"Miss Lloyd has seen so little of the world, and is so fresh and untutored, that anyone could interest her whose conversation was not absolutely stupid."
"John Pomeroy, the Hesperian fruit is within your grasp!" said Miss Deane, changing her manner in a moment to one of intense earnestness. "Put forth your hand and seize it. Be not slow to make it your own. If you are, be sure that some one else will quickly claim the golden prize." Her black eyes, fixed steadily on his face, seemed full of some hidden meaning. With a grave inclination of the head, she turned and slowly left the room.
"I will seize the golden fruit, chère demoiselle; I will make it my own!" muttered Pomeroy to himself, as Olive closed the door. "Though why you should feel so strange an interest in my fortunes is more than I can comprehend. A crooked brain and a dark heart are yours, Olive Deane, or else my reading of your character is altogether a wrong one."
[CHAPTER XI.]
IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
The feeling of curiosity which had actuated Miss Deane in her desire to see her rival, as she called Eleanor Lloyd in her thoughts, had been almost as powerful as that which, for the time being, had made John Pomeroy its slave. When Miss Deane did see Eleanor, she could not help acknowledging to herself that Matthew Kelvin's violent passion for that lady was not without some justification. That Miss Lloyd was indeed very lovely, she at once admitted; for Olive was free from that common feminine failing which refuses to acknowledge that another, and more especially a rival, can be the possessor of superior charms, either of person or mind; and she told herself at once that, as far as mere good looks went, she could not hope to stand the slightest chance in a comparison with Miss Lloyd. So long as Miss Lloyd should remain unmarried, Matthew Kelvin would never look with serious eyes elsewhere; and Olive saw with a sort of savage satisfaction how quickly and readily Mr. John Pomeroy had fallen into the same toils in which the lawyer had been enmeshed before him. Her keen eyes saw that which was suspected by no one else--that a few short hours had indeed sufficed to seal Pomeroy's fate. So far everything had gone well with her; everything had answered her highest expectations. But when she looked on the other side of the question; when she came to ask herself, "Does this girl return this man's love?" she could not feel quite so sanguine as to the result. That Eleanor liked the company of John Pomeroy, and that his conversation interested her, Olive could see clearly enough. But liking is not love, though it is often a big stride on the road towards it. All that was left her to do was to hope for the best and to remain as quietly watchful as she had hitherto been.
Of all these plottings and counter-plottings that were going on under her very nose, poor innocent Lady Dudgeon dreamt nothing. She had long ago made up her mind that her ensuing season in town should be fruitful of much pleasure and much enjoyment to her. But chief of all the pleasures that she looked forward to was that of assisting her darling Eleanor to select--or, better still, of selecting for her--a suitable partner for life. She had not been more than a fortnight in Harley Street before she began to cast wary eyes around, and to make cautious inquiries here and there with respect to the pretensions and positions of certain individuals who, even thus early, had evinced a generous alacrity to sell themselves for life for the sake of twenty thousand pounds--the young lady who was tacked to the money being of course thrown in as an unavoidable necessity.
The interest shown by Lady Dudgeon in the fortunes of Miss Lloyd had its origin in a feeling that dated from the time when Eleanor was little more than a mere child. At the risk of his own life, Jacob Lloyd had succeeded in stopping her ladyship's ponies one day when they were running away with her, and making in a straight line for a very deep gravel-pit that may still be seen close by the edge of Dingley Common. Jacob having been considerably bruised and knocked about in his struggle with the ponies, Lady Dudgeon could do no less than call several times at Bridgeley to inquire after his health. There it was that she first saw Eleanor, at that time a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed child of eight, in short frocks and pinafores. She drew the child to her, looked her fixedly in the face for a moment or two, and then stooped and kissed her. Impulsive Nelly at once flung her arms round Lady Dudgeon's neck. "You are pretty, and I do love you!" she cried; and from that moment her ladyship's heart was won. She would insist upon taking Nelly back to Stammars, and that first visit was but the precursor of several others.
Lady Dudgeon was generally looked upon as a cold-mannered, unimpressionable sort of person, and her strange partiality for Mr. Lloyd's daughter was a surprise to all who knew her--to her husband as much as anyone. But Sir Thomas was eminently good-natured, and he yielded to his wife's whim in this respect as in everything else. Before long, indeed, he grew almost as fond of his Bonnybell, as he called her, as Lady Dudgeon herself. Having no children of his own at this time, he liked very well to have Eleanor about him--he liked to have her tugging at his coat-tails, or banging on his arm, or sitting in front of him on his pony as he rode about the fields looking at his crops or watching his labourers at work.
Even as a child there was about Eleanor Lloyd a native distinction of manner that few people failed to observe. Combined with this was a sweet, fearless freedom--like the fearlessness of a fawn--that sprung from a total unconsciousness of self, and that charmed without being aware of its own existence. At ten years of age Eleanor felt as much at home in Lady Dudgeon's drawing-room, among Lady Dudgeon's fine company, as she did when helping Biddy to make a custard in the kitchen.