But the lines were not smoothed away from his wife's forehead, nor did the flush of shame and pain leave her face. She looked at him for a moment, to see whether she should tell him. But why poison his pleasure? "It is not his fault," she said to herself; and all that she gave utterance to was an anxious exclamation: "Provided that Edith sees as we do!"
"She must see as we do," Lord Lindores said.
But when Rintoul came in, his mother went to him and seized his arm with both her hands. "He heard what you said!" she cried, with anguish in her voice. "Now I shall never be able to hold up my head in his presence—he heard what you said!"
Rintoul too, notwithstanding his more enlightened views, was somewhat red. Though it was in accordance with his principles, yet the fact of having helped to force, in any way, a proposal for his sister, caused him an unpleasant sensation. He tried to carry it off with a laugh. "Anyhow, since it has brought him to the point," he said.
This was the day on which Millefleurs was to be taken to Tinto to see the house and all its curiosities and wealth. In view of this he had begged that nothing might be said to Edith, with a chivalrous desire to save her pain should her answer be unfavourable. But how could Lady Lindores keep such a secret from her daughter? While she was still full of the excitement, the painful triumph, the terror and shame with which she had received the news, Edith came in to the morning room, which to-day had been the scene of so many important discussions. They had been perhaps half an hour together, going gaily on with the flood of light-hearted conversation about anything and nothing which is natural between a girl and her mother, when she suddenly caught a glimpse in a mirror of Lady Lindores's troubled face. The girl rushed to her instantly, took this disturbed countenance between her hands, and turned it with gentle force towards her. Her own face grew grave at once. "Something is the matter," she said; "something has happened. Oh, mother, darling, what is it? Something about Carry?"
"No, no; nothing, nothing! Certainly nothing that is unhappy——Don't question me now, Edith. Afterwards, you shall know it all."
"Let me know it now," the girl said; and she insisted with that filial tyranny against which mothers are helpless. At last Lady Lindores, being pressed into a corner, murmured something about Lord Millefleurs. "If he speaks to you to-night, oh, my darling—if he asks you—do not be hasty; say nothing, say nothing, without thought."
"Speaks to me—asks me!"—Edith stood wonder-stricken, her eyes wide open, her lips apart. "What should he ask me?" She grew a little pale in spite of herself.
"My dearest! what should he ask you? What is it that a young man asks—in such circumstances? He will ask you—perhaps—to marry him."
Edith gave a kind of shriek—and then burst into a peal of agitated laughter. "Mother, dear, what a fright you have given me! I thought—I didn't know what to think. Poor little man! Don't let him do it—don't let him do it, mamma! It would make us both ridiculous, and if it made him at all—unhappy; but that is nonsense—you are only making fun of me," said the girl, kissing her, with a hurried eagerness as if to silence her. Lady Lindores drew herself away from her daughter's embrace.