"Jack! heaven and earth, Sophia! what has Jack to do with it?"

"Nothing, of course, only you know, or at any rate you might have seen that he--well, that he may object."

Mr. Woodward's face pa.s.sed from sheer amazement to that peculiar expression of virtuous indignation which so many English fathers reserve for those who, without a nomination, have the temerity to admire their daughters.

"Jack! that boy Jack?"

"He is older than Alice, my dear," put in his wife, with meek obstinacy. She, on the contrary, was smiling, for, no matter how ineligible the victim, a scalp is always a scalp to a mother; and Jack was not ineligible. On the contrary, he was the head of the soap-boiling business, now that her husband had received a consideration for his interest, and retired into the more genteel trade of blowing soap bubbles on 'Change.

"Pooh!" retorted Mr. Woodward, angrily, "if he is troublesome send him to me, I'll settle him. The lad must marry position, like Alice." He paused, and his manner changed. "You don't, of course, mamma, insinuate that--that Alice--that your daughter has been foolish enough----"

Mrs. Woodward rose with dignity, and gave the cat its bread and milk.

"_My_ daughter is a dear, good, sensible girl, Mr. Woodward; but that doesn't alter the fact that your _nephew_ may be foolish. I consider it extremely likely that he may be; it runs in the family."

Mr. Woodward took up the share list again, using it--after the manner of his kind when in domestic difficulties--as a shield, and his wife put a fresh lump of sugar in the canary's cage, saw to its seed and water, and left the room placidly. The bird was her bird, the cat her cat, and therefore she did her duty by them. In the same conscientious spirit she interviewed the housekeeper and ordered a very good dinner for her husband because he was her husband. Some people have the knack of getting a vast deal of purely selfish satisfaction out of their own virtues. Finally, she went into the morning-room, and began to think over the best way of doing her duty by her daughter also; for there was this difficulty in the way, here, that she and Alice were too much alike for sympathy. They found each other out continually, and, what is more, placidly disapproved of the various little weaknesses they shared in common. It is this inevitable likeness which is really at the bottom of that state of affairs, which is expressed in the feminine phrase, "they don't get on at home, somehow." But Alice was not a revolting daughter. Apart from other considerations, she would have thought it vulgar not to behave nicely to her parents, while Mrs.

Woodward herself would have felt her complacent self-respect endangered if she had not had a high estimate of her own child; and Alice was, in this aspect, a far easier subject than her brother Sam, who, to tell truth, gave even his mother a few qualms in regard to his personal appearance.

But Alice was perfect in that respect, simply perfect. Not too p.r.o.nouncedly pretty; not the sort of girl whose photograph would be put up surrept.i.tiously in the shop windows, but really quite unexceptionable as she came in to her mother's room and stood at the window in her trim habit waiting for the horses to come round. Then she turned to her mother composedly.

"Father had a letter from Captain Macleod this morning, hadn't he?

When does he expect us?"

Mrs. Woodward gave a sigh of relief. It was an advantage sometimes to be seen through, especially when you were anxious to give a word of warning before that long ride with Jack in the Park, and you did not quite know how to set about it.

"On the 8th; that will suit your father nicely; he will have done his meetings by then. And you will like the change, won't you, darling?"

"Immensely, of course. Then we had better go round to Redfern's to-day and order tailor-made things; something that looks rough, you know, but isn't. I hate rough things, they make me feel creepy. Ah! there is Jack coming round the gardens. Good-bye, dearest."

She stooped to kiss her mother dutifully ere leaving, and Mrs.

Woodward seized the opportunity.

"Good-bye, darling, and before you go, Alice, about Jack."

"What about Jack, mamma?"

"You might tell him--perhaps."

"What shall I tell him?" asked the girl, a trifle petulantly. "That we are going down to stay at Gleneira with the Macleods. That is really all there is to tell--as yet."

"I know that, my dear; still--still it would be better if Jack did not follow you about so much."

"Of course, it would be better, and I have told him so often; I will tell him again, if you like, so don't be anxious, you good, pretty little mamma. I am very fond of Jack--he is a dear fellow--but I don't intend to marry him. I see quite well how foolish it would be for us both."

Mrs. Woodward, as she watched the riders pa.s.s down the road, told herself that Alice was one in a thousand, and deserved to be happy, as no doubt she would be if she married Paul Macleod, who was so very nice-looking. This point of good looks was one upon which Mrs.

Woodward laid great insistence, and it enabled her to spend the next hour or two in finishing a sentimental novel in which the lovers, after sternly rejecting the counsels of parents and guardians, were rewarded in the third volume with 50,000 a year and a baronetcy. For, like most mothers, poor Mrs. Woodward was sadly at sea on the matrimonial question. Its romantic side appealed to her fancy, its business side to her experience, since no woman can have done her duty in the married state for a quarter of a century without seeing that where personal pleasure has been the motive power in one point, sheer personal self-abnegation has been the motive in ten.

Meanwhile the cousins, after cantering round the Row, had reined in their horses for a walk. Alice rode well, and the exercise had brought an unwonted animation to her appearance. Jack, on the other hand, was a tall, burly young fellow, a trifle over-dressed, but otherwise un.o.bjectionable, looked his best, with a heartwhole admiration for his companion on his honest face. What a pretty couple they would make, thought an old spinster, taking her const.i.tutional in Kensington Gardens, and began straightway to dream of a certain hunt ball where someone had danced with her five times before supper. How many times afterwards she had never had to confess, even to her twin sister; thanks to the extras, which, of course, need not count. And yet nothing had come of it! And just as she got so far in her reminiscences Alice was saying to Jack pleasantly, "I shall miss these rides of ours, Jack, shan't you?"

"Why should you miss them?" he asked anxiously, for there was a superior wisdom in her tone which he knew and dreaded. "I'm going down to Heddingford when you go. We can ride there."

"But we are going to Scotland first; didn't mamma tell you? We are to stay with Captain Macleod."

Poor Jack's heart gave a great throb of pain.

"Macleod?" he echoed, "that is the tall, handsome fellow, isn't it, who used to hang round you before I came up from the works?"

This allusion to Paul's good looks was unfortunate, since Jack's were not improved by the sudden flush which crimsoned even his ears.

"I don't know what you mean by hanging round," retorted the girl, quickly. "It is a very vulgar expression."

This again was unwise, for Jack, knowing his strong point was not refinement, felt instantly superior to such trivialities, and took the upper hand.

"Call it what you like, Ally. You know perfectly well what I mean, and what he meant, too."

There was no denying it, and, after all, why should it be denied? Had she not a right to have other lovers besides Jack?

"Let us come for another canter," she said, in the tone of voice which an elder sister might have used to a troublesome little brother, who required to be coaxed out of ill humour. "There is no use being cross about it, you know."

She went a little too far, and roused him into laying his hand on her rein, abruptly. And the action startled her, for she hated any display of emotion, being, in truth, totally unaccustomed to it.

"Not yet, Ally! I want to have this out first. It is time I did. And yet I don't know how to begin; perhaps because it never had a beginning. I've always cared for you--you know that. Ever since----"

the young man's eyes grew moist suddenly over some childish recollection, and then an almost savage look came to his face. "And you--you cared. I'm sure you cared----"

Some people have the knack of saying the wrong thing, and in this case poor Jack Woodward gave his mistress a handle both to her pride and her prudence.

"Care," she echoed, in a patronising tone. "Of course, Jack, I cared.

I cared for you very much, and I care for you now. So much so that I am not going to let you be foolish any more. We didn't understand what things really meant in those old days----"

"You don't understand now," he broke in hotly.

"Don't I," she continued; "perhaps I don't, for I don't really see what there is to make such a fuss about. And it is very selfish----"

"Do you mean to say that it is selfish of me to love you?" he cried.

"Selfish to----"

She interrupted him again with the same facile wisdom.

"Very selfish, if we stand in each other's way. And, after all, Jack, what we both need to make life really successful is something we have neither of us got. We are only soap-boilers, you know, and society----"

"Society!" he echoed sternly. "What has society to do with it? I didn't think you were so worldly."

"I am not worldly," she retorted, in quite an aggrieved tone; "unless, indeed, it is worldly to be sensible, to think of you as well as of myself--to be unselfish and straightforward."

"Straightforward! What, do you call it straightforward to let me hang round you as I have done?"

"Really, Jack, you are _impayable_ with your hangings round! Can you not find a less objectionable phrase?"

She was fencing with him, and he saw it, saw it and resented it with the almost coa.r.s.e resentment of a nature stronger and yet less obstinate than hers.