"It's all so lonely!" she murmured--"I felt just a little dull before Eva Beaulyon and the others came,--but it's ever so much duller with them than without them!"

That afternoon, in compliance with a particularly pressing request from Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, she accompanied a party of her guests to Badsworth, driving thither in Lord Charlemont's motor. Sir Morton Pippitt, red-faced and pompous as usual, met them at the door, in all the resplendency of new grey summer tweeds and prominent white waist-coat, his clean-shaven features shining with recent soap, and his white hair glistening like silver. He was quite in his element, as he handed out the beautiful Lady Beaulyon from the motor-car, and expressed his admiration for her looks in no unmeasured terms,--he felt himself to be almost an actual Badsworth, of Badsworth Hall, as he patted Lord Charlemont familiarly on the shoulder, and called him 'My dear boy!' As he greeted Maryllia, he smiled at her knowingly.

"I think I have a friend of yours here to-day, my dear lady!" he said with an expressive chuckle--"Someone who is most anxious to see you!" And escorting her with obtrusive gallantry into the hall, he brought her face to face with a tall, elegant, languid-looking man who bowed profoundly; "I believe you know Lord Roxmouth?"

The blood sprang to her brows,--and for a moment she was so startled and angry that she could scarcely breathe. A swift glance from under her long lashes showed her the situation--how Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay was watching her with ill-concealed amus.e.m.e.nt, and how all the rest of the party were expectant of a 'sensation.' She saw it all in a moment,--she recognised that a trap had been laid for her to fall into unwarily, and realising the position she rose to it at once.

"How do you do!" she said carelessly, nodding ner head without giving her hand--"I thought I should meet you this afternoon!"

"Did you really!" murmured Roxmouth--"Some magnetic current of thought---"

"Yes,--'by the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes!'--THAT sort of sensation, you know!" and she laughed; then perceiving a man standing in the background whose sleek form and lineaments she instantly recognised, she added--"And how are you, Mr. Longford? Did you bring Lord Roxmouth here, or did he bring you?"

Marius Longford, 'of the Savage and Savile,' was taken by surprise, and looked a little uncomfortable. He stroked one p.u.s.s.y whisker.

"We came together," he explained in his affected falsetto voice-- "Sir Morton Pippitt was good enough to invite me to bring any friend,--and so--"

"I see!" and Maryllia lifted her little head with an unconscious gesture, implying pride, or disdain, or both, as she pa.s.sed with the other guests into the Badsworth Hall drawing-room; "The country is so delightful at this time of year!"

She moved on. Lord Roxmouth stroked down his fair moustache to hide a smile, and quietly followed her. He was a good-looking man, tall and well-built, with a rather pale, clean-cut face, and sandy hair brushed very smooth; form and respectability were expressed in the very outline of his figure and the fastidious neatness and nicety of his clothes. Entering the room where Miss Tabitha Pippitt was solemnly presiding over the tea-tray with a touch-me-not air of inflexible propriety, he soon made himself the useful and agreeable centre of a group of ladies, to whom he carried cake, bread-and- b.u.t.ter and other light refreshments, with punctilious care, looking as though his life depended upon the exact performance of these duties. Once or twice he glanced at Maryllia, and decided that she appeared younger and prettier than when he had seen her in town. She was chatting with some of the country people, and Lord Roxmouth waited for several moments in vain for an opportunity to intervene.

Finally, securing a cup of iced coffee, he carried it to her.

"No, thanks!" she said, as he approached.

"Strawberries?" he suggested, appealingly.

"Nothing, thank you!"

Smiling a little, he looked at her.

"I wish you would give me a word, Miss Vancourt! Won't you?"

"A dozen, if you like!"--she replied, indifferently--"How is Aunt Emily?"

"I am glad you ask after her!"--he said, impressively--"She is well,--but she misses you very much." He paused, and added in a lower tone--"So do I!"

She was silent.

"I know you are angry!" he went on softly--"You went away from London to avoid me, and you are vexed to see me down here. But I couldn't resist the temptation of coming. Marius Longford told me he had called upon you with Sir Morton Pippitt at Abbot's Manor,--and I got him to bring me down on a visit to Badsworth Hall,--only to be near you! You are looking quite lovely, Maryllia!"

She raised her eyes and fixed them full on him. His own fell.

"I said you were angry, and you are!" he murmured--"But you have the law in your own hands,--you need not ask me to your house unless you like!"

The buzz of conversation in the room was now loud and incessant. Sir Morton Pippitt's 'afternoon teas' were always more or less bewildering and brain-jarring entertainments, where a great many people of various 'sets,' in the town of Riversford and the county generally, came together, without knowing each other, or wishing to know each other,--where the wife of the leading doctor in Riversford, for example, glowered scorn and contempt on Mrs.

Mordaunt Appleby, the wife of the brewer in the same town, and where those of high and unimpeachable 'family,' like Mrs. Mandeville Poreham, whose mother was a Beedle, stared frigidly and unseeingly at every one hailing from the same place as creatures beneath her notice.

For--"Thank G.o.d!"--said Mrs. Poreham, with feeling,--"I do not live in Riversford. I would not live in Riversford if I were paid a fortune to do so! My poor mother never permitted me to a.s.sociate with tradespeople. There are no ladies or gentlemen in Riversford,-- I should be expected to shake hands with my butcher if I resided there,--but I am proud and glad to say that at present I know n.o.body in the place. I never intend to know anybody there!"

Several curious glances were turned upon Miss Vancourt as she stood near an open window looking out on the Badsworth Hall 'Italian Garden,'--a relic of Badsworth times,--her fair head turned away from the t.i.tled aristocrat who bent towards her, as it seemed, in an att.i.tude of humble appeal,--and one or two would-be wise persons nodded their heads and whispered--"That's the man she's engaged to."

"Oh, really!---and his name---?" "Lord Roxmouth;--will be Duke of Ormistoune---" "Good gracious! THAT woman a d.u.c.h.ess!" snorted Mrs.

Mordaunt Appleby, as she heard--"The men must be going mad!" Which latter remark implied that had she not unfortunately married a brewer, she might easily have secured the Ormistoune ducal coronet herself.

Unaware of the gossip going on around her, Maryllia stayed where she was at the window, coldly silent, her eyes fixed on the glowing flower-beds patterned in front of her,--the gorgeous ma.s.s of petunias, and flame-colored geraniums,--the rich saffron and brown tints of thick cl.u.s.tered calceolarias,--the purple and crimson of pendulous fuchsias, whose blossoms tumbled one upon the other in a riot of splendid colour,--and all at once her thoughts strayed capriciously to the cool green seclusion of John Walden's garden.

She remembered the spray of white lilac he had given her, and fancied she could almost inhale again its delicious perfume. But the lilac flowering-time was over now--and the roses had it all their own way,--she had given a rose in exchange for the lilac, and--Here she started almost nervously as Lord Roxmouth's voice again fell on her ears.

"You are not sparing me any of your attention," he said--"Your mind is engrossed with something--or somebody--else! Possibly I have a rival?"

He smiled, but there was a quick hard gleam of suspicion in his cold grey eyes. Maryllia gave him a look of supreme disdain.

"You are insolent," she said, speaking in very low but emphatic tones--"You always were! You presume too much on Aunt Emily's encouragement of your attentions to me, which you know are unwelcome. You are perfectly aware that I left London to escape a scheme concocted by you and her to so compromise me in the view of society, that no choice should be left to me save marriage with you.

Now you have followed me here, and I know why! You have come to try and find out what I do with myself--to spy upon my actions and occupations, and take back your report to Aunt Emily. You are perfectly welcome to enter upon this congenial task! You can visit me at my own house,--you can play detective all over the place, if you are happy in that particular role. Every opportunity shall be given you!"

He bowed. "Thank you!" And stroking his moustache, as was his constant habit, he smiled again. "You are really very cruel to me, Maryllia! Why can I never win your confidence--I will not say your affection? May I not know?"

"You may!"--she answered coldly--"It is because there is nothing in you to trust and nothing to value. I have told you this so often that I wonder you want to be told it again! And though I give you permission to call on me at my own home,--just to save you the trouble of telling Aunt Emily that her 'eccentric' niece was too 'peculiar' to admit you there,--I reserve to myself the right at any moment to shut the door against you."

She moved from him then, and seeing the Ittlethwaites of Ittlethwaite Park, went to speak to them. He stood where she had left him, surveying the garden in front of him with absolute complacency. Mr. Marius Longford joined him.

"Well?" said the light of the Savage and Savile tentatively.

"Well! She is the same ungovernable termagant as ever--conceited little puss! But she always amuses me--that's one consolation!" He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. "Will you have one?" Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?" he asked--"Any relation of the dead and gone Badsworth?

How does he get Badsworth Hall? Doesn't he grind bones to make his bread, or something of that kind?"

Longford explained with civil obsequiousness that Sir Morton Pippitt had certainly once 'ground bones,' but that he had 'retired' from such active service, while still retaining the largest share in the bone business. That he had bought Badsworth Hall as it stood,-- pictures, books, furniture and all, for what was to him a mere trifle; and that he was now a.s.suming to himself by lawful purchase, the glory of the whole deceased Badsworth family.

Lord Roxmouth shrugged his shoulders in contempt.

"Such will be the fate of Roxmouth Castle!" he said--"Some grinder of bones or maker of beer will purchase it, and perhaps point out the picture of the founder of the house as being that of a former pot-boy!"

"The old order changeth,"--said Longford, with a chill smile--"And I suppose we should learn to accustom ourselves to it. But you, with your position and good looks, should be able to prevent any such possibility as you suggest. Miss Vancourt is not the only woman in the world."

"By no means,"--and Roxmouth strolled into the garden, Longford walking beside him--"But she is the only woman I at present know, who, if she obeys her aunt's wishes, will have a fortune of several millions. And just because such a little devil SHOULD be mastered and MUST be mastered, I have resolved to master her. That's all!"

"And, to your mind, sufficient,"--said Longford--"But if it is a question of the millions chiefly, there is always the aunt herself."

Roxmouth stared--then laughed.

"The aunt!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed--"The aunt?"

"Why not?" And Longford stole a furtive look round at the man who was his chief literary patron--"The aunt is handsome, well- preserved, not more than forty-five at most--and I should say she is a woman who could be easily led--through vanity."

"The aunt!" again murmured Roxmouth--"My dear Longford! What an appalling suggestion! Mrs. Fred as the d.u.c.h.ess of Ormistoune! Forbid it, Heaven!"

Then suddenly he laughed aloud.

"By Jove! It would be too utterly ridiculous! Whatever made you think of such a thing?"

"Only the prospect you yourself suggested,"--replied Longford--"That of seeing a brewer or a bone-melter in possession of Roxmouth Castle. Surely even Mrs. Fred would be preferable to that!"