"Ah! Then, I'm not sure that I should care to go with you, Lord Camberley. Five gentlemen and one lady--that would never do."
"Let me beg of you to reconsider----"
"Pray do nothing of the kind. I would rather not."
"I am awfully sorry," said his lordship, in something of a huff. "Confound this cigar! And confound such old-fashioned prudish notions!" he added to himself. "I'd not have thought it of her."
She walked back, after saying a pleasant word or two, and fell into conversation with Philip Cleeve. He seemed distrait. She thought he had taken enough champagne, and felt rather sorry for the young fellow.
"Do you never feel dull, Mrs. Ducie," he asked, "now that you have come to live among the sand-hills?"
"Oh no. The people I have been introduced to here are all very nice and kind; and then I have my ponies, you know; and there's my music, and my box from Mudie's once a month; so that I have not much time for ennui. My tastes are neither very æsthetic nor very elevated, Mr. Cleeve."
"They are at least agreeable ones," answered Philip.
As Philip Cleeve walked home a war of feelings was at work within him, such as he had never experienced before. On the one hand there was the loss of Mr. Tiplady's twenty pounds; which must be made good tomorrow morning. He turned hot and cold when he thought of what he had done. He knew it was wrong, dishonourable--what you will. How he came to do it he could not tell--just as we all say when the apple's eaten and only the bitter taste left. He must ask his mother to make good the loss; but it would never do to tell her the real facts of the case. He should not like her to think him dishonourable--and she was not well, and it would vex her terribly. He must go to her with some sort of excuse--a poor one would do, so utterly unsuspicious was she. This was humiliation indeed. He was almost ready to take a vow never to touch a card again. Almost; but not quite.
On the other hand, his thoughts would fly off to Margaret Ducie and her thousand nameless witcheries. There was quite a wild fever in his blood when he dwelt on her. It seemed a month since he had last seen and spoken with Maria Kettle--Maria, that sweet, pale abstraction, who seemed to him to-night so unsubstantial and far away. But he did not want to think of her just now. He wanted to forget that he was engaged to her, or as good as engaged. Though some innate voice of conscience whispered that, if he valued his own peace of mind, it would be well for him to keep out of the way of the beautiful ignis fatuus which had shone on his path to-night for the first time.