"You have done the Pampas?" said Mr. FitzJesse.

"I have lived amongst wild horses, and wilder humanity, for months at a stretch."

"And you have published a volume of--verses?"

"Another of my youthful follies. But I do not place myself upon a level with Byron."

"I should if I were you," said Mr. FitzJesse. "It would be an original idea--and in an age marked by a total exhaustion of brain-power, an original idea is a pearl of price."

"What kind of dogs did you see in your travels?" asked Emily St. Aubyn, a well-grown upstanding young woman, in a severe tailor-gown of undyed homespun.

"Two or three very fine breeds of mongrels."

"I adore mongrels!" exclaimed Mopsy. "I think that kind of dog which belongs to no particular breed, which has been ill-used by London boys, and which follows one to one's doorstep, is the most faithful and intelligent of the whole canine race. Huxley may exalt Blenheim spaniels as the nearest thing to human nature; but my dog Tim, which is something between a lurcher, a collie, and a bull, is ever so much better than human nature."

"The Blenheim is greedy, luxurious, and lazy, and generally dies in middle life from the consequences of over-feeding," drawled Mr.

FitzJesse. "I don't think Huxley is very far out."

"I would back a Cornish sheep-dog against any animal in creation," said Christabel, patting Randie, who was standing amiably on end, with his fore-paws on the cushioned elbow of her chair. "Do you know that these dogs smile when they are pleased, and cry when they are grieved--and they will mourn for a master with a fidelity unknown in humanity."

"Which as a rule does not mourn," said FitzJesse. "It only goes into mourning."

And so the talk went on, always running upon trivialities--glancing from theme to theme--a mere battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k conversation--making a mock of most things and most people. Christabel joined in it all; and some of the bitterest speech that was spoken in that hour before the sounding of the seven o'clock gong, fell from her perfect lips.

"Did you ever see such a change in any one as in Mrs. Tregonell?" asked Dopsy of Mopsy, as they elbowed each other before the looking-gla.s.s, the first armed with a powder puff, the second with a little box containing the implements required for the production of piquant eyebrows.

"A wonderful improvement," answered Mopsy. "She's ever so much easier to get on with. I didn't think it was in her to be so thoroughly _chic_."

"Do you know, I really liked her better last year, when she was frumpy and dowdy," faltered Dopsy. "I wasn't able to get on with her, but I couldn't help looking up to her, and feeling that, after all, she was the right kind of woman. And now----"

"And now she condescends to be human--to be one of us--and the consequence is that her house is three times as nice as it was last year," said Mopsy, turning the corner of an eyebrow with a bold but careful hand, and sending a sharp elbow into Dopsy's face during the operation.

"I wish you'd be a little more careful," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dopsy.

"I wish you'd contrive not to want the gla.s.s exactly when I do,"

retorted Mopsy.

"How do you like the French Baron?" asked Dopsy, when a brief silence had restored her equanimity.

"French, indeed! He is no more French than I am. Mr. FitzJesse told me that he was born and brought up in Jersey--that his father was an Irish Major on half-pay, and his mother a circus rider."

"But how does he come by his t.i.tle--if it is a real t.i.tle?"

"FitzJesse says the t.i.tle is right enough. One of his father's ancestors came to the South of Ireland after the revocation of something--a treaty at Nancy--I think he said. He belonged to an old Huguenot family--those people who were ma.s.sacred in the opera, don't you know--and the t.i.tle had been allowed to go dead--till this man married a tremendously rich Sheffield cutler's daughter, and bought the old estate in Provence, and got himself enrolled in the French peerage. Romantic, isn't it?"

"Very. What became of the Sheffield cutler's daughter?"

"She drank herself to death two years after her marriage. FitzJesse says they both lived upon brandy, but she hadn't been educated up to it, and it killed her."

"A curious kind of man for Mrs. Tregonell to invite here. Not quite good style."

"Perhaps not--but he's very amusing."

Leonard spent half an hour with his son. The child had escaped from babyhood in the year that had gone. He was now a bright sentient creature, eager to express his thoughts--to gather knowledge--an active, vivacious being, full of health and energy. Whatever duties Christabel had neglected during her husband's absence, the boy had, at least, suffered no neglect. Never had childhood developed under happier conditions. The father could find no fault in the nursery, though there was a vague feeling in his mind that everything was wrong at Mount Royal.

"Why the deuce did she fill the house with people while I was away," he muttered to himself, in the solitude of his dressing-room, where his clothes had been put ready for him, and candles lighted by his Swiss valet. The dressing-room was at that end of the corridor most remote from Christabel's apartments. It communicated with the room Leonard had slept in during his boyhood--and that opened again into his gun-room.

The fact that these rooms had been prepared for him told him plainly enough that he and his wife were henceforth to lead divided lives. The event of last October, his year of absence, had built up a wall between them which he, for the time being at least, felt himself powerless to knock down.

"Can she suspect--can she know"--he asked himself, pausing in his dressing to stand staring at the fire, with moody brow and troubled eyes. "No, that's hardly possible. And yet her whole manner is changed.

She holds me at a distance. Every look, every tone just now was a defiance. Of course I know that she loved that man--loved him first--last--always; never caring a straw for me. She was too careful of herself--had been brought up too well to go wrong, like other women--but she loved him. I would never have brought him inside these doors if I had not known that she could take care of herself. I tested and tried her to the uttermost--and--well--I took my change out of him."

Mr. Tregonell dressed himself a little more carefully than he was wont to dress--thinking for the most part that anything which suited him was good enough for his friends--and went down to the drawing-room, feeling like a visitor in a strange house, half inclined to wonder how he would be received by his wife and his wife's guests. He who had always ruled supreme in that house, choosing his visitors for his own pleasure--subjugating all tastes and habits of other people to his own convenience, now felt as if he were only there on sufferance.

It was early when he entered the drawing-room, and the Baron de Cazalet was the only occupant of that apartment. He was standing in a lounging att.i.tude, with his back against the mantelpiece, and his handsome person set off by evening dress. That regulation costume does not afford much scope to the latent love of finery which still lurks in the civilized man, as if to prove his near relationship to the bead and feather-wearing savage--but de Cazalet had made himself as gorgeous as he could with jewelled studs, embroidered shirt, satin under-waistcoat, amber silk stockings, and Queen Ann shoes. He was a.s.suredly handsome--but he had just that style of beauty which to the fastidious mind is more revolting than positive ugliness. Dark-brown eyes, strongly arched eyebrows, an aquiline nose, a sensual mouth, a heavy jaw, a faultless complexion of the French plum-box order, large regular teeth of glittering whiteness, a small delicately trained moustache with waxed ends, and hair of oily sheen, odorous of _pommade divine_, made up the catalogue of his charms. Leonard stood looking at him doubtfully, as if he were a hitherto unknown animal.

"Where did my wife pick him up, and why?" he asked himself. "I should have thought he was just the kind of man she would detest."

"How glad you must be to get back to your Lares and Penates," said the Baron, smiling blandly.

"I'm uncommonly glad to get back to my horses and dogs," answered Leonard, flinging himself into a large armchair by the fire, and taking up a newspaper. "Have you been long in the West?"

"About a fortnight, but I have been only three days at Mount Royal. I had the honour to renew my acquaintance with Mrs. Tregonell last August at Zermatt, and she was good enough to say that if I ever found myself in this part of the country she would be pleased to receive me in her house. I needn't tell you that with such a temptation in view I was very glad to bend my steps westward. I spent ten days on board a friend's yacht, between Dartmouth and the Lizard, landed at Penzance last Tuesday, and posted here, where I received a more than hospitable welcome."

"You are a great traveller, I understand?"

"I doubt if I have done as much as you have in that way. I have seldom travelled for the sake of travelling. I have lived in the tents of the Arabs. I have bivouacked on the Pampas--and enjoyed life in all the cities of the South, from Valparaiso to Carthagena; but I can boast no mountaineering exploits or scientific discoveries--and I never read a paper at the Geographical."

"You look a little too fond of yourself for mountaineering," said Leonard, smiling grimly at the Baron's portly figure, and all-pervading sleekness.

"Well--yes--I like a wild life--but I have no relish for absolute hardship--the thermometer below zero, a doubtful supply of provisions, pemmican, roasted skunk for supper, without any currant jelly--no, I love mine ease at mine Inn."

He threw out his fine expanse of padded chest and shoulders, and surveyed the s.p.a.cious lamp-lit room with an approving smile. This no doubt was the kind of Inn at which he loved to take his ease--a house full of silly women, ready to be subjugated by his florid good looks and shallow accomplishments.

The ladies now came straggling in--first Emily St. Aubyn, and then Dopsy, whose attempts at conversation were coldly received by the county maiden. Dopsy's and Mopsy's home-made gowns, cheap laces and frillings, and easy flippancy were not agreeable to the St. Aubyn sisters. It was not that the St. Aubyn manners, which always savoured of the stable and farmyard, were more refined or elegant; but the St. Aubyns arrogated to themselves the right to be vulgar, and resented free-and-easy manners in two young persons who were obviously poor and obviously obscure as to their surroundings. If their gowns had been made by a West End tailor, and they had been able to boast of intimate acquaintance with a d.u.c.h.ess and two or three countesses, their flippancy might have been tolerable, nay, even amusing, to the two Miss St. Aubyns; but girls who went nowhere and knew n.o.body, had no right to attempt smartness of speech, and deserved to be sat upon.

To Dopsy succeeded Mopsy, then some men, then Mrs. St. Aubyn and her younger daughter Clara, then Mrs. Tregonell, in a red gown draped with old Spanish lace, and with diamond stars in her hair, a style curiously different from those quiet dinner dresses she had been wont to wear a year ago. Leonard looked at her in blank amazement--just as he had looked at their first meeting. She, who had been like the violet sheltering itself among its leaves, now obviously dressed for effect, and as obviously courted admiration.

The dinner was cheerful to riotousness. Everybody had something to say; anecdotes were told, and laughter was frequent and loud. The St. Aubyn girls, who had deliberately snubbed the sisters Vandeleur, were not above conversing with the brother, and, finding him a kindred spirit in horseyness and doggyness, took him at once into their confidence, and were on the friendliest terms before dinner was finished. De Cazalet sat next his hostess, and talked exclusively to her. Mr. FitzJesse had Miss Bridgeman on his left hand, and conversed with her in gentle murmurs, save when in his quiet voice, and with his seeming-innocent smile, he told some irresistibly funny story--some touch of character seen with a philosophic eye--for the general joy of the whole table. Very different was the banquet of to-day from that quiet dinner on the first night of Mr. Hamleigh's visit to Mount Royal, that dinner at which Leonard watched his wife so intensely, eager to discover to what degree she was affected by the presence of her first lover. He watched her to-night, at the head of her brilliantly lighted dinner-table--no longer the old subdued light of low shaded lamps, but the radiance of innumerable candles in lofty silver candelabra, shining over a striking decoration of vivid crimson asters and spreading palm-leaves--he watched her helplessly, hopelessly, knowing that he and she were ever so much farther apart than they had been in the days before he brought Angus Hamleigh to Mount Royal, those miserable discontented days when he had fretted himself into a fever of jealousy and vague suspicion, and had thought to find a cure by bringing the man he feared and hated into his home, so that he might know for certain how deep the wrong was which this man's very existence seemed to inflict upon him. To bring those two who had loved and parted face to face, to watch and listen, to fathom the thoughts of each--that had been the process natural and congenial to his jealous temper; but the result had been an uncomfortable one. And now he saw his wife, whose heart he had tried to break--hating her because he had failed to make her love him--just as remote and unapproachable as of old.

"What a fool I was to marry her," he thought, after replying somewhat at random to Mrs. St. Aubyn's last remark upon the superiority of Dorkings to Spaniards from a culinary point of view. "It was my determination to have my own way that wrecked me. I couldn't submit to be conquered by a girl--to have the wife I had set my heart upon when I was a boy, stolen from me by the first effeminate fopling my silly mother invited to Mount Royal. I had never imagined myself with any other woman for my wife--never really cared for any other woman."

This was the bent of Mr. Tregonell's reflections as he sat in his place at that animated a.s.sembly, adding nothing to its mirth, or even to its noise; albeit in the past his voice had ever been loudest, his laugh most resonant. He felt more at his ease after dinner, when the women had left--the brilliant de Cazalet slipping away soon after them, although not until he had finished his host's La Rose--and when Mr. St. Aubyn expanded himself in county talk, enlightening the wanderer as to the progress of events during his absence--while Mr. FitzJesse sat blandly puffing his cigarette, a silent observer of the speech and gestures of the county magnate, speculating, from a scientific point of view, as to how much of this talk were purely automatic--an inane drivel which would go on just the same if half the Squire's brain had been scooped out.

Jack Vandeleur smoked and drank brandy and water, while little Monty discoursed to him, in confidential tones, upon the racing year which was now expiring at Newmarket--the men who had made pots of money, and the men who had been beggared for life. There seemed to be no medium between those extremes.

When the host rose, Captain Vandeleur was for an immediate adjournment to billiards, but to his surprise, Leonard walked off to the drawing-room.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Jack, dejectedly.