“Would it not be possible to come to Dunarvon on some future day and rectify the omission?” queried Everard with the most innocent air imaginable.
“Come again another day? Impossible!” cried her ladyship. “My time at the Chase is nearly up. A few more days, and Miss Thursby and I will be winging our flight elsewhere. And high time too, in my opinion.” She was looking full at Lisle, and he felt himself colouring under her regard.
“Why do you say—‘and high time too,’ Lady Pell? I—I fail to understand you.” It was many a year since his cheeks had burnt as hotly as they did at that moment.
“I should have thought my words were plain enough to be understood by anybody. However, since it seems that nothing else will do, I will deal with you still more plainly.” Laying a hand for a moment on his sleeve, she said: “Everard Lisle, you are in love with Ethel Thursby—and small blame to you either! Ah! you needn’t start. I’ve known it all along. Of course you thought, as most of your sex do in such cases, that nobody could see what was the matter with you; whereas to me—not that I set myself up as being cleverer than other people—it was as plain as a pikestaff. Very well. Perceiving what ailed you, I went out of my way to make opportunities for you to be together, and indeed, in a quiet way, did all I could to help you. And with what result, pray? Simply none at all. Week after week has gone by, and here you are, to all seeming, not a bit nearer what you are dying to possess than you were when I arrived at Withington Chase. I am disappointed in you, Everard Lisle.”
Her ladyship’s somewhat lengthy diatribe had afforded Everard time to recover his self-possession. “Lady Pell,” he returned with some emotion, “that in you I have all along had a friend I have felt assured in my own mind, but I must confess I did not think that the feelings with which I regard Miss Thursby had betrayed themselves so plainly on the surface as they seem to have done. However, you have surprised my secret, and I am confident it could not be in better keeping. You deem me dilatory, in that I have so long delayed putting my fortune to the touch; but there is one circumstance I may be permitted to urge in extenuation of which I feel assured you have no knowledge. Six months ago I proposed to Miss Thursby and was rejected. Can you wonder, then, if I hesitate and seem to shilly-shally before venturing to run the same risk again?”
“That is something which I never so much as suspected,” replied her ladyship. “Yes, that certainly puts a somewhat different complexion on the affair. But I would not let myself be too much discouraged by it if I were you, Mr. Lisle.”
“I don’t think I let it discourage me overmuch,” said Everard with a smile. “Only, as I said before, it lies at the back of my apparent hesitation.”
“Then take the advice of an old woman who has seen something of the world, and hesitate no longer.”
“Ah! then you think I have a chance of success?” exclaimed Lisle with a sudden glow which seemed to irradiate him from head to foot. “You have seen something—you know something?”
“Not quite so fast, my young friend, if you please,” said her ladyship in her dryest accents. “I know nothing—absolutely nothing. No whisper in connection with yourself and her has ever passed Miss Thursby’s lips to me. As for what I have seen, or may have fancied I have seen, that is a matter of no moment and concerns no one but myself. Still, I say to you as I said before: were I in your place I should hesitate no longer. Are you prepared to seize the first occasion that offers itself?”