"I quite understand _that_," replied the listener, the corners of her lips very eloquent.

"Such a thing had never entered my mind," pursued May, volubly and with emphasis. "Never!"

"It may have entered someone else's mind, though," interposed Mrs.

Toplady, again maturely arch.

"Oh, do you think so!" exclaimed the girl, with manifest pleasure. "I'm sure I hope not. But, Mrs. Toplady, how could my aunt oblige such a man as Mr. Lashmar to engage himself against his will?"

"You must remember, May, that, for the moment at all events, Mr.

Lashmar's prospects seem to depend a good deal on Lady Ogram's good will. She has a great deal of local influence. And then--by the bye, is Mr. Lashmar quite easy in his circ.u.mstances?"

"I really don't know," May answered, with an anxious fold in her forehead "Surely he, too, isn't quite poor?"

"I hardly think he is wealthy. Isn't it just possible that something may depend upon the marriage--?"

Mrs. Toplady's voice died away in a considerate vagueness. But May was not at all disposed to leave the matter nebulous.

"If he is really poor," she said, in a clear-cut tone, "it's quite natural that he should want to marry someone who can help him. But why didn't he choose someone really suitable?"

"Poor Mr. Lashmar!" sighed the other, humorously. "If he had no encouragement, my dear May!"

"But he didn't wait to see whether he had any or not!"

"What if he had very good reason for knowing that lady Ogram would never, never, never consent to--something we needn't specify?"

"But," May e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "surely he needn't take it for granted that my aunt would never change her mind. If it's as you say, how foolishly he must have behaved! It doesn't concern me in the least. You see I can speak quite calmly about it. I'm only sorry and astonished that he should be going to marry--well, after all, we must agree that Miss Bride isn't quite an ideal for him, however one looks at it. Of course it's nothing to me. If it _had_ been, I think I should feel more offended than sorry."

"Offended?"

"That he had taken for granted that I had no will of my own, and no influence with my aunt."

"It seems rather faint-hearted, I admit."

The dialogue lasted but a few minutes longer. May repeated once or twice that she had no personal interest in Lashmar's fortunes, but her utterance grew mechanical, and she was evidently withdrawing into her thoughts. As a clock in the room told softly the first hour of the morning, Mrs. Toplady rose; she spoke a few words about her engagements for the day which had nominally begun, then kissed her friend on the cheek.

"Don't think any more of it, May. It mustn't interfere with your sleep."

"That indeed it won't, Mrs. Toplady!" replied the girl, with a musically mocking laugh.

Appearances notwithstanding, May told the truth when she declared that she had never thought of marrying Lashmar. This, however, did not necessarily involve an indifference to Lashmar's homage. That the coming man should make his court to her, she saw as a natural and agreeable thing; that he should recognise her intellectual powers, and submit to her personal charm, was only what she had hoped and expected from the first. After their conversation in the supper-room, she counted him a conquest, and looked forward with no little interest to the development of this romance. Its sudden termination astonished and mortified her. Had Lashmar turned away to make some brilliant alliance, her pique would have endured only for a moment; Lord Dymchurch's approach would have more than compensated the commoner's retirement.

But that she should merely have amused his idle moments, whilst his serious thoughts were fixed on Constance Bride, was an injury not easy to pardon. For she disliked Miss Bride, and she knew the sentiment was mutual.

Seeing the situation in the new light shed by Mrs. Toplady's ingenious conjectures, her sense of injury was mitigated; the indignant feeling that remained she directed chiefly against Lady Ogram, who seemed inclined to dispose of her in such a summary way. Constance, naturally, she disliked more than ever, but Lashmar she viewed with something of compa.s.sion, as a victim of circ.u.mstances. Were those circ.u.mstances irresistible? Was there not even now a possibility of defeating them?--not with a view to taking Miss Bride's place, but for the pleasure of a.s.serting herself against a plot, and rea.s.suring her rightful position as arbitress of destinies. Lady Ogram was a kind old woman, but decidedly despotic, and she had gone too far. If indeed Lashmar were acting in helpless obedience to her, it would be the merest justice to make an attempt at rescuing him and restoring his liberty.

Not without moral significance was the facial likeness between Lady Ogram in her youth and May Tomalin. One who had seen the girl as she sat to-night in her bedroom, brooding deeply, without the least inclination for repose, must have been struck by a new vigour in the lines of her countenance. Thus--though with more of obstinate purpose--had Arabella Tomalin been wont to look at moments of crisis in her adventurous youth.

The clock was pointing to two, when May rose from the velvet-seated chair, and went to the little writing-table which stood in another part of the room. She took a plain sheet of note-paper, and, with a hand far from steady, began, not writing, but printing, certain words, in large, ill-formed capitals.

"HAVE MORE COURAGE. AIM HIGHER. IT IS NOT TOO LATE."

At this achievement she gazed smilingly. The ink having dried, she folded the paper, and put it into an envelope, which she closed. Then her face indicated a new effort. She could think of only one way of disguising her hand in cursive--the common device of sloping it backwards. This she attempted. The result failing to please her, she tried again on a second envelope, and this time with success; the writing looked masculine, and in no respect suggested its true authorship. She had addressed the letter to Dyce Lashmar, Esq., at Rivenoak.

Nine o'clock next morning saw her out of doors. In Sloane Street she found a hansom, and was driven rap idly eastward. Before ten she sat in her own room again, glowing with satisfaction.

CHAPTER XVIII

"At last," declared Mrs. Lashmar, "it really looks as if Dyce was going to do something. I've just been writing to Lady Susan, and I have let her see unmistakably what I think of her friendship. But I'm very glad Dyce isn't indebted to her, for a more unendurable woman, when she thinks she has done anyone a kindness, doesn't exist. If she gets a place for a servant-girl, all the world is told of it, and she expects you to revere her saintly benevolence. I am _very_ glad that she never did anything for Dyce. Indeed, I always felt that she was very little use. I doubt whether she has the slightest influence with respectable people."

It was just after breakfast, and the day promised to be the hottest of the year. The vicar, heavy-laden man, had sat down in his study to worry over parish accounts. When the door opened to admit his wife, he quivered with annoyance. Mrs. Lashmar had a genius for the malapropos.

During breakfast, when her talk would have mattered little, she had kept silence; now that her husband particularly wished to be alone with his anxieties, she entered with an air forboding long discourse.

"Twenty-three pounds, four shillings and sixpence," muttered the vicar, as he pa.s.sed a handkerchief over his moist forehead. "Dear me! how close it is! Twenty-three--"

"If Dyce is elected," pursued the lady, "we must celebrate the occasion in some really striking way. Of course there must be a dinner for all our poor--"

"What I want to know," interrupted Mr. Lashmar, with mild irritableness, "is, how he proposes to meet his expenses, and what he is going to live upon. If he is still looking to _me_--I hope you haven't encouraged him in any hope of that kind?"

"Of course not. In my last letter I expressly reminded him that our affairs were getting into a lamentable muddle. Of course, if _I_ had had the management of them, this wouldn't have come about.--Do you know what I have been thinking? It might be an advantage to Dyce if you made friends with the clergy at Hollingford. Couldn't you go over one day, and call on the rector. I see he's a Cambridge man, but--"

"Really," cried Mr. Lashmar, half-distraught, "I must beg you to let me get this work done in quietness. By some extraordinary error--"

A knock sounded at the door, followed by a man's voice.

"May I come in?"

"There you are!" Mrs. Lashmar exclaimed. "It's Dyce himself. Come in!

Come in! Why, who could have thought you would get here so early!"

"I chose the early train for the sake of coolness," answered Dyce, who shook hands with his parents. "The weather is simply tropical. And two days ago we were shivering. What is there to drink, mother?"

Mrs. Lashmar took her son to the dining-room, and, whilst he was refreshing himself, talked of the career before him. Her sanguine mind saw him already at Westminster, and on the way to high distinction.

"There's just one thing I'm anxious about," she said, sinking her voice. "You know the state of your father's affairs. It happens most unfortunately, just when a little help would be so important to you.

For years I have foreseen it, Dyce. Again and again I have urged prudence; but you know your father, the most generous of men, but a mere child in matters of business. I feared; but it was only the other day that I discovered the real state of things. I shouldn't be at all surprised, Dyce, if some day we have to look to you for succour."

"Don't worry," answered her son. "Things'll come right, I think. Just go on as prudently as you can, for the present. Is father really in a hobble?"

"My dear, he doesn't know where to turn for a five-pound note!"

Dyce was sincerely troubled. He seldom thought of his parents; none the less they represented his only true affection, and he became uncomfortable at the prospect of disaster befalling their latter years.

"Well, well, don't bother about it, more than you can help. Things are going pretty well with me, I fancy."

"So I supposed, Dyce. But your father is afraid--you know how he looks on the dark side of everything--lest you should be incurring liabilities. I have told him that that was never your habit."