“Delighted to hear this, Mr. Wilton,” exclaimed Vane, eagerly, “may I be permitted to hope that you will allow me, although I can do so but imperfectly I fear, to renew that friendship in my unworthy person?”
Wilton took his proffered hand and grasped it warmly.
“I shall have the sincerest pleasure in such an arrangement,” he responded. “It will afford me much gratification: I loved your uncle for his frank heart, his noble spirit, and his honourable manliness. I have no doubt that in you I shall find a worthy representative of him.”
“I hope I shall not wrong so generous a supposition,” said Vane, with affected modesty.
“I feel assured you will not,” rejoined Wilton, and, turning to Flora, he said—“Let me specially present the Honorable Lester Vane to you, Flo’, my darling. As the nephew of the dearest friend I ever had, I request you, out of your love for me, to render to him the warmest hospitality of our house, and such direct attention as my most valued guest is at all times entitled to.”
Flora bowed at her father’s fervidly uttered instructions, and submitted her hand to the pressure of Lester Vane’s. But she liked not his eyes, they made her—as they had done Helen Grahame—shudder. She liked not his voice; least of all, she liked the cold touch of his soft, smooth fingers.
“Miss Wilton,” he said, in a subdued, deep tone, “if I could have formed a wish, constructed so as to gain for me, in its realisation, the greatest possible amount of felicity, it should have been that which would have compassed what has come to pass. To be thrown into the society of your honoured parent, the loved friend of a relative, whose memory I reverence, is, indeed, a deep gratification, but to have to that happiness added the high privilege, commended to your best attention, of enjoying your sweet society, is to place me in a state of beatitude of which I am undeserving, but of which, in true sincerity of heart, I will strive to make myself worthy.”
Lester Vane was rather fond of this flowery style of expression. It was a mistake when adopted to create an effect on such minds as those possessed by Flora Wilton or Helen Grahame. It was as hollow to them, and as transparent, as a glass globe. Malcolm thought it a masterly power of language, “framed to make woman false.” Colonel Mires had some such thought, and gnawed his lips as he listened. Hal only smiled, and turned away. If such expressions were flowers at all, he believed them to be artificial flowers, and, at best, a bad imitation of nature.
To this rhapsody as to her father’s request. Flora only bowed; she turned her face away from Vane’s steadfast gaze, feeling that it would be a relief to her when the interview terminated, and she should be once more alone with Hal, for she imagined she had still much to say to him.
Malcolm Grahame had received special commands from his father to make himself as agreeable to Flora as circumstances would permit, and he actually made some way in her good opinion, because he spoke a little earnestly of Lotte, expressed a fear that he had startled her at the sudden meeting in the garden, and uttered a wish to see her to offer an apology for unintentional rudeness, if such were needed. He dropped no hint that he knew her to be humble in her position, spoke praisefully of her pleasant face, her smiling eyes, and her graceful figure, and he did so with such seeming frankness of tone and manner, that Flora felt absolutely gratified.