“We only arrived this afternoon,” said the gentleman, “two months before we were expected. You can fancy what a comfortable reception we had at Lingthurst. My mother and Miss Winter ended by discovering they had lost all their luggage, that is to say, only twenty-nine boxes turned up, and there was such a to-do that I came off.”
“It was very good of you, dear Trevor,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “It is so nice to see you again. But why have you come home so soon? Nothing wrong, I hope?
“Everything wrong,” said the young man laughing. But as he came into the room he caught sight of Mr. Guildford, and, further off, Geneviève seated by the table, but with her face turned away from the others. “You are not alone,” he said hastily, his tone changing a little. The change of tone, slight as it was, was enough to make Mr. Guildford wish that his goodbyes had been completed before the appearance of the new-comers, but almost ere he could realise the wish Miss Methvyn had come forward.
“It was very rude of me to run away in such a hurry, Mr. Guildford,” she said gently, “but I did not like to keep my cousin Mr. Fawcett waiting. I was afraid he would think we had not heard him.”
“I was just about going round by the lodge when I heard your tardy footsteps, Miss Cicely,” said Mr. Fawcett. “I had whistled till I was tired and was thinking of trying a verse or two of Come into the garden, Maud, for I am very tired indeed of being here at the gate alone.”
“It would not have been at all appropriate,” said Cicely, a very slight shadow of annoyance creeping over her face. Then there came a little pause, which Mr. Guildford took advantage of to finish his good-nights this time without interruption. He carried away with him no very distinct impression of the new-comer, only that he was tall and fair and good-looking, and that his voice was soft and pleasant.
“She said he was her cousin,” Mr. Guildford repeated to himself. “Ah! well, I am not likely ever to know more of her, but I almost think she is the sort of woman one might come to make a friend of.”
[CHAPTER VI.]
“LE JEUNE MILORD.”
“He is as sober a man as most of the young nobility. His fortune is great. In sense he neither abounds nor is wanting; and that class of men, take my word for it, are the best qualified of all others to make good husbands to women of superior talents. They know just enough to admire in her what they have not in themselves.”