“I have a high esteem for men of the legal profession,” he said; “they are agreeable company—they are acute men, intelligent, full of anecdote, and, from the very character of their position and acquirements, respectable.”
Mr. Wilton rubbed his hands, he was pleased with the reply.
“I am desirous of a little quiet just now,” he observed; “I shall therefore have an hour or so to myself in my sanctum here alone, but I will join you at dinner. It was not my intention to have done so, but I feel equal now to the pleasure I shall enjoy. Mark, I place Mr. Vane under your charge; I am sure you will pay him every attention.”
Mark made a cold inclination of the head and left the library, followed by Vane, who perceived his coolness, but he had too great a game at stake to appear to do so, or to appear to be affected by it. He himself assumed a proud nonchalant air, and took his way after Mark Wilton, who walked with a quick step at an easy, leisurely pace.
Mark again wondered where he had seen Vane and under what circumstances. He felt morally convinced that they had met before, and that the impressions left behind were not favourable to Lester. In vain he endeavoured to solve the difficulty; his memory would not serve him in this.
Again Lester Vane and Flora were face to face, but under different conditions. She received him—although her heart beat, for she knew he was her father’s favoured suitor for her hand—with a quiet, firm manner, as though his arrival was an incident of ordinary character; and she listened to his well-turned hyperboles, as if they were but common-places. She replied by a silent inclination of the head, and resumed her conversation with Mr. Charlock with an unembarrassed ease which affected Vane more keenly than any studied slight would have done. He could have supplied a motive for that, and have surmounted, or have attempted to have surmounted it hopefully, for it would have shown to him that he was not an object of indifference; but to be received as Flora had met him was to satisfy him that she was in no doubt as to the disposal of her preference, or that it would be adhered to.
He felt by her manner that he was accepted by her as a guest of her father’s, whose coming and going could have no influence or effect upon her.
He mentally determined to change this state of things at any risk.
“Her uncouth booby of a brother cuts me,” he mused.
“I care nothing for that—but she shall not do so with impunity. I will have her. No risk shall daunt me, no obstacle deter me, for it is not alone her wealth I need, but I have conceived a passion for her.”