No sooner had she approached the billiard-table that day, than she began:
"Florence was called away from her singing to a conference with her uncle, and—with somebody else, I fancy." (Fane darted a keen look of inquiry at her.) "Poor dear girl! being left so young an orphan, I have always felt such a great interest and affection for her, and I shall rejoice to see her happily settled as—as I trust there is a prospect of now," she continued.
Could she mean Florence Aspeden had engaged herself to Mr. Mills? A roguish smile on Mary's face reassured me, but Fane walked hastily to the window, and stood with folded arms looking out upon the sunny landscape.
Inveterate flirt that he was, his pride was hurt at the idea of a rival, and such a rival, winning in a game in which he deigned to have ever so small a stake, ever such a passing interest!
The dinner passed off heavily—very heavily—for gay Woodlands, for the gallant captain and Florence were both of them distraits and gênés, and he hardly spoke to the poor girl. Oh, wicked Fane!
We sat but little time after the ladies had retired, and Tom and Mr. Aspeden going after some horse or other, Fane and I ascended to the drawing-room alone. It was unoccupied, and we sat down to await them, I amusing myself with teaching Master Tommy, the young heir of Woodlands, some comic songs, wherewith to astonish his nurse pretty considerably, and Fane leaning back in an arm-chair, with Florence's dog upon his knee in that, for him, most extraordinary thing, a "brown study."
Suddenly some voices were heard in the next room.
"Florence, it is your duty, recollect."
"Aunt, I can recollect nothing, save that it would be far, far worse than death to me to marry Mr. Mills. I hold it dread sin to marry a man for whom one can have nothing but contempt. Once for all, I cannot,—I will not."
Here the voice was broken with sobs. Fane had raised his head eagerly at the commencement of the dialogue, but now, recollecting that we were listeners, rose, and closed the door. I did not say a word on the conversation we had just heard, for I felt out of patience with him for his heartless flirtation; so, taking up a book on Italy, I looked over the engravings for a little time, and then, Tommy having been conveyed to the nursery in a state of rebellion, I reminded Fane of a promise he had once made to accompany me to Rome the next winter, and asked him if he intended to fulfil it.