“Did you bring Mr. Huntingdon with you?” she asked, rather hurriedly, for she was quite aware of the fixed look that always annoyed her. The admiration of men was odious to her now the only eyes she had cared to please would never look at her again.
“Do you mean Erle?” was the careless answer. “Oh, no, my dearly beloved cousin has other game to bring down;” and here there was a slightly mocking tone in Percy’s voice. “He is with la belle Evelyn as usual. I am afraid Erle does not quite hit it as an ardent lover; he is rather half-hearted. He asked me to go down to Victoria Station to meet his visitor, but I declined, with thanks. I had other business on hand, and I do not care to be ordered about; so the carriage must go alone.”
“You are expecting visitors at Belgrave House then?” she asked; but there was no interest in her manner. She only wanted to keep conversation to general subjects. She would talk of Belgrave House or of anything he liked if he would only not make love to her. If he only knew how she hated it, and from him of all men.
“Oh, it is not my visitor,” was the reply; “it is only some old fogy or other that Erle has picked up at Sandycliffe—Erle has a craze about picking up odd people. Fancy inflicting a blind parson on us, by way of a change.”
He was not looking at the girl as he spoke, or he must have seen the startled look on her face. The next moment she had turned her long neck aside.
“Do you mean he is actually blind, and a clergyman? how very strange!”
“Yes; the result of some accident or other. His name is Ferrers. Erle raved about him to my grandfather; but then Erle always raves about people—he is terribly softhearted. He is coming up to London, on some quest or other, no one knows what it is, Erle is so very mysterious about the whole thing.”
“Oh, indeed,” rather faintly; “and you—you are to meet him, Mr. Trafford?”
“On the contrary, I am going to do nothing of the kind,” he returned, imperturbably. “I told Erle that at 6:30, the time the train was due, I was booked for a pressing engagement. I did not mention the engagement was with my mother, and that I should probably be partaking of a cup of tea; but the fact is true nevertheless.”
Crystal did not answer; perhaps she could not. He was coming up to London, actually to Belgrave House, and on this very evening. Erle must have got scent of her secret—how or in what manner she could not guess; but all the same, it must be Erle who had betrayed her. She had thought him a little odd and constrained the last few times she had seen him; she had noticed more than once that his eyes had been fixed thoughtfully on her face as though he had been watching her, and he had seemed somewhat confused when he had found himself detected. What did it all mean; but never mind that now. Raby would be coming to Beulah Place, but she would be hundreds of miles away before that; she was safe, quite safe; but if only she could see him before she went. If she could only get rid of this tiresome Percy, who would stay, perhaps, for hours. Could she give him the slip? She could never remain in his company through a long evening; it would drive her frantic to listen to him, and to know all the time that Raby was near, and she could not see him. And then all at once a wild idea came to her, and her pale cheeks flushed, and her eyes grew bright, and she began to talk rather quickly and in an excited manner.