She had been as much shocked at her cousin's rash marriage as the Earl himself, but it was an accomplished fact. Only two courses were open: the first to have nothing more to do with Guy and his wife, the second to admit the wife to a guarded intimacy.
Lord Southleigh had declared warmly, in his first disgust, that he would never look upon his young kinsman's face again. But Nina had prevailed with milder counsels. Guy was his heir, and in the course of Nature would succeed to the family honours. They would not cut themselves adrift from him, and they must make up their minds to tolerate this wife, of whose antecedents he could give no satisfactory account. The one fact he did mention, that she was a cousin of Mrs. L'Estrange, did not weigh much with them.
Mrs. L'Estrange came of a fairly good family, so far as birth counted, but it was both impecunious and addicted to making unfortunate alliances. One of her sisters had run away with a good-looking young fellow who had been her father's valet. She was a woman who would have a good many undesirable relatives knocking about. Miss Stella Keane, the daughter of an impoverished Irishman, might well belong to this band of undesirables. More especially as Guy's statements about her antecedents were of the most bald and unsatisfactory nature.
It was all very sad and regrettable from every point of view, but, as Nina calmly pointed out, several young heirs to peerages had been running amok lately, in the matrimonial sense, and taking their wives from very questionable quarters. Guy might have married some coarse and common creature from the music-halls. It was unfortunate, in a way, that he had a considerable fortune of his own, and could snap his fingers at the displeasure of his relatives, if they presumed to show it.
But, somehow, knowing Guy as well as she did, Nina did not believe that the future Countess of Southleigh, who would, in due course, wear the family jewels, was likely to be coarse or common. Guy was too fastidious, too innately a gentleman, to be snared by a creature of that kind.
And, on her first introduction, the young wife made a much more favourable impression than might have been anticipated, considering the prejudices arrayed against her.
She was not in the least servile or obsequious in the presence of these two very aristocratic persons, but she bore herself with a certain kind of shrinking modesty, as if asking pardon for having intruded into the family. Her attitude to her husband appeared to be one of shy adoration, tempered with perfect good taste. Her deep affection for him, while not obtrusive or ostentatious, seemed to express itself in her tender glances, the soft cadences of her voice when she addressed him.
Nina made up her mind to one thing, that, if she was not genuinely and devotedly in love with him, she must be one of the most perfect actresses to be met with off the stage.
And Guy was still infatuated. When he had made her that strange offer, he knew that he was drifting, but he had still left some small remnant of self-control. But her fascination had proved too strong. Every day she wove the chains more strongly round him.
And then there came a time when absence from her was unbearable, when he took to counting the hours that elapsed between their next meeting. The end was inevitable. The moment came when he definitely made up his mind that he could not break away; that existence without her would be intolerable.