"Sophie, Captain Clavering will think that you are in earnest," said the countess, laughing.

"So I aim--in earnest. It is all wrong. You boil all the water out of de pot before you put the gigot into it. So the gigot is no good, is tough and dry, and you shut it up in an old house in the country. Then, to make matters pretty, you talk about de fields and de daisies. I know.

'Thank you,' we should say. 'De fields and de daisies are so nice and so good! Suppose you go down, my love, and walk in de fields, and pick de daisies, and send them up to me by de railway!' Yes, that is what I would say."

Captain Clavering was now quite in the dark, and began to regard the little woman as a lunatic. When she spoke of the pot and the gigot he vainly endeavored to follow her; and now that she had got among the daisies he was more at a loss than ever. Fruit, vegetables, and cut flowers came up, he knew, to London regularly from Clavering, when the family was in town--but no daisies. In France it must, he supposed, be different. He was aware, however, of his ignorance, and said nothing.

"No one ever did try to shut you up, Sophie!"

"No, indeed; M. Gordeloup knew better. What would he do if I were shut up? And no one will ever shut you up, my dear. If I were you, I would give no one a chance."

"Don't say that," said the captain, almost pa.s.sionately; "don't say that."

"Ha, ha! but I do say it. Why should a woman who has got everything marry again? If she wants de fields and de daisies she has got them of her own--yes, of her own. If she wants de town, she has got that, too.

Jewels--she can go and buy them. Coaches--there they are. Parties--one, two, three, every night, as many as she please. Gentlemen, who will be her humble slaves; such a plenty--all London. Or, if she want to be alone, no one can come near her. Why should she marry? No."

"But she might be in love with somebody," said the captain, in a surprised but humble tone.

"Love! Bah! Be in love, so that she may be shut up in an old barrack with de powders!" The way in which that word barrack was p.r.o.nounced, and the middle letters sounded, almost lifted the captain off his seat.

"Love is very pretty at seventeen, when the imagination is telling a parcel of lies, and when life is one dream. To like people--oh, yes; to be very fond of your friend;--oh, yes; to be most attached--as I am to my Julie"--here she got hold of Lady Ongar's hand--"it is the salt of life! But what you call love, booing and cooing, with rhymes and verses about de moon, it is to go back to pap and panade, and what you call bibs. No; if a woman wants a house, and de something to live on, let her marry a husband; or if a man want to have children, let him marry a wife. But to be shut up in a country house, when everything you have got of your own--I say it is bad"

Captain Clavering was heartily sorry that he had mentioned the fact of his sister-in-law being left at home at Clavering Park. It was most unfortunate. How could he make it understood that if he were married he would not think of shutting his wife up at Ongar Park? "Lady Clavering, you know, does come to London generally," he said.

"Bah!" exclaimed the little Franco-Pole.

"And as for me, I never should be happy, if I were married, unless I had my wife with me everywhere," said Captain Clavering.

"Bah-ah-ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lady.

Captain Clavering could not endure this any longer. He felt that the manner of the lady was, to say the least of it, unpleasant, and he perceived that he was doing no good to his own cause. So he rose from his chair and muttered some words with the intention of showing his purpose of departure.

"Good-by, Captain Clavering," said Lady Ongar. "My love to my sister when you see her."

Archie shook hands with her and then made his bow to Madam Gordeloup.

"Au revoir, my friend," she said, "and you remember all I say. It is not good for de wife to be alone in the country, while de husband walk about in the town and make an eye to every lady he see." Archie would not trust himself to renew the argument, but bowing again, made his way off.

"He was come for one admirer," said Sophie, as soon as the door was closed.

"An admirer of whom?"

"Not of me; oh, no; I was not in danger at all."

"Of me? Captain Clavering! Sophie, you get your head full of the strangest nonsense."

"Ah; very well. You see. What will you give me if I am right? Will you bet? Why had he got on his new gloves, and had his head all smelling with stuff from de hair-dresser? Does he come always perfumed like that?

Does he wear shiny little boots to walk about in de morning, and make an eye always? Perhaps yes."

"I never saw his boots or his eyes."

"But I see them. I see many things. He come to have Ongere Park for his own. I tell you, yes. Ten thousand will come to have Ongere Park. Why not? To have Ongere Park and all de money a man will make himself smell a great deal."

"You think much more about all that than is necessary."

"Do I, my dear? Very well. There are three already. There is Edouard, and there is this Clavering, who you say is a captain; and there is the other Clavering who goes with his nose in the air, and who thinks himself a clever fellow because he learned his lesson at school and did not get himself whipped. He will be whipped yet some day--perhaps."

"Sophie, hold your tongue. Captain Clavering is my sister's brother-in-law, and Harry Clavering is my friend."

"Ah, friend! I know what sort of friend he wants to be. How much better to have a park and plenty of money than to work in a ditch and make a railway! But he do not know the way with a woman. Perhaps he may be more at home, as you say, in the ditch. I should say to him, 'My friend, you will do well in de ditch if you work hard; suppose you stay there.'"

"You don't seem to like my cousin, and, if you please, we will talk no more about him."

"Why should I not like him? He don't want to get any money from me."

"That will do, Sophie."

"Very well; it shall do for me. But this other man that come here to-day. He is a fool."

"Very likely."

"He did not learn his lesson without whipping."

"Nor with whipping either."

"No; he have learned nothing. He does not know what to do with his hat.

He is a fool. Come, Julie, will you take me out for a drive. It is melancholy for you to go alone; I came to ask you for a drive. Shall we go?" And they did go, Lady Ongar and Sophie Gordeloup together. Lady Ongar, as she submitted, despised herself for her submission; but what was she to do? It is sometimes very difficult to escape from the meshes of friendship.

Captain Clavering, when he left Bolton Street, went down to his club, having first got rid of his shining boots and new gloves. He sauntered up into the billiard-room knowing that his friend would be there, and there he found Doodles with his coat off, the sleeves of his shirt turned back, and armed with his cue. His brother captain, the moment that he saw him, presented the cue at his breast. "Does she know you're there, old fellow; I say, does she know you're there?" The room was full of men, and the whole thing was done so publicly that Captain Clavering was almost offended.

"Come, Doodles, you go on with your game," said he; "it's you to play." Doodles turned to the table, and scientifically pocketed the ball on which he played; then laid his own ball close under the cushion, picked up a shilling and put it into his waistcoat pocket, holding a lighted cigar in his mouth the while, and then he came back to his friend. "Well, Clavvy, how has it been?"

"Oh, nothing as yet, you know."

"Haven't you seen her?"

"Yes, I've seen her, of course. I'm not the fellow to let the gra.s.s grow under my feet. I've only just come from her house."

"Well, well?"

"That's nothing much to tell the first day, you know."

"Did you let her know you were there? That's the chat. Damme, did you let her know you were there?"

In answer to this Archie attempted to explain that he was not as yet quite sure that he had been successful in that particular; but in the middle of his story Captain Doodles was called off to exercise his skill again, and on this occasion to pick up two shillings. "I'm sorry for you, Griggs," he said, as a very young lieutenant, whose last life he had taken, put up his cue with a look of ineffable disgust, and whose shilling Doodles had pocketed; "I'm sorry for you, very; but a fellow must play the game, you know." Whereupon Griggs walked out of the room with a gait that seemed to show that he had his own ideas upon that matter, though he did not choose to divulge them. Doodles instantly returned to his friend. "With cattle of that kind it's no use trying the waiting dodge," said he. "You should make your running at once, and trust to bottom to carry you through."

"But there was a horrid little Frenchwoman came in!"

"What; a servant?"

"No; a friend. Such a creature! You should have heard her talk. A kind of confidential friend she seemed, who called her Julie. I had to go away and leave her there, of course."