"I hope she won't," she says, severely. "Nothing would cause me greater sorrow. Underneath her childish manner there lies a pa.s.sionate amount of feeling that, once called into play, would be impossible to check. Amuse yourself elsewhere, Dorian, unless you mean to marry her."

"Well, why shouldn't I marry her?" says Dorian.

"I see no reason why you shouldn't. I only know you have no intention whatever of doing so."

"If you keep on saying that over and over again, I dare say I _shall_ want to marry her," says Dorian. "There is nothing like opposition for that kind of thing; you go and tell a fellow he can't and sha'n't marry such-and-such a girl, and ten to one but he goes and does it directly."

"Don't speak like that," says Clarissa, entreatingly: she is plainly unhappy.

"Like what? What nonsense you have been talking all this time! Has it never occurred to you that though, no doubt, I am endowed with many qualities above the average, still I am not an 'Adonis,' or an 'Apollo,' or an 'Admirable Crichton,' or any thing of that sort, and that it is probable your Miss Broughton might be in my society from this till the day she dies without experiencing a pang, as far as I am concerned."

"I don't know about 'Apollo' or 'Crichton,'" says Clarissa; "but let her alone. I want her to marry Mr. Hastings."

"The curate?" says Dorian, for the second time to day.

"Yes. Why should you be so amazed? He is very charming, and I think she likes him. He is very kind-hearted, and would make her happy; and she doesn't like teaching."

"I don't believe she likes Hastings," says Dorian; yet his heart dies within him as he remembers how she defended him about his unlimited affection for the cup that "cheers but not inebriates."

"I believe she does," says Clarissa.

"Can't you do something for _me_, Clarissa?" says Dorian, with a rather strained laugh: "you are evidently bent on making the entire country happy, yet you ignore my case. Even when I set my heart upon a woman, you instantly marry her to the curate. I hate curates! They are so mild, so inoffensive, so abominably respectable. It is almost criminal of you to insist on handing over to one of them that gay little friend of yours with the yellow hair. She will die of Hastings, in a month. The very next time I have the good fortune to find her alone, I shall feel it my duty to warn her off him."

"Does anybody ever take advice unless it falls in with their own wishes?" says Clarissa. "You may warn her as you will."

"I sha'n't warn her at all," says Dorian.

When he has left Clarissa, and is on his homeward way, this thought still haunts him. Can that pretty child be in love with the lanky young man in the long-tailed coat? She can't! No; it is impossible!

Yet, how sure Clarissa seemed! and of course women understand each other, and perhaps Georgie had been pouring confidences of a tender nature into her ears. This last is a very unpleasant idea, and helps to decapitate three unoffending primroses.

Certainly she had defended that fellow very warmly (the curate is now "that fellow"), and had spoken of him a though she felt some keen interest in him. After all, what is it to him? (This somewhat savagely, and with the aid of a few more flowers.) If he was in love with her, it would be another thing; but as it is,--yes, as it _is_.

How often people have advised him to marry and settle down! Well, hang it all, he is surely as good to look at as the curate, and his position is better; and only a few hours ago she had expressed a desire to see something of life. What would Arthur think of----

His thoughts change. Georgie's _riante_ lovely face fades into some deeper recess of his heart, and a gaunt old figure, and a face stern and disappointed, rises before him. Ever since that day at Sartoris, when the handkerchief had been discovered, a coldness, a nameless but stubborn shadow, had fallen between him and his uncle,--a shadow impossible to lift until some explanation be vouchsafed by the younger man.

Such an explanation it is out of Dorian's power to give. The occurrence altogether was unhappy, but really nothing worthy of a violent quarrel. Brans...o...b.., as is his nature, pertinaciously thrusts the whole affair out of sight, refusing to let it trouble him, except on such occasions as the present, when it pushes itself upon him unawares, and will not be suppressed.

Horace has never been to Pullingham since the night of the ball, and his letters to Clarissa have been many and constant, so that Dorian's suspicions have somewhat languished, and are now, indeed, almost dead, he being slow to entertain evil thoughts of any one.

Ruth Annersley, too, though plainly desirous of avoiding his society ever since his meeting with her in the shrubberies, seems happy and content, if very quiet and subdued. Once, indeed, coming upon her unexpectedly, he had been startled by an expression in her eyes foreign to their usual calm; it was a look half terrified, half defiant, and it haunted him for some time afterwards. But the remembrance of that faded, too; and she had never afterwards risked the chance of a _tete-a-tete_ with him.

Meantime, Miss Peyton's little romance about the Broughton-Hastings affair rather falls to bits. Georgie, taking advantage of an afternoon that sees the small Redmonds on the road to a juvenile party, goes up to Gowran, and, making her way to the morning room, runs to Clarissa and gives her a dainty little hug.

"Aren't you glad I have come?" she says, with the utmost _navete_.

"I'm awfully glad myself. The children have all gone to the Dugdales', and so I am my own mistress."

"And so you came to me," says Clarissa.

"Yes, of course."

"And now, to make you happy," says Clarissa, meditatively.

"Don't take any thought about that. It is already an accomplished fact. I am with _you_, and therefore I am perfectly happy."

"Still, you so seldom get a holiday," goes on Clarissa, regretfully, which is a little unfair, as the Redmonds are the easiest-going people in the world, and have a sort of hankering after the giving of holidays and the encouragement of idleness generally. The vicar, indeed, is laden with a suppressed and carefully hidden theory that children should never do anything but laugh and sit in the sun. In his heart of hearts he condemns all Sunday-schools, as making the most blessed day one of toil, and a wearying of the flesh, to the little ones.

"Why,--why," said he, once, in an unguarded moment, bitterly repented of afterwards, "forbid them their rest on the Sabbath day?"

"What a pity the afternoon is so uncertain!" says Clarissa. "We might have gone for a nice long drive."

She goes over to the window, and gazes disconsolately at the huge shining drops that fling themselves heavily against the panes, and on the leaves and flowers outside; while

"The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again."

"I cannot feel anything to be a pity to-day," says Georgie. "I can feel only a sense of freedom. Clarissa, let us play a game of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k. I used to beat you at Brussels; try if you can beat me now."

Into the large hall they go, and, armed with battledores, commence their fray. Hither and thither flies the little white bird, backwards and forwards move the lithe figures of the girls. The game is at its height: it is just the absorbing moment, when 199 has been delivered, and received, and returned, when Georgie, stopping short suddenly, cries "Oh!" and 200 flutters to the ground.

Clarissa, who is standing with her back to the hall door, turns instinctively towards it, and sees Dorian Brans...o...b...

"I have disturbed you. I have come in at the wrong moment?" asks that young man, fearfully.

"Ah! you have spoiled our game. And we were so well into it. Your sudden entrance startled Georgie, and she missed her aim."

"I am sorry my mere presence should reduce Miss Broughton to a state of abject fright," says Dorian, speaking to Clarissa, but looking at Georgie.

Her arm is still half raised, her color deep and rich, her eyes larger, darker than usual; the excitement of the game is still full upon her. As Dorian speaks, her lips part, and a slow sweet smile creeps round them, and she looks earnestly at him, as though to a.s.sure him that she is making him a free present of it,--an a.s.surance that heightens her beauty, to his mind. Gazing at her with open and sincere admiration, he tells himself that

"Nature might no more her child advance."

"Your presence would not frighten me," she says, shaking her head; "but it was--I don't know what; I only know that I forgot myself for the moment and missed my aim. Now, that was hard, because we were so near our second hundred. Why did you not come a little sooner or a little later?"

"Because 'a thoughtless animal is man,'" quotes he, his blue eyes full of contrition. "And the door was wide open, and the picture before me put all other thoughts out of my head. I wish I was a girl! I should do nothing but play battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k from morning till night." Then, reproachfully, "I think you might both shake hands with me, especially as I can say only 'how d'ye do' and 'good-by' in one breath: I am bound to meet Arthur at three precisely."

"What a comfort!" says Clarissa, devoutly. "Then there is some faint chance we may be allowed to end our afternoon in peace!"

"If there is one thing on earth for which I have a keen admiration, it is candor," says Brans...o...b..; "I thank you, Clarissa, for even this small touch of it. Miss Broughton, be candid too, and say you, at least, will regret me."

"I shall," says Georgie, with decided--and, it must be confessed, unexpected--promptness.

"Ha!" says Dorian, victoriously. "Now I am content to go. A fig for your incivility, Clarissa! At least I leave one true mourner behind."

"Two," says Clarissa, relentingly.

"Too late now; apology is useless! Well, I'm off. Can I do anything for either of you?"