At last it was settled that at any rate George Roden should dine at Hendon Hall on the Friday,--he being absent during the discussion,--and that time must be taken as to any further acceptance of the invitation. Mrs. Roden was inclined to think that it had best be regarded as impossible. She thought that she had made up her mind never to dine out again. Then there came across her mind a remembrance that her son was engaged to marry this young man's sister, and that it might be for his welfare that she should give way to these overtures of friendship. When her thoughts had travelled so far as this, she might have felt sure that the invitation would at last be accepted.

As to Marion Fay, the subject was allowed to drop without any further decision. She had said that it was impossible, and she said nothing more. That was the last dictum heard from her; but it was not repeated as would probably have been the case had she been quite sure that it was impossible. Mrs. Roden during the interview did not allude to that branch of the subject again. She was fluttered with what had already been said, a little angry with herself that she had so far yielded, a little perplexed at her own too evident confusion, a little frightened at Lord Hampstead's evident admiration of the girl. As to Marion, it must, of course, be left to her father,--as would the question as to the Quaker himself.

"I had better be going," said Marion Fay, who was also confused.

"So must I," said Hampstead. "I have to return round by London, and have ever so many things to do in Park Lane. The worst of having two or three houses is that one never knows where one's clothes are.

Good-bye, Mrs. Roden. Mind, I depend upon you, and that I have set my heart upon it. You will let me walk with you as far as your door, Miss Fay?"

"It is only three doors off," said Marion, "and in the other direction." Nevertheless he did go with her to the house, though it was only three doors off. "Tell your father, with my compliments," he said, "that George Roden can show you the way over. If you can get a cab to bring you across I will send you back in the waggonette. For the matter of that, there is no reason on earth why it should not be sent for you."

"Oh, no, my lord. That is, I do not think it possible that we should come."

"Pray do, pray do, pray do," he said, as he took her hand when the door at No. 17 was opened. As he walked down the street he saw the figure still standing at the parlour window of No. 10.

On the same evening Clara Demijohn was closeted with Mrs. Duffer at her lodgings at No. 15. "Standing in the street, squeezing her hand!"

said Mrs. Duffer, as though the very hairs of her head were made to stand on end by the tidings,--the moral hairs, that is, of her moral head. Her head, in the flesh, was ornamented by a front which must have prevented the actual standing on end of any hair that was left to her.

"I saw it! They came out together from No. 11 as loving as could be, and he walked up with her to their own house. Then he seized her hand and held it,--oh, for minutes!--in the street. There is nothing those Quaker girls won't allow themselves. They are so free with their Christian names, that, of course, they get into intimacies instantly.

I never allow a young man to call me Clara without leave asked and given."

"I should think not."

"One can't be too particular about one's Christian name. They've been in there together, at No. 11, for two hours. What can that mean? Old Mrs. Vincent was there, but she went away."

"I suppose she didn't like such doings."

"What can a lord be doing in such a place as that," asked Clara, "--coming so often, you know? And one that has to be a Markiss, which is much more than a lord. One thing is quite certain. It can't mean that he is going to marry Marion Fay?" With this a.s.surance Clara Demijohn comforted herself as best she might.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW THEY LIVED AT TRAFFORD PARK.

There certainly was no justification for the ill-humour which Lady Kingsbury displayed to her husband because Hampstead and his sister had been invited down to Castle Hautboy. The Hautboy people were her own relations,--not her husband's. If Lady Persiflage had taken upon herself to think better of all the evil things done by the children of the first Marchioness, that was not the fault of the Marquis! But to her thinking this visit had been made in direct opposition to her wishes and her interests. Had it been possible she would have sent the naughty young lord and the naughty young lady altogether to Coventry,--as far as all aristocratic a.s.sociations were concerned.

This encouragement of them at Castle Hautboy was in direct contravention of her ideas. But poor Lord Kingsbury had had nothing to do with it. "They are not fit to go to such a house as Castle Hautboy," she said. The Marquis, who was sitting alone in his own morning room at Trafford, frowned angrily. But her ladyship, too, was very angry. "They have disgraced themselves, and Geraldine should not have received them."

There were two causes for displeasure in this. In the first place the Marquis could not endure that such hard things should be said of his elder children. Then, by the very nature of the accusation made, there was a certain special honour paid to the Hauteville family which he did not think at all to be their due. On many occasions his wife had spoken as though her sister had married into a House of peculiar n.o.bility,--because, forsooth, Lord Persiflage was in the Cabinet, and was supposed to have made a figure in politics. The Marquis was not at all disposed to regard the Earl as in any way bigger than was he himself. He could have paid all the Earl's debts,--which the Earl certainly could not do himself,--and never have felt it. The social gatherings at Castle Hautboy were much more numerous than any at Trafford, but the guests at Castle Hautboy were often people whom the Marquis would never have entertained. His wife pined for the social influence which her sister was supposed to possess, but he felt no sympathy with his wife in that respect.

"I deny it," said the father, rising from his chair, and scowling at his wife as he stood leaning upon the table. "They have not disgraced themselves."

"I say they have." Her ladyship made her a.s.sertion boldly, having come into the room prepared for battle, and determined if possible to be victor. "Has not f.a.n.n.y disgraced herself in having engaged herself to a low fellow, the sc.u.m of the earth, without saying anything even to you about it?"

"No!" shouted the Marquis, who was resolved to contradict his wife in anything she might say.

"Then I know nothing of what becomes a young woman," continued the Marchioness. "And does not Hampstead a.s.sociate with all manner of low people?"

"No, never."

"Is not this George Roden a low person? Does he ever live with young men or with ladies of his own rank?"

"And yet you're angry with him because he goes to Castle Hautboy!

Though, no doubt, he may meet people there quite unfit for society."

"That is not true," said the Marchioness. "My brother-in-law entertains the best company in Europe."

"He did do so when he had my son and my daughter under his roof."

"Hampstead does not belong to a single club in London," said the step-mother.

"So much the better," said the father, "as far as I know anything about the clubs. Hautboy lost fourteen hundred pounds the other day at the Pandemonium; and where did the money come from to save him from being expelled?"

"That's a very old story," said the Marchioness, who knew that her husband and Hampstead between them had supplied the money to save the young lad from disgrace.

"And yet you throw it in my teeth that Hampstead doesn't belong to any club! There isn't a club in London he couldn't get into to-morrow, if he were to put his name down."

"I wish he'd try at the Carlton," said her ladyship, whose father and brother, and all her cousins, belonged to that aristocratic and exclusive political a.s.sociation.

"I should disown him," said the still Liberal Marquis;--"that is to say, of course he'll do nothing of the kind. But to declare that a young man has disgraced himself because he doesn't care for club life, is absurd;--and coming from you as his stepmother is wicked."

As he said this he bobbed his head at her, looking into her face as though he should say to her, "Now you have my true opinion about yourself." At this moment there came a gentle knock at the door, and Mr. Greenwood put in his head. "I am busy," said the Marquis very angrily. Then the unhappy chaplain retired abashed to his own rooms, which were also on the ground floor, beyond that in which his patron was now sitting.

"My lord," said his wife, towering in her pa.s.sion, "if you call me wicked in regard to your children, I will not continue to live under the same roof with you."

"Then you may go away."

"I have endeavoured to do my duty by your children, and a very hard time I've had of it. If you think that your daughter is now conducting herself with propriety, I can only wash my hands of her."

"Wash your hands," he said.

"Very well. Of course I must suffer deeply, because the shadow of the disgrace must fall more or less upon my own darlings."

"Bother the darlings," said the Marquis.

"They're your own children, my lord; your own children."

"Of course they are. Why shouldn't they be my own children? They are doing very well, and will get quite as good treatment as younger brothers ought to have."

"I don't believe you care for them the least in the world," said the Marchioness.

"That is not true. You know I care for them."

"You said 'bother the darlings' when I spoke of them." Here the poor mother sobbed, almost overcome by the contumely of the expression used towards her own offspring.

"You drive a man to say anything. Now look here. I will not have Hampstead and f.a.n.n.y abused in my presence. If there be anything wrong I must suffer more than you, because they are my children. You have made it impossible for her to live here--"

"I haven't made it impossible for her to live here. I have only done my duty by her. Ask Mr. Greenwood."