"And at the same time," said Harry, "with reserve. He never seems to have asserted that he was the son of Lord Davenant: he only threw out ambiguous words; he fired the imagination of his son; he christened him by the name of the lost heir; he pretended that it was his own Christian name, and it was not until they found out that this was the hereditary name that the claim was thought of. This poacher and striker seems to have possessed considerable native talent."
"But what," asked Angela, "are we to do?"
"Let us do nothing, Miss Kennedy. We have our secret, and we may keep it for the present. Meantime, the case is hopeless on account of the absolute impossibility of connecting the wheelwright with the man supposed to have been drowned. Let them go on 'enjoying' the title, ignorant of the existence of this unlucky Saturday Davenant."
So, for the present, the thing was hidden away, and nothing was said about it. And though about this time the Professor gave one or two entertainments in the drawing-room, we cannot suppose that his silence was bought, and it would be unjust to the noble profession of which he was a member to think that he would let out the secret had not Miss Kennedy paid him for their performance. Indeed, the Professor was an extremely honorable man, and would have scorned to betray confidence, and it was good to Miss Kennedy to find out that an evening of magic and miracle would do the girls good.
But a profound pity seized the heart of Angela. These poor people who believed themselves to be entitled to an English peerage, who were so mistaken, who would be so disappointed, who were so ignorant, who knew so little what it was they claimed—could not something be done to lessen their disappointment, to break their fall?
She pondered long over this difficulty. That they would in the end have to return to their own country was a thing about which there could be no doubt whatever; that they should return with no knowledge whatever of the reality of the thing they had claimed; what it meant, what it involved, its splendors and its obligations, seemed to her a very great pity. A little experience, she thought even a glimpse of the life led by the best bred and most highly cultivated and richest people in England would be of so much advantage to them that it would show them their own unfitness for the rank which they assumed and claimed. And presently she arrived at a project which she put into execution without delay. What this was you will presently see.
CHAPTER XXIV. LORD JOCELYN'S TROUBLES.
As the season advanced and the autumn deepened into winter, Angela found that there were certain social duties which it was impossible altogether to escape. The fiction of the country-house was good enough for the general world, but for her more intimate friends and cousins this would not do for long. Therefore, while she kept the facts of her present occupation and place of residence a secret from all except Constance Woodcote, now the unsympathizing, she could not wholly shut herself off from the old circle. Among others there was one lady whose invitations she was in a sense bound to accept. What her obligations were, and who this lady was, belong in no way to this history—that is to say, the explanation belongs to Angela's simple chronicle of the old days, when she was only Miss Messenger, the heiress presumptive of the great brewery. Therefore, it need not concern us. Suffice it to say that she was a lady in society, and that she gave great dinners, and held other gatherings, and was at all times properly awake to the attractions which the young and beautiful and wealthy Angela Messenger lent to her receptions.
On this occasion Constance Woodcote, among others, was invited to meet her old friend; she came, but she was ungracious, and Angela felt, more than she had expected, how great already was the gulf between the old days of Newnham and her life of active, practical work. Six months before such coldness would have hurt and pained her; now she hardly felt it. Yet Constance meant to demonstrate by a becoming frost of manner how grievous was her disappointment about those scholarships. Then there were half a dozen men—unmarried men, men in society, men of clubs, men who felt strongly that the possession of Miss Messenger's millions might reconcile them to matrimony, and were much interested by the possibility of an introduction to her, and came away disappointed because they got nothing out of her, not even an encouragement to talk; and everybody said that she was singularly cold, distraite, and even embarrassed that evening; and those who had heard that Miss Messenger was a young lady of great conversational powers went away cynically supposing that any young lady with less than half her money could achieve the same reputation at the same cost of energy. The reason of this coldness, this preoccupation, was as follows.