”
“It was,” said Victor simply. For once he was thoroughly sincere, and voice and manner both testified to the change. “I was thinking of you,” he added, looking at her with the dark eyes which could be so eloquent upon occasions. “My daydreams have always been of you for the last year!”