But Clara comprehended when, a few minutes later, her aunt said to her: "Mr. Brabazon's uncle has got married somewhere abroad. I've just heard the news. It may--nay, it must--make a great difference as regards the young man's prospects. The safest plan will be to give him his congé. Besides, Lord Penwhistle, with whom you danced twice the other night, has been asking for you. He's very rich. If you play your cards judiciously, there's no knowing what may come to pass."
Miss Leslie cried a good deal in the course of the next few days in the solitude of her chamber. She disliked Lord Penwhistle as much as she liked Burgo; indeed, it might be said that she loved the latter as much as her shallow little heart was capable of loving any one. But she was a good girl, and thoroughly amenable to her aunt's dictates. No thought of rebellion ever entered her mind. Besides, if Mr. Brabazon was going to be a poor man it was far better that they should not marry. She had seen and understood enough of the horrors of genteel poverty when a child at home. It had been the perpetual worry about sordid details and the long, hopeless struggle to free himself from debt, which had worn out her father years before his time. Even now the recollection of it made her shudder.
No, there was no help for it. Fate was very unkind, but she and Mr. Brabazon must part. And when--her birthday falling about a week later--Lord Penwhistle requested her acceptance of a ruby and sapphire bracelet, she felt still more convinced that all must be considered at an end as between Burgo and herself.
"I am glad to have secured this opportunity, Miss Leslie, for a little quiet talk with you," resumed Mr. Brabazon after a pause which to Clara was fast becoming intolerable. The dying embers of her love for Burgo had been fanned afresh into a flame by his presence. Never had Lord Penwhistle seemed so odious to her as at that moment. "After to-day, however, you need have no fear that I shall trouble you again. On a certain occasion I took the liberty of saying certain things to you, but was interrupted before I had got more than half-way through. Your aunt broke in upon us and carried you off--for what reason is now plain enough. She had just heard that my uncle, whose heir I was supposed to be, had taken to himself a wife, and that, consequently, my eligibility as a parti for her niece had suddenly gone down to vanishing point. Is my statement very wide of the mark, Miss Leslie?"
"No, it is not, Mr. Brabazon," replied Clara without hesitation. Just then she felt that she hated Mrs. Mordaunt. She would save her nothing in the way of exposure. "My aunt had heard the news you speak of, and she told me that as between you and me everything must at once come to an end."
"And you?" said Burgo quietly.
"What could I do? When you called, we were not at home. A few days later my aunt carried me off to Paris, and from the date of that evening in the conservatory till now you and I have never met."
"That has been owing to no remissness on my part, I assure you. I was most anxious to meet you. I wanted to tell you that, although I was unfortunately no longer in a position to ask you to become my wife, my sentiments towards you had in no wise changed--that it was not I, but circumstances, that were to blame."
He paused till a burst of clapping and cheering from the crowd round the players had died away.
"I am glad to have been able to tell you this at last," he went on. "But if fortune has behaved scurvily by me, she has dealt kindly by you. If you had conceded me that which I was on the point of asking you for when Mrs. Mordaunt appeared so inopportunely on the scene, you would have made me a happy man, but think what you would have lost yourself!"