He turned as he spoke, but Dora's parasol was too quick for him.

"Please do not let us be like people in books," she said. "There is no necessity to go into side issues at all. You have asked me to marry you.

I can never marry you. There is the whole question and the whole answer.

I say nothing to you about finding somebody worthier, or any nonsense of that sort. Please spare me the usual--impertinences--about there being somebody else."

The word found its mark. Arthur Agar caught his breath, but made no answer.

They were among the well-dressed throng now crowding back to the chairs.

When Arthur had handed Dora over to the care of Lady Mazerod he lifted his hat and took his departure with that perfect _savoir faire_ which was his _forte_.

CHAPTER XX

IN A SIDE PATH

"To sum up all, he has the worst fault-a husband can have, he's not my choice."

There is something doubtful in a love-making that is in more than two pairs of hands. This is a day of syndicates. The strength that lies in union is cultivated nowadays with much a.s.siduity. But in matters of love the case is not yet altered, and never will be. It is a matter for two people to decide between themselves, and all interference is mistaken and deplorable. It is usually, one notices, those persons who are incapable of the feeling themselves who seek to interfere in the affairs of others.

That one of the princ.i.p.als should seek aid in such interference proves without appeal that he does not know his business. Such aid as this Arthur Agar had sought. He had, as Dora suspected, written to his mother, with full particulars of the conversation beneath the Hurlingham trees. He had laid before her many arguments, which, by reason of their effeminacy, appealed to her illogical mind, proving that Dora could not do better than marry him. The arrangement, he argued, was satisfactory from whatever point of view it might be taken; and, finally, he begged his mother to try and succeed where he had failed. He did not propose that Mrs. Agar should appeal to Dora; not because such a course was repellent, but merely because he knew a better. He suggested that Mrs. Agar should sound Mr.

Glynde upon the matter.

This suggestion was in itself a stroke of diplomacy. The astute have no doubt found out by this time that the Reverend Thomas Glynde loved money; and a man who loves money has not the makings of a good father within him, whatever else he may have. Whether Arthur was aware of this it would be hard to say. Whether he had the penetration to know that, in the nature of things, Mr. Glynde would urge Dora to marry Arthur Agar and Stagholme, without due regard to her own feelings in the matter, is a question upon which no man can give a reliable opinion. Certain it is that such a course was precisely what the Reverend Thomas had marked out for himself.

He had an exaggerated respect for money and position--a t.i.tle was a thing to be revered. Clergymen, like artists, are dependent on patronage, and must swallow their pride. It is therefore, perhaps, only natural that Mr.

Glynde should be quite prepared to make some sacrifice of feeling or sentiment (especially the feeling and sentiment of another) in order to secure a position.

Arthur Agar simply followed the spirit of the age. He could not succeed alone, and therefore he proceeded to form a syndicate to compel Dora to love him, or in the meantime to marry him.

"Of course," said Sister Cecilia to Mrs. Agar, when the matter was first under discussion, "she would soon learn to care for him. Women _always_ do."

Which shows how much Sister Cecilia knew about it.

"And besides, I believe she cares for him already," added Mrs. Agar, who never did things by halves.

Sister Cecilia dropped her head on one side and looked convinced--to order.

"Of course," pursued Mrs. Agar vaguely, "I am very fond of Dora; no one could be more so. But I must confess that I do not always understand her."

Even to Sister Cecilia it would not do to confess that she was afraid of her.

The interview was easily brought about. Mrs. Agar wrote a note to the Rector and asked him to luncheon. The Rector, who had not had many legal affairs to settle during his uneventful life, was always pleased to be consulted upon a subject of which he knew absolutely nothing. Besides, they gave one a good luncheon at Stagholme in those days.

"I have had a letter from dear Arthur," said Mrs. Agar, at a moment which she deemed propitious, namely, after a third gla.s.s of the Stagholme brown sherry.

"Ah! I hope he is well. The boy is not strong."

"Yes, he is quite well, thank you. But of course he has had a great shock, and one cannot expect him to get over it all at once."

The Rector did not hold much by sentiment, so he contented himself with a grave sip of sherry.

"And now I am afraid there is fresh trouble," added Mrs. Agar.

"Been running into debt?" suggested Mr. Glynde.

"No, it is not that. No, it is Dora."

"Dora! What has Dora been doing?"

Mrs. Agar was polishing the rim of a silver salt-cellar with her forefinger.

"Of course," she said, "I have seen it going on for a long time. My poor boy has always--well, he has always admired Dora."'

"Oh!"

"Yes, and of course I should like nothing better. I am sure they would be most happy."

The Rector looked doubtful.

"We must not forget," he said, "that Arthur is const.i.tutionally delicate. That extreme repugnance to active exercise, the love of ease and--er--indoor pursuits, show a tendency to enfeeble the organisation which might--I don't say it will, but it might--turn to decline."

"But the doctors say that he is quite strong. Everybody cannot be robust and--and ma.s.sive."

She was thinking of Jem, against whom she had always borne a grudge, because his inoffensive presence alone had the power of making Arthur look puny.

"No; and of course with care one may hope that Arthur will live to a ripe old age," said the Rector, who was only coquetting with the question.

Mrs. Agar played with a biscuit. She had a rooted aversion to the query direct.

"I should have thought," she said, "that you or her mother would have seen that such an attachment was likely to form itself."

The truth was that the Reverend Thomas did not devote very much thought to any subject which did not directly influence his own well-being. He had at one time thought that an attachment between Jem and Dora might conveniently result from a childhood's friendship, but Arthur had not entered into his prognostications at all. He rather despised the youth, as much on his own account as that he was Anna Agar's son.

"Can't say," he replied, "that the thing ever entered my head. Of course, if the young people have settled it all between themselves, I suppose we must give them our blessing, and be thankful that we have been saved further trouble."

He thought it rather strange that Dora should have fixed her affections on such an unlikely object as Arthur Agar; but it was part of his earthly creed that the feelings of women are as incomprehensible as they are unimportant. Which, by the way, serves to show how very little the Rector of Stagholme knew of the world.

"But," protested Mrs. Agar, "they have _not_ settled it between themselves. That is just it."

"Just what?"

"Just the difficulty."

Immediately Mr. Glynde's face fell to its usual degree of set depression.