“And I do accept the challenge, foreseeing your failure in both causes.” She swept him a courtesy full of open defiance and ridicule, and again turned her back upon him as Betty entered the room.
But Master Clevering was neither dismayed nor discouraged by the turn his wooing had taken. He had never thought to win her lightly, and his combative disposition recognized in the prospect before him the elements of a struggle, so that he was filled with the keen joy of a warrior at the onset of the fray. The possibility of final defeat did not occur to him.
Bidding Betty an affectionate good-by, Joscelyn quitted the house, declining his proffered escort, nor did he speak with her again for a space of many hours; for when the company, bidden that night to a farewell feast with him, assembled about the board, the chair set for her was vacant. Betty and Janet glanced meaningly at each other, for they had seen her at dusk in company with Eustace and Mary Singleton, and the Singletons were among the most pronounced Tories in the county. But at the other end of the table Richard only laughed as he thrust his knife into the fowl before him and felt for the joint.
“Tell her, Aunt Cheshire, that our loss does not equal hers, since she gets none of this bird, which is browned to the taste of Epicurus himself.”
His tone was careless, and in truth he was not surprised at her defection, for he, too, had seen the Singletons at her gate; and later on, as he stood at his own door, had seen her, through her lighted parlour window opposite, take off, for the entertainment of her guests, his own theatrical entrance in his uniform that afternoon. She was an excellent mimic, and her sense of humour enabled her to give a ludicrous side to the scene, which drew forth peals of laughter from her auditors. The vanity, the swagger, the monumental pose, were so exactly reproduced that Richard felt a quick tingle of irritation flush his veins. And that picture was still in his mind as he sat at table among his guests.
It is questionable whether it would have been an added nettlement or a relief had he known that she had been aware of his presence across the way, seeing him distinctly against the hall light behind him, and that the scene enacted was more for him than for her visitors.