“I hate croquet,” he said, almost rudely (but Clare was not offended). “I hope the man who invented it died a violent death. Miss Arden, I know I have put myself in a false position by going to visit the Pimpernels——”
“Oh, no, indeed no, not at all,” said Clare, with majestic suavity; “why should not you visit them if you like them? I object to visiting that sort of people myself, you know. Not that they are not quite as good as I am—but—— And then one acts as one has been brought up. I never supposed it was a wrong thing to do——”
“It would not be right for you,” said her cousin. “With us men, of course, it don’t matter; but you—— I should not like to see you at the Red House with a mallet in your hand. I must not tell you my motive in going there, I suppose?”
“Oh, please, do,” said Clare, with queenly superiority, but a heart that beat very quick under this calm appearance. “I think I can divine—but you may be sure of my interest—in whatever concerns you. Miss Pimpernel is very pretty; she has the loveliest complexion. And I was not in earnest when I spoke about—buttoning her glove.”
“Why should not you be in earnest? She does nothing but button her glove. But I don’t know what Miss Pimpernel has to do with it,” said Arthur, putting on an air of surprise. He knew very well what she had to do with it. He understood Clare’s meaning at once, and he knew also that there was a certain truth in the suggestion. If he was utterly foiled concerning herself, he was by no means sure that Alice Pimpernel was not the next best; but he put on an air of surprise, and gravely waited for a reply. Clare, however, was not quite able to reply. She smiled, and waited till he should say more. It was the wisest and the safest way.
“I think, after what you have implied, I must tell you why I am at the Pimpernels,” he said, after a pause. “It was very silly of me, of course; but I never thought—— In short, I did not know you were so consistent. I thought you would do as other people did, and that you visited them like the rest of the world. All this, Miss Arden, I told you before; but I don’t suppose it was worth remembering. When your brother turned me out——”
“Mr. Arden, you forget yourself; Edgar never turned any one out. Why should he?” said Clare; and then she stopped, and said to herself—“Yes; it was quite true.”
“Of course, I could not expect he was to stay here for me; but he did turn me out. And very right too,” said Arthur, sadly. “He divined me better than you did. Had I been Edgar, and he me, I should have done just the same.”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Arden,” said Clare, raising her lofty head. “Edgar is the very soul of courtesy and kindness. You do not understand my brother.” She knew so well that she was talking nonsense, and he knew it so well, that here Clare paused, confused, not able to go on with her fiction under his very eye.
“Well,” he said, with a sigh, shaking his head, “we must not discuss that question. I could throw light upon it perhaps, but for the present I dare not. And I thought in my stupidity that the Red House was near Arden. I find it is a thousand miles away. Is not that strange? Miss Arden, I am going to do something genealogical, or historical. I think I will write a book. Writing a book, people say, is a very nice amusement when you don’t know what to do with yourself, and if you happen to be rather wretched now and then. I am going to write something about the family. I wonder if Edgar and you would let me see the old family papers—if any papers exist?”