Poor Ennuyé was silenced—nay, he even blushed. The adjutant's girls recalled an episode in which the gallant cornet had shone in a rather verdant light. Fane had effectually quieted him.
"I wonder if Florence Aspeden will marry Mount?" I remarked to Fane, when the others had left us. "She does not seem to pay him much heed yet; but still——"
"The devil, no!" cried Fane, in an unusually energetic manner. "I would stake my life she would not have such a muff as that, if he owned half the titles in the peerage!"
"You seem rather excited about the matter," I observed. "It would not be such a bad match for her, for you know she has no tin; but I am sure, with your opinion on love-matches, you would not counsel Mount to such a step."
"Of course not!" replied Fane, in his ordinary cool tones. "A man has no right to marry for love, except he is one of those fortunate individuals who own half a county, or some country doctor or parson of whom the world takes no notice. There may be a few exceptions. But yet," he continued, with the air of a person trying to convince himself against his will, "did you ever see a love match turn out happily? It is all very well for the first week, but the roses won't bloom in winter, and then the cottage walls look ugly. Then a fellow cannot live as he did en garçon, and all his friends drop him, and altogether it is an act no wise man would perpetrate. But I shall forget to give you a message I was intrusted with. They are going to get up some theatricals at Woodlands. I have promised to take Sir Thomas Clifford (the piece is the 'Hunchback'). and they want you to play Modus to Mary Aspeden's Helen. Do, old fellow. Acting is very good fun with a pretty girl——"
"Like the Julia you will have, I suppose," I said. "Very well, I will be amiable and take it. Mary will make a first-rate Helen. Come and have a game of billiards, will you?"
"Can't," replied the gallant captain. "I promised to go in half an hour with—with the Aspedens to see some waterfall or ruin, or something, and the time is up. So, au revoir, monsieur."
Many of ours were pressed into the service for the coming theatricals, and right willingly did we rehearse a most unnecessary number of times. Many merry hours did we spend at Woodlands, and I sentimentalized away desperately to Mary Aspeden; but, somehow or other, always had an uncomfortable suspicion that she was laughing at me. She never seemed the least impressed by all my gallantries and pretty speeches, which was peculiarly mortifying to a moustached cornet of twenty, who thought himself irresistible. I began, too, to get terribly jealous of Tom Cleaveland, who, by right of his cousinship, arrived at a degree of intimacy I could not attain.
One morning Fane and I (who were going to dine there that evening), the Miss Aspedens, and, of course, that Tom Cleaveland, were sitting in the drawing-room at Woodlands. Fane and Florence were going it at some opera airs (what passionate emphasis that wicked fellow gave the loving Italian words as his rich voice rolled them out to her accompaniment!), the detestable Trinity-man had been discoursing away to Mary on boat-racing, outriggers, bumping, and Heaven knows what, and I was just taking the shine out of him with the description of a shipwreck I had had in the Mediterranean, when Mary, who sat working at her broderie, and provokingly giving just as sweet smiles to the one as to the other, interrupted me with—
"Goodness, Florie, there is Mr. Mills coming up the avenue. He is my cousin's admirer and admiration!" she added, mischievously, as the door opened, and a little man about forty entered.