He still sent flowers, but they came from his head gardener, addressed to Mrs. Leyburn. Agnes put them in water; and Rose never gave them a look. Rose went to Lady Helen's because Lady Helen made her, and was much too engaging a creature to be rebuffed; but, however merry and protracted the teas in those scented rooms might be, Mr. Flaxman's step on the stairs, and Mr. Flaxman's hand on the curtain over the door, till now the feature in the entertainment most to be counted on, were, generally speaking, conspicuously absent.
He and the Leyburns met, of course; for their list of common friends was now considerable; but Agnes, reporting matters to Catherine, could only say that each of these occasions left Rose more irritable, and more inclined to say biting things as to the foolish ways in which society takes its pleasures.
Rose certainly was irritable, and at times, Agnes thought, depressed. But as usual she was unapproachable about her own affairs, and the state of her mind could only be somewhat dolefully gathered from the fact that she was much less unwilling to go back to Burwood this summer than had ever been known before.
Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman left certain other people in no doubt as to his intentions.
'My dear aunt,' he said calmly to Lady Charlotte, 'I mean to marry Miss Leyburn if I can at any time persuade her to have me. So much you may take as fixed, and it will be quite waste of breath on your part to quote dukes to me. But the other factor in the problem is by no means fixed. Miss Leyburn won't have me at present, and as for the future I have most salutary qualms.'
'Hugh!' interrupted Lady Charlotte angrily, 'as if you hadn't had the mothers of London at your feet for years!'
Lady Charlotte was in a most variable frame of mind; one day hoping devoutly that the Langham affair might prove lasting enough in its effects to tire Hugh out; the next, outraged that a silly girl should waste a thought on such a creature, while Hugh was in her way; at one time angry that an insignificant chit of a schoolmaster's daughter should apparently care so little to be the Duke of Sedbergh's niece, and should even dare to allow herself the luxury of snubbing a Flaxman; at another, utterly sceptical as to any lasting obduracy on the chit's part. The girl was clearly anxious not to fall too easily, but as to final refusal—pshaw! And it made her mad that Hugh would hold himself so cheap.
Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman felt himself in no way called upon to answer that remark of his aunt's we have recorded.
'I have qualms,' he repeated, 'but I mean to do all I know, and you and Helen must help me.'
Lady Charlotte crossed her hands before her.