"Ah! There you ask me something that is beyond my poor powers of discrimination. Mrs. Harrington does not wear her feelings on her sleeve. She is difficult."

"Very," admitted Agatha, with a little sigh.

"I am naturally interested in the FitzHenrys," she went on after a little pause, with baffling frankness. "You see, we were children together."

"So I understand. I too am interested in them--merely because I like them."

"I am afraid," continued Agatha, tentatively turning the pages of the music which he had set before her, speaking as if she was only half thinking of what she was saying--"I am afraid that Mrs.

Harrington is the sort of person to do an injustice. She almost told my mother that she intended to leave all her money to one of them."

Again that little flicker of the Count's patient eyelids.

"Indeed!" he said. "To which one?"

Agatha shrugged her shoulders and began playing. "That is not so much the question. It is the principle--the injustice--that one objects to."

"Of course," murmured De Lloseta, with a little nod. "Of course."

They went on playing, and in the other room Mrs. Harrington talked to Luke. Mrs. Ingham-Baker appeared to slumber, but her friend and hostess suspected her of listening. She therefore raised her voice at intervals, knowing the exquisite torture of unsatisfied curiosity, and Mrs. Ingham-Baker heard the word "Fitz," and the magic syllables "money," more than once, but no connecting phrase to soothe her aching mental palate.

"And is your life a hard one?" Mrs. Harrington was asking. She had been leading up to this question for some time--inviting his confidence, seeking the extent of her own power. A woman is not content with possessing power; she wishes to see the evidence of it in the lives of others.

"No," answered Luke, unconsciously disappointing her; "I cannot say that it is."

He was strictly, sternly on his guard. There was not the faintest possibility of his ever forgiving this woman.

"And you are getting on in your career?"

"Yes, thank you."

Mrs. Harrington's grey eyes rested on his face searchingly.

"Perhaps I could help you," she said, "with my small influence, or-- or by other means."

"Thank you," he said again without anger, serene in his complete independence.

Mrs. Harrington frowned. A dream pa.s.sed through her mind--a great desire. What if she could crush this man's pride? For his six years' silence had never ceased to gall her. What if she could humble him so completely that he would come asking the help she so carelessly offered?

With a woman's instinct she hit upon the only possible means of attaining this end. She did not pause to argue that a nature such as Luke's would never ask anything for itself--that it is precisely such as he who have no pride when they ask for another, sacrificing even that for that other's sake.

Following her own thoughts, Mrs. Harrington looked pensively into the room where Agatha was sitting. The girl was playing, with a little frown of concentration. The wonderful music close to her ear was busy arousing that small possibility. Agatha did not know that any one was looking at her. The two pink shades of the piano candles cast a becoming light upon her face and form.

Mrs. Harrington's eyes came surrept.i.tiously round. Luke also was looking at Agatha. And a queer little smile hovered across Mrs.

Harrington's lips. The dream was a.s.suming more tangible proportions. Mrs. Harrington began to see her way; already her inordinate love of power was at work. She could not admit even to herself that Luke FitzHenry had escaped her. Women never know when they have had enough.

"How long are you to be in London?" she asked, with a sudden kindness.

"Only a fortnight."

"Well, you must often come and see me. I shall have the Ingham- Bakers staying with me a few weeks longer. It is dull for poor Agatha with only two old women in the house. Come to lunch to- morrow, and we can do something in the afternoon."

"Thank you very much," said Luke.

"You will come?"

"I should like nothing better."

And so the music went on--and the game. Some played a losing game from the beginning, and others played without quite knowing the stake. Some held to certain rules, while others made the rules as they went along--as children do--ignorant of the tears that must inevitably follow. But Fate placed all the best cards in Mrs.

Harrington's hand.

Luke and the Count Cipriani de Lloseta went out of the house together. They walked side by side for some yards while a watchful hansom followed.

"Can I give you a lift?" said De Lloseta at length. "I am going down to the Peregrinator's."

"Thanks, no. I shall go straight to my rooms. I have not had my clothes off for three nights."

"Ah, you sailors! I am going down to have my half-hour over a book to compose my mind."

"Do you read much?"

De Lloseta called the cab with a jerk of his head. Before stepping into it he looked keenly into his companion's face.

"Yes, a good deal. I read somewhere, lately, that it is never wise to accept favours from a woman; she will always have more than her money's worth. Good-night."

And he drove away.

CHAPTER X. THE GAME OPENS.

Ce qu'on dit a l'etre a qui on dit tout n'est pas la moitie de ce qu'on lui cache.

Agatha sent her maid to bed and sat down before her bedroom fire to brush her hair.

Miss Ingham-Baker had, only four years earlier, left a fashionable South Coast boarding-school fully educated for the battle of life.

There seem to be two cla.s.ses of young ladies' boarding-schools. In the one they are educated with a view of faring well in this world, in the other the teaching mostly bears upon matters connected with the next. In the last-mentioned cla.s.s of establishment the young people get up early and have very little material food to eat. So Mrs. Ingham-Baker wisely sent her daughter to the worldly school.

This astute lady knew that girls who get up very early to attend public worship in the dim hours, and have poor meals during the day, do not as a rule make good matches. They have no time to do their hair properly, and are not urged so much thereto as to punctuality at compline, or whatever the service may be. And it is thus that the little habits are acquired, and the little habits make the woman, therefore the little habits make the match. Quod erat demonstrandum.

So Agatha was sent to a worldly school, where they promenaded in the King's Road, and were taught at an early age to recognise the glance of admiration when they saw it. They were brought up to desire nice clothes, and to wear the same stylishly. On Sunday they wore bonnets, and promenaded with additional enthusiasm. Their youthful backs were straightened out by some process which the writer, not having been educated at a girls' school, cannot be expected to detail. They were given excellent meals at healthy hours, and the reprehensible habits of the lark were treated with contumely. They were given to understand that it was good to be smart always, and even smarter at church. Religious fervour, if it ran to limpness of dress, or form, or mind, was punishable according to law. A wholesome spirit of compet.i.tion was encouraged, not in the taking of many prizes, the attending of many services, or the acquirement of much Euclid, but in dress, smartness, and the accomplishments.

"My girls always marry!" Miss Jones was wont to say with a complacent smile, and mothers advertised it.

Agatha had been an apt pupil. She came away from Miss Jones a finished article. Miss Jones had indeed looked in vain for Agatha's name in that right-hand column of the Morning Post where fashionable arrangements are noted, and in the first column of the Times, where further social events have precedence. But that was entirely Agatha's fault. She came, and she saw, but she had not hitherto seen anything worth conquering. So many of her school friends had married on the impulse of the moment for mere sentimental reasons, remaining as awful and hara.s.sed warnings in suburban retreats where rents are moderate and the census on the flow. If there was one thing Miss Jones despised more than love in a cottage, it was that intangible commodity in a suburban villa.

Agatha, in a word, meant to do well for herself, and she was dimly grateful to her mother for having foreseen this situation and provided for it by a suitable education.

She was probably thinking over the matter while she brushed her hair, for she was deeply absorbed. There was a knock at the door--a timid, deprecatory knock.

"Oh, come in!" cried Agatha.