"At this hour of the night to be here, alone!"

"Yes. Very imprudent of her, of course, and all that."

"There must have been some strong inducement to make a girl of her gentle nature undertake so bold, so daring, a step. It was a strictly improper action," says the old man, in his most stilted style.

"I dare say. Imprudent, however, was the word I used. I am rather glad I was the one to meet her, as she knew me; and, as a rule, people talk so much about nothing, and make such mountains out of mole-hills."

"It was fortunate, indeed, your meeting her. It might, in fact, almost be termed a curious coincidence, your managing to be on this deserted walk just at the required moment."

There is something so unpleasant, so sneering, about his tone that Dorian colors hotly.

"I confess I hardly see it in the light you do," he says, easily enough, but very coldly. "And I think I should term the coincidence 'lucky,' rather than curious. I see no difference between this walk and half a dozen others. People don't seem to affect any of them much."

"No," says Lord Sartoris.

"Any other fellow might have been here as well as me. You, for example."

"Just so!" says Lord Sartoris.

"Then why bring in the word curious?"

"It merely occurred to me at the moment," says his lordship, drily.

"Been dancing much?"

"Yes,--no,--pretty well. Are you coming in?"

They are again in front of the house, and near the steps that lead to the conservatory.

"Not just yet, I think."

"Then I fear I must leave you. I am engaged for this dance."

So, for the first time, these two part coldly. The old man goes slowly, moodily, up and down the gravelled path beneath the brilliant moon, that--

"From her clouded veil soft gliding, Lifts her silvery lamp on high,"

and thinks of many things in a humor more sad than bitter; while the young man, with angry brow and lips compressed, goes swiftly onward to the house.

As he regains the ball-room, the remembrance of the little partner he has come to claim rushes back upon him pleasantly, and serves to dissipate the gloomy and somewhat indignant thoughts that have been oppressing him. But where is she? He looks anxiously around; and, after five minutes' fruitless search, lo! there are her eyes smiling out at him from the arms of a gay and (doubtless) gallant plunger.

The next instant she is gone; but he follows her slight form with eager glance, and at length crosses the room to where she is now standing with her soldier. As he does so he flings from him all tormenting thoughts, forgetting--as it is his nature to do--the possible misery of the future in the certain happiness of the present.

"The next is ours, is it not?" he says; and she smiles at him, and--can it be?--willingly transfers her hand from the heavy's arm to his; and then they dance; and presently he takes her down to the Peytons' carriage and puts her carefully into it, and presses her hand, I think, ever so slightly, and then drives home, beneath the silent stars, with an odd sensation at his heart--half pain, half pleasure--he has never felt before.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have none; And better is despair than friendless hope Mixed with a killing fear."--MAY.

It is two o'clock on the following day. Horace,--who came down from town for the ball, and is staying with Dorian,--sauntering leisurely into the smoking-room at Sartoris, finds Brans...o...b.. there, overlooking some fishing-tackle.

This room is a mingled and hopelessly entangled ma.s.s of guns, pipes, whips, spurs, fishing-rods, and sporting pictures; there are, too, a few other pictures that might not exactly come under this head, and a various and most remarkable collection of lounging-chairs.

There is a patriarchal sofa, born to create slumber; and an ancient arm-chair, stuffed with feathers and dreams of many sleepers. Over the door stand out the skeleton remains of a horse's head, bleached and ghastly, and altogether hideous, that, even now, reminds its master of a former favorite hunter that had come to a glorious but untimely end upon the hunting-field. A stuffed setter, with very gla.s.sy eyes, sits staring, in an unearthly fashion, in one corner. Upon a window-sill a cat sits, blinking lazily at the merry spring sunshine outside.

"Are you really going back to town this evening, Horace?" asks the owner of all these gems, in a somewhat gloomy fashion, bending over a fishing line as he speaks.

"Yes. I feel I am bound to be back there again as soon as possible."

"Business?"

"Well, I can hardly say it is exactly press of business," says the candid Horace; "but if a man wants to gain any, he must be on the spot, I take it?"

"Quite so. Where have you been all the morning? Sleeping?"

"Nothing half so agreeable." By this time Horace is looking at him curiously, and with a gleam in his eyes that is half amus.e.m.e.nt, half contempt: Dorian, whose head is bent over his work, sees neither the amus.e.m.e.nt nor the scorn. "I did not go to bed at all. I walked down to to the farms to try to get some fresh air to carry back with me to the stifling city."

"Ah! past the mill? I mean in that direction?--towards the upper farms?"

"No; I went past Biddulph's," says Horace, easily, half closing his eyes, and Dorian believes him. "It is lighter walking that way; not so hilly. Did you put in a good time last night?"

"Rather so. I don't know when I enjoyed an affair of the kind so much."

"Lucky you!" yawns Horace, languidly. "Of all abominations, surely b.a.l.l.s are the worst. One goes on when one ought to be turning in, and one turns in when one ought to be going out. They upset one's whole calculations. When I marry I shall make a point of forgetting that such things be."

"And Clarissa?" asks Dorian, dryly; "I can't say about the dancing part of it,--you may, I suppose, abjure that if you like,--but I think you will see a ball or two more before you die. She likes that sort of thing. By the by, how lovely she looked last night!"

"Very. She cut out all the other women, I thought; they looked right down cheap beside her."

"She had it very much her own way," says Dorian; yet, even as he speaks, there rises before him the vision of a little lithe figure gowned in black and crowned with yellow hair, whose dark-blue eyes look out at him with a smile and a touch of wistfulness that adds to their beauty.

"That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace, idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane.

"Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian, for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother.

"Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone for a ramble in the innocent woods."

He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his way into the open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's den.

He is looking f.a.gged and care-worn, and has about him that look of extreme la.s.situde that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own home to Sartoris.

A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him.

"I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort.