"And perhaps you will reconsider the matter I spoke of?"

"No use, Mr. Blount--not the least. I have quite made up my mind.

Anything more? I am afraid I must be off."

"Nothing, thanks," said Mr. Blount.

And so the interview ended.

When he was gone, Mr. Longcluse thought darkly for a minute.

"That's a straightforward fellow, they say. I suppose the facts are so.

It can't be, though, that Miss Maubray, that handsome creature with so much money, is thinking of marrying that insolent c.o.xcomb. It may be Lady May, but the other is more likely. We must not allow _that_, Sir Richard. That would never do."

There was a fixed frown on his face, and he was smiling in his dream.

Out he went. His pale face looked as if he meditated a wicked joke, and, frowning still in utter abstraction, he took the bridle from his groom, mounted, looked about him as if just wakened, and set off at a canter, followed by his servant, for David Arden's house.

Smiling, gay, as if no care had ever crossed him, Longcluse enters the drawing-room, where he finds the handsome young lady writing a note at that moment.

"Mr. Longcluse, I'm so glad you've come!" she says, with a brilliant smile. "I was writing to poor Lady Ethel, who is mourning, you know, in the country. The death of her father in the house was so awfully sudden, and I'm telling her all the news I can think of to amuse her. And is it really true that old Sir Thomas Giggles has grown so cross with his pretty young wife, and objects to her allowing Lord Knocknea to make love to her?"

"Quite true. It is a very bad quarrel, and I'm afraid it can't be made up," said Mr. Longcluse.

"It must be very bad, indeed, if Sir Thomas can't make it up; for he allowed his first wife, I am told, to do anything she pleased. Is it to be a separation?"

"At _least_. And you heard, I suppose, of poor old Lady Glare?"

"No!"

"She has been rolling ever so long, you know, in a sea of troubles, and now, at last, she has fairly foundered."

"How do you mean?"

"They have sold her diamonds," said Mr. Longcluse. "Didn't you hear?"

"No! Really? Sold her diamonds? Good Heaven! Then there's nothing left of her but her teeth. I hope they won't sell them."

"It is an awful misfortune," said Mr. Longcluse.

"Misfortune! She's utterly ruined. It was her diamonds that people asked. I am really sorry. She was such fun; she was so fat, and such a fool, and said such delicious things, and dressed herself so like a macaw. Alas! I shall never see her more; and people thought her only use on earth was to carry about her diamonds. No one seemed to perceive what a delightful creature she was. What about Lady May Penrose? I have not seen her since I came back from Cowes, the day before yesterday, and we leave London together on Tuesday."

"Lady May! Oh! she is to receive a very interesting communication, I believe. She is one name on a pretty long and very distinguished list, which Sir Richard Arden, I am told, has made out, and carries about with him in his pocket-book."

"You're talking riddles; pray speak plainly."

"Well, Lady May is one of several ladies who are to be honoured with a proposal."

"And would you have me believe that Sir Richard Arden has really made such a fool of himself as to make out a list of eligible ladies whom he is about to ask to marry him, and that he has had the excellent good sense and taste to read this list to his acquaintance?"

"I mean to say this--I'll tell the whole story--Sir Richard has ruined himself at play; take that as a fact to start with. He is literally ruined. His uncle is away; but I don't think any man in his senses would think of paying his losses for him. He turns, therefore, naturally, to the more amiable and less arithmetical s.e.x, and means to invite, in turn, a series of fair and affluent admirers to undertake, by means of suitable settlements, that interesting office for him."

"I don't think you like him, Mr. Longcluse; is not that a story a little too like 'The Merry Wives of Windsor?'"

"It is quite certain I don't like him, and it is quite certain," added Mr. Longcluse, with one of his cold little laughs, "that if I did like him, I should not tell the story; but it is also certain that the story is, in all its parts, strictly fact. If you permit me the pleasure of a call in two or three days, you will tell me you no longer doubt it."

Mr. Longcluse was looking down as he said that with a gentle and smiling significance. The young lady blushed a little, and then more intensely, as he spoke, and looking through the window, asked with a laugh,--

"But how shall we know whether he really speaks to Lady May?"

"Possibly by his marrying her," laughed Mr. Longcluse. "He certainly will if he can, unless he is caught and married on the way to her house."

"He was a little unfortunate in showing you his list, wasn't he?" said Grace Maubray.

"I did not say that. If there had been any, the least, confidence, nothing on earth could have induced me to divulge it. We are not even, at present, on speaking terms. He had the coolness to send a Mr. Blount, who transacts all Mr. David Arden's affairs, to ask me to become his security, Mr. Arden being away; and by way of inducing me to do so, he disclosed, with the coa.r.s.eness which is the essence of business, the matrimonial schemes which are to recoup, within a few days, the losses of the roulette, the whist-table, or the dice-box."

"Oh! Mr. Blount, I'm told, is a very honest man."

"Quite so; particularly accurate, and I don't think anything on earth would induce him to tell an untruth," testifies Mr. Longcluse.

After a little pause, Miss Maubray laughs.

"One certainly does learn," she said, "something new every day. Could any one have fancied a _gentleman_ descending to so gross a meanness?"

"Everybody is a gentleman now-a-days," remarked Mr. Longcluse with a smile; "but every one is not a hero--they give way, more or less, under temptation. Those who stand the test of the crucible and the furnace are seldom met with."

At this moment the door opened, and Lord Wynderbroke was announced. A little start, a lighting of the eyes, as Grace rose, and a fluttered advance, with a very pretty little hand extended, to meet him, testified, perhaps, rather more surprise than one would have quite expected. For Mr. Longcluse, who did not know him so well as Miss Maubray, recognised his voice, which was peculiar, and resembling the caw of a jay, as he put a question to the servant on his way up.

Mr. Longcluse took his leave. He was not sorry that Lord Wynderbroke had called. He wished no success to Sir Richard's wooing. He thought he had pretty well settled the question in Miss Maubray's mind, and smiling, he rode at a pleasant canter to Lady May's. It was as well, perhaps, that she should hear the same story. Lady May, however, unfortunately, had just gone out for a drive.

CHAPTER LXV.

BEHIND THE ARRAS.

It was quite true that Lady May was not at home. She was actually, with a little charming palpitation, driving to pay a very interesting visit to Grace Maubray. In affairs of the kind that now occupied her mind, she had no confidants but very young people.

Miss Maubray was at home--and instantly Lady May's plump instep was seen on the carriage step. She disdained a.s.sistance, and descended with a heavy skip upon the flags, where she executed an involuntary frisk that carried her a little out of the line of advance.

As she ascended the stairs, she met her friend Lord Wynderbroke coming down. They stopped for a moment on the landing, under a picture of Cupid and Venus; Lady May, smiling, remarked, a little out of breath, what a charming day it was, and expressed her amazement at seeing him in town--a surprise which he agreeably reciprocated. He had been at Glenkiltie in the Highlands, where he had accidentally met Mr. David Arden. "Miss Maubray is in the drawing-room," he said, observing that the eyes of the good lady glanced unconsciously upward at the door of that room. And then they parted affectionately, and turned their backs on each other with a sense of relief.

"Well, my dear," she said to Grace Maubray as soon as they had kissed, "longing to have a few minutes with you, with ever so much to say. You have no idea what it is to be stopped on the stairs by that tiresome man--I'll never quarrel with you again for calling him a bore. No matter, here I am; and really, my dear, it _is_ such an odd affair--not quite that; such an odd scene, I don't know where or how to begin."

"I wish I could help you," said Miss Maubray laughing.

"Oh, my dear, you'd never guess in a hundred years."

"How do you know? Hasn't a certain baronet something to do with it?"