"You take an entirely false view of my position," she exclaimed. "Mine is not the betrothal of a sentimental school-girl. I--I" and she burst into a short, nervous laugh that shocked even herself--"I do not marry Lord Langley for love."
There was a pause. Goswyn bowed his head; then, suddenly raising it, he looked straight into Erika's eyes in a way which made her very uncomfortable, and said, "I guessed that; but why, then, do you marry him,--you, a young, pure, gifted girl, and a man with such a past as Lord Langley's? I know that no man is worthy of such a girl as you are; but, good God, there is some difference---- Why, why do you marry him?"
"Why? why?" She tried to collect herself and to answer him truly. "I marry him because the position he offers me suits me,--because one is condemned to marry at a certain age, if one would not be sneered at and ridiculed; I marry him because he is an old man and will not require of me any warmth of affection, and because I have determined that there shall be nothing romantic in my marriage. Ah," with a glance at the small packet in her hand, "after all that you know of my wretched experience, you ought to understand why I do not choose to marry for love."
A long silence followed. He looked at her as he had never hitherto done, searchingly, inquiringly. Suddenly his glance grew tender: it expressed intense pity. "I understand that you talk of love and marriage as a blind man talks of colours," he said, slowly. "I understand that you unwittingly contemplate the commission of a crime against yourself, and that you should be prevented from it."
He ceased speaking on a sudden, and bit his lip. A voice was heard in the hall,--the characteristic voice of an old English bon viveur with a Continental training. "Is the Countess at home?"
"What am I doing here?" Goswyn exclaimed, and, without touching the hand extended to him, he turned on his heel and was gone.
Outside the door stood an old gentleman with a tall white hat and a dark-blue cravat spotted with white. One glance of rage and curiosity Goswyn darted at the correct florid profile and white whiskers, and then he rushed down-stairs like one possessed.
Yes, he had not been mistaken. It was the same Englishman whom he had once seen at Monaco with a most disreputable train. Then he was travelling under an assumed name,--Mr. Steyne: his English regard for appearances forbade him in such society to profane his title and his social dignity.
Goswyn's blood fairly boiled in his veins.
When, some time afterwards, Countess Lenzdorff entered the drawing-room, after her walk, Lord Langley, rather redder in the face than usual, and with a baffled, puzzled expression of countenance, was sitting in an arm-chair; Erika, very pale, with sparkling eyes and very red lips, strikingly beautiful, and evidently tingling in every nerve, was in another on the other side of a table between the pair, upon which was an open jewel-case containing a diamond necklace. The Countess suspected that some kind of disagreement had arisen between the couple, and, as soon as she had returned Lord Langley's greeting, asked, carelessly, what it had been.