Miss Grandison looked at Miss Temple; the young ladies whispered.

'Ferdinand,' said Katherine, 'what are you going to do?'

'Nothing particular.'

'We are going to ride, and Miss Temple wishes you would come with us.'

'I should be very happy, but I have some business to attend to.'

'Dear Ferdinand, that is what you always say. You really appear to me to be the most busy person in the world.'

'Pray come, Captain Armine,' said Lord Montfort.

'Thank you; it is really not in my power.' His hat was in his hand; he was begging her Grace to bear his compliments to the duke, when Henrietta rose from her seat, and, coming up to him, said, 'Do, Captain Armine, come with us; I ask you as a favour.'

That voice! Oh! it came o'er his ear 'like the sweet south;' it unmanned him quite. He scarcely knew where he was. He trembled from head to foot.

His colour deserted him, and the unlucky hat fell to the floor; and yet she stood before him, awaiting his reply, calm, quite calm, serious, apparently a little anxious. The d.u.c.h.ess was in earnest conversation with his mother. Lord Montfort had walked up to Miss Grandison, and was engaged in arranging a pattern for her. Ferdinand and Henrietta were quite un.o.bserved. He looked up; he caught her eye; and then he whispered, 'This is hardly fair.'

She stretched forth her hand, took his hat, and laid it on the table; then, turning to Katherine, she said, in a tone which seemed to admit no doubt, 'Captain Armine will ride with us;' and she seated herself by Lady Armine.

The expedition was a little delayed by Ferdinand having to send for his horse; the others had, in the meantime, arrived. Yet this half-hour, by some contrivance, did at length disappear. Lord Montfort continued talking to Miss Grandison. Henrietta remained seated by Lady Armine.

Ferdinand revolved a great question in, his mind, and it was this: Was Lord Montfort aware of the intimate acquaintance between himself and Miss Temple? And what was the moving principle of her present conduct?

He conjured up a thousand reasons, but none satisfied him. His curiosity was excited, and, instead of regretting his extracted promise to join the cavalcade, he rejoiced that an opportunity was thus afforded him of perhaps solving a problem in the secret of which he now began to feel extremely interested.

And yet in truth when Ferdinand found himself really mounted, and riding by the side of Henrietta Temple once more, for Lord Montfort was very impartial in his attentions to his fair companions, and Ferdinand continually found himself next to Henrietta, he really began to think the world was bewitched, and was almost sceptical whether he was or was not Ferdinand Armine. The ident.i.ty of his companion too was so complete: Henrietta Temple in her riding-habit was the very image most keenly impressed upon his memory. He looked at her and stared at her with a face of curious perplexity. She did not, indeed, speak much; the conversation was always general, and chiefly maintained by Lord Montfort, who, though usually silent and reserved, made on this occasion successful efforts to be amusing. His attention to Ferdinand too was remarkable; it was impossible to resist such genuine and unaffected kindness. It smote Ferdinand's heart that he had received his lordship's first advances so ungraciously. Compunction rendered him now doubly courteous; he was even once or twice almost gay.

The day was as fine as a clear sky, a warm sun, and a western breeze could render it. Tempted by so much enjoyment, their ride was long. It was late, much later than they expected, when they returned home by the green lanes of pretty Willesden, and the Park was quite empty when they emerged from the Edgware-road into Oxford-street.

'Now the best thing we can all do is to dine in St. James'-square,' said Lord Montfort. 'It is ten minutes past eight. We shall just be in time, and then we can send messages to Grosvenor-square and Brook-street. What say you, Armine? You will come, of course?'

'Thank you, if you would excuse me.'

'No, no; why excuse you?' said Lord Montfort: 'I think it shabby to desert us now, after all our adventures.'

'Really you are very kind, but I never dine out.'

'Dine out! What a phrase! You will not meet a human being; perhaps not even my father. If you will not come, it will spoil everything.'

'I cannot dine in a frock,' said Ferdinand.

'I shall,' said Lord Montfort, 'and these ladies must dine in their habits, I suspect.'

'Oh! certainly, certainly,' said the ladies.

'Do come, Ferdinand,' said Katherine.

'I ask you as a favour,' said Henrietta, turning to him and speaking in a low voice.

'Well,' said Ferdinand, with a sigh.

'That is well,' said Montfort; 'now let us trot through the Park, and the groom can call in Grosvenor-square and Brook-street, and gallop after us. This is amusing, is it not?'

CHAPTER IX.

_Which Is on the Whole Almost as Perplexing as the Preceding One_.

WHEN Ferdinand found himself dining in St. James'-square, in the very same room where he had pa.s.sed so many gay hours during that boyish month of glee which preceded his first joining his regiment, and then looked opposite him and saw Henrietta Temple, it seemed to him that, by some magical process or other, his life was acting over again, and the order of the scenes and characters had, by some strange mismanagement, got confused. Yet he yielded himself up to the excitement which had so unexpectedly influenced him; he was inflamed by a species of wild delight which he could not understand, nor stop to a.n.a.lyse; and when the d.u.c.h.ess retired with the young ladies to their secret conclave in the drawing-room, she said, 'I like Captain Armine very much; he is so full of spirit and imagination. When we met him this morning, do you know, I thought him rather stiff and fine. I regretted the bright boyish flow that I so well recollected, but I see I was mistaken.'

'Ferdinand is much changed,' said Miss Grandison. 'He was once the most brilliant person, I think, that ever lived: almost too brilliant; everybody by him seemed so tame. But since his illness he has quite changed. I have scarcely heard him speak or seen him smile these six months. There is not in the whole world a person so wretchedly altered.

He is quite a wreck. I do not know what is the matter with him to-day.

He seemed once almost himself.'

'He indulged his feelings too much, perhaps,' said Henrietta; 'he lived, perhaps, too much alone, after so severe an illness.'

'Oh, no! it is not that,' said Miss Grandison, 'it is not exactly that. Poor Ferdinand! he is to be pitied. I fear he will never be happy again.'

'Miss Grandison should hardly say that,' said the d.u.c.h.ess, 'if report speaks truly.'

Katherine was about to reply, but checked herself.

Henrietta rose from her seat rather suddenly, and asked Katherine to touch the piano.

The d.u.c.h.ess took up the 'Morning Post.'

'Poor Ferdinand! he used to sing once so beautifully, too!' said Katherine to Miss Temple, in a hushed voice. 'He never sings now.'

'You must make him,' said Henrietta.

Miss Grandison shook her head.

'You have influence with him; you should exert it,' said Henrietta.

'I neither have, nor desire to have, influence with him,' said Miss Grandison. 'Dearest Miss Temple, the world is in error with respect to myself and my cousin; and yet I ought not to say to you what I have not thought proper to confess even to my aunt.'

Henrietta leant over and kissed her forehead. 'Say what you like, dearest Miss Grandison; you speak to a friend, who loves you, and will respect your secret.'

The gentlemen at this moment entered the room, and interrupted this interesting conversation.

'You must not quit the instrument, Miss Grandison,' said Lord Montfort, seating himself by her side. Ferdinand fell into conversation with the d.u.c.h.ess; and Miss Temple was the amiable victim of his Grace's pa.s.sion for ecarte.

'Captain Armine is a most agreeable person,' said Lord Montfort.

Miss Grandison rather stared. 'We were just speaking of Ferdinand,' she replied, 'and I was lamenting his sad change.'

'Severe illness, illness so severe as his, must for the moment change anyone; we shall soon see him himself again.'