Was it to meet Charlie Landon, whom she would have compassed sea and land to avoid, that she had imperilled her salvation?—for indeed the sure refuge of the house into which she had found admittance seemed to her, in this sudden terror of deservedly losing it, to spell no less a thing. She had never seen the hateful old satyr face since the Versailles evening, as some blessed accident summoned its owner back to England on the day following it.
That Flora was quite ignorant of her young guest’s attitude of mind towards her old one was evident both from that known good-nature of hers, which would never willingly place any two people in an uncomfortable situation, and also from the fact that before Charlie had become a prominent person in the ever-narrowing circle of Claire’s friends, Flora had seen herself obliged to withdraw from it personally.
Lady Tennington rather liked Charlie. He did not make love to her, and she would not have minded if he had, and his fund of indelicate anecdotes amused her. It was upon his own representation of the affectionate intimacy existing between himself and the young girl—for in the accomplishment of lying Charlie could have given Bonnybell herself points—that the invitation to meet him had gone forth veiled in the anonymity which was most likely to produce the desired effect.
Perhaps it was because Miss Bonnybell’s features, though equally practised in dissimulation, were not so expert at it as her tongue, but certainly it was that something which was not of the expected quality had expressed itself in the girl’s face, and given a surprised and interrogative quality to Flora’s next words.
“Charlie wanted to go and fetch you, but I would not let him. I wanted to have the pleasure of seeing your pleasure at so unexpected a meeting. He tells me that you became such dear friends after—after I left Paris.”
But by this time Miss Ransome was herself again. Charlie would be a dangerous enemy, and might let out or purposely disclose circumstances in her past history—circumstances due not to her fault, indeed, but to her misfortune—yet does the world ever nicely discriminate between the two?—which might seriously prejudice her future. She had no more doubt of Charlie’s vindictiveness than of his sensuality, and there was as much need to be on guard against the one as against the other. So she submitted her hand, which he insisted upon kissing, to his clasp, and answered with perfect civility—
“Yes, it is quite a surprise. I had not an idea that Colonel Landon was down here.”
“Colonel Landon!” repeated he, with an affectation of reproachful astonishment. “How formal we have grown all of a sudden!”
There was an odious implication of former intimacy in his tone, and Flora, who had begun to laugh at it, stopped suddenly, arrested by the undisguisable repulsion which pierced through the set smile on her young friend’s face.
“You would not wonder at anything,” she cried hastily, “if you knew the sort of people the poor thing has fallen amongst. Do tell Charlie, Bonnybell, about your experiences with the Aylmers; he would be so much amused, and I could not hear them too often.”