"But how do you mean, Mrs. Toplady?" inquired May, losing something of her polish in curiosity. "Why should my aunt have wanted him to marry Miss Bride?"

"Ah, that I don't know. Possibly she thought it, knowing him as she does, really the best thing for him. Possibly--one could make conjectures. But one always can."

May puzzled over the hint, her brow knitted; Mrs. Toplady regarded her with veiled amus.e.m.e.nt, wondering whether it would really be necessary to use plainer words. The girl was not dull, but perhaps her small experience of life, and her generally naive habit of mind, obscured to her what to the more practised was so obvious.

"Do you mean," said May, diffidently, "that she planned it out of kindness to Miss Bride? Of course I know that she likes Miss Bride very much. Perhaps she thought there would never be a better opportunity."

"It might be so," replied the other, absently.

"Miss Bride is very nice, and very clever," pursued May, sounding the words on the thinnest possible note. "But one didn't think of her as very likely to marry."

"No; it seemed improbable."

There was a pause. As if turning to quite another subject, Mrs. Toplady remarked:

"You will have visitors at Rivenoak next week. Sir William Amys is to be there for a day or two, and Lord Dymchurch--"

"Lord Dymchurch?"

The girl threw off her air of cold concentration, and shone triumphantly.

"Does it surprise you, May?"

"Oh, I hadn't thought of it--I didn't know my aunt had invited him--"

"The wonder is that Lord Dymchurch should have accepted," said Mrs.

Toplady, with a very mature archness. "Did he know, by the bye, that you were going down?"

"I fancy he did."

Their eyes met, and May relieved her feelings with a little laugh.

"Then perhaps the wonder ceases. And yet, in another way--" Mrs.

Toplady broke off, and added in a lower voice, "Of course you know all about his circ.u.mstances?"

"No, in deed I don't. Tell me about him, please."

"But haven't you heard that he is the poorest man in the House of Lords?"

"I had no idea of it," cried May. "How should I have known? Really? He is so poor?"

"I imagine he has barely enough to live upon. The family was ruined long ago."

"But why didn't you tell me? Does my aunt know?" May's voice did not express resentment, nor, indeed, strong feeling of any kind. The revelation seemed merely to surprise her. She was smiling, as if at the amusingly unexpected.

"Lady Ogram certainly knows," said Mrs. Toplady.

"Then of course that's why he does nothing," May exclaimed. "Fancy!"

Her provincialism was becoming very marked. "A lord with hardly enough to live upon! But I'm astonished that he seems so cheerful."

"Lord Dymchurch has a very philosophical mind," said the older lady, with gravity humorously exaggerated.

"Yes, I suppose he has. Now I shall understand him better. I'm glad he's going to be at Rivenoak. You know that he asked me to advise him about what he should do. It'll be rather awkward, though. I must get him to tell me the truth."

"You'll probably have no difficulty in that. It's pretty certain that he thinks you know all about him already. If he hadn't, I feel sure he wouldn't go to Rivenoak."

The girl mused, smiling self-consciously.

"I had better tell you the truth, Mrs. Toplady," were her next words, in a burst of confidence. "I think Lord Dymchurch is very nice--as a friend. But only as a friend."

"Thank you for your confidence, May. Do you know that I suspected something of the kind."

"I want to be friends with him," pursued May, impulsively. "I shall get him to tell me all about himself, and we shall see what he can do. Of course there mustn't be any misunderstanding."

Mrs. Toplady had not been prepared for this tranquil reasonableness.

May was either more primitive, or much more sophisticated, than she had supposed. Her interest waxed keener.

"Between ourselves, my dear," she remarked, "that is exactly what I should have antic.i.p.ated. You are very young, and the world is at your feet. Of money you have no need, and, if Lord Dymchurch _had_ had the good fortune to please you--. But you are ambitious. I quite understand; trust me. Poor Dymchurch will never do anything. He is merely a bookish man. But, whilst we are talking of it, there's no harm in telling you that your aunt doesn't quite see the matter with our eyes. For some reason--I don't know exactly what it is--Lady Ogram is very favourable to poor Lord Dymchurch."

"I have noticed that," said May, quietly. "Of course it makes no difference."

"You think not?" asked Mrs. Toplady, beginning to be genuinely impressed by this young woman's self-confidence.

"I mean that my aunt couldn't do more than suggest," May answered, slightly throwing back her head. "I have only to let her know how I think about anything."

"You are sure of that?" asked the other, sweetly.

"Oh, quite!"

May's smile was ineffable. The woman of the world, the humourist and cynic, saw it with admiration.

"Ah, that puts my mind at ease!" murmured Mrs. Toplady. "To tell the truth, I have been worrying a little. Sometimes elderly people are so very tenacious of their ideas. Of course Lady Ogram has nothing but your good at heart."

"Of course!" exclaimed the girl.

"Shall I confess to you that I almost fancied _this_ might be the explanation of Miss Bride's engagement?"

"Miss Bride--? How?"

"I only tell you for your amus.e.m.e.nt. It occurred to me that, having set her heart on a scheme which had reference to Lord Dymchurch, your aunt was perhaps a little uneasy with respect to a much more brilliant and conspicuous man. Had that been so--it's all the merest supposition--she might have desired to see the brilliant and dangerous man made harmless--put out of the way."

A gleam of sudden perception illumined the girl's face. For a moment wonder seemed tending to mirth; but it took another turn, and became naive displeasure.

"You think so?" broke from her, impetuously. "You really think that's why she wanted them to be engaged?"

"It's only what I had fancied, my dear--"

"But I shouldn't wonder if you were right! Indeed, I shouldn't! Now that you put it in that way--. I remember that my aunt didn't care for me to see much of Mr. Lashmar. It amused me, because, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Toplady, I should never have thought of Mr. Lashmar as anything but a friend. I feel quite sure I shouldn't."