"I am wicked enough to dislike him for having robbed us of Arden. Of course you will say that any one else might have bought the place. But then I can only reply, that I should have disliked any other purchaser just the same; a little less though, perhaps, if he had been a member of some n.o.ble old family--a man with a great name. It would have been some consolation to think that Arden was promoted."

"I am afraid there is a leaven of good old Tory spirit in your composition, Miss Lovel."

"I suppose papa is a Tory. I know he has a profound contempt for what he calls new people--very foolish, of course, I quite feel that; but I think he cannot help remembering that he comes of a good old race which has fallen upon evil days."

"You remember my telling you that I had been to Arden Court. Mr. Granger gave a state dinner once while I was staying here, and I went with Fred and Lady Laura. I found him not by any means a disagreeable person. He is just a little slow and ponderous, and I should scarcely give him credit for a profound or brilliant intellect; but he is certainly sensible, well-informed, and he gave me the idea of being the very essence of truth."

"I daresay he is very nice," Clarissa answered with a subdued sigh. "He has always been kind and attentive to papa, sending game and hothouse fruit, and that kind of thing; and he has begged that we would use the park as if it were our own; but I have never crossed the boundary that divides my new home from my old one. I couldn't bear to see the old walks now."

They talked for a good deal longer, till the clanging of the Castle bell warned Clarissa that it was time to dress for dinner. It is amazing how rapidly time will pa.s.s in such serious confidential talk. George Fairfax looked at his watch with an air of disbelief in that supreme authority the Castle bell, which was renowned for its exact observance of Greenwich time.

That bl.u.s.terous rainy August afternoon had slipped away so I quickly.

"It is a repet.i.tion of my experience during that night journey to Holborough," Mr. Fairfax said, smiling. "You have a knack of charming away the hours, Miss Lovel."

It was the commonest, most conventional form of compliment, no doubt; but Clarissa blushed a little, and bent rather lower over the portfolio, which she was closing, than she had done before. Then she put the portfolio under her arm, murmured something about going to dress, made George Fairfax a gracious curtsey, and left him.

He did not hurry away to make his own toilet, but walked up and down the library for some minutes, thinking.

"What a sweet girl she is!" he said to himself; "and what a pity her position is not a better one! With a father like that, and a brother who has stamped himself as a scapegrace at the beginning of life, what is to become of her? Unless she marries well, I see no hopeful prospect for her future. But of course such a girl as that is sure to make a good marriage."

Instead of being cheered by this view of the case, Mr. Fairfax's brow grew darker, and his step heavier.

"What does it matter to me whom she chooses for her husband?" he asked himself; "and yet no man would like to see such a girl throw herself away for mercenary reasons. If I had known her a few months ago! If! What is the history of human error but a succession of 'ifs'? Would it have been better for me or for her, that we had learned to know each other while I was free?

The happiest thing for _me_ would have been never to have met her at all.

I felt myself in some kind of danger that night we met in the railway-carriage. Her race is fatal to mine, I begin to think. Any connection in that quarter would have galled my mother to the quick--broken her heart perhaps; and I am bound to consider her in all I do. Nor am I a schoolboy, to fancy that the whole colour of my life is to be governed by such an influence as this. She is only a pretty woman, with a low sweet voice, and gentle winning ways. Most people would call Geraldine the handsomer of the two. Poor child! She ought to seem no more than a child to me. I think she likes me, and trusts me. I wish Geraldine were kinder to her; I wish-----"

He did not particularise that last wish, even to himself, but went away to dress, having wasted the first quarter of the three-quarters that elapsed between the first and second bell at Hale Castle.

Throughout that evening, which was an unusually quiet and domestic evening for Hale, he did not talk any more to Clarissa. It might even have been thought that he scrupulously, and of a fixed purpose, avoided her.

He devoted himself to chess with Lady Geraldine; a game he played indifferently, and for which he cherished a profound aversion. But chess was one of Geraldine Challoner's strong points; and that aristocratic beauty never looked more regal than when she sat before a chess-table, with one thin white hand hovering gently above the carved ivory pieces.

Mr. Fairfax lost four or five games in succession, excusing his own careless play every time by some dexterous compliment to his betrothed.

More than once he stifled a yawn--more than once his glances wandered away to the group near the piano, amidst which Clarissa was seated, listening to Lizzy Fermor's brilliant waltzes and mazurkas, with an open music-book on her lap, turning over the leaves now and then, with rather a listless pre-occupied air, Mr. Fairfax thought.

That evening did certainly seem very dreary to Clarissa, in spite of Miss Fermor's dashing music and animated chatter. She missed that other talk, half playful, half earnest, with which George Fairfax had been wont to beguile some part of every evening; finding her out, as if by a subtle instinct, in whatever corner of the room she happened to be, and always devoting one stray half-hour of the evening to her society. To-night all things came to an end: matrons and misses murmured their good-nights and sailed away to the corridor, where there was a regiment of small silver candlesticks, emblazoned with the numerous quarterings of Armstrong and Challoner; and George Fairfax only rose from the chess-table as Lady Laura's guests abandoned the drawing-room. Geraldine bade her lover good-night with her most bewitching smile--a smile in which there was even some faint ray of warmth.

"You have given me some very easy victories," she said, as they shook hands, "and I won't flatter you by saying you have played well. But it was very good of you to sit so long at a game which I know you detest, only to please me."

"A very small sacrifice, surely, my dear Geraldine. We'll play chess every night, if you like. I don't care much for the game in the abstract, I admit; but I am never tired of admiring your judicious play, or the exquisite shape of your hands."

"No, no; I don't want to try you with such severe training. I saw how tired you were more than once to-night, and how your eyes wandered away to those noisy girls by the piano, like an idle boy who is kept at his lessons when his companions are at play."

Mr. Fairfax's sunburnt countenance reddened a little at this reproof.

"Was I inattentive?" he asked; "I did not know that. I was quite aware of my bad play, and I really believe I was conscientious."

And so they wished each other good-night and parted. Geraldine Challoner did not go at once to her own room. She had to pa.s.s her sister's quarters on her way, and stopped at the door of the dressing-room.

"Are you quite alone, Laura?" she asked, looking in.

"Quite alone."

A maid was busy unweaving a splendid pyramid of chestnut plaits which had crowned the head of her mistress; but she of course counted for nothing, and could be dismissed at any moment.

"And there will not be half-a-dozen people coming in to gossip?" Lady Geraldine asked in rather a fretful tone, as she flung herself into an arm-chair near the dressing-table.

"Not a soul; I have wished every one good-night. I was rather tired, to tell the truth, and not inclined for talk. But of course I am always glad of a chat with you, Geraldine.--You may go, Parker; I can finish my hair myself."

The maid retired, as quietly as some attendant spirit.

Lady Laura took up a big ivory brush and began smoothing the long chestnut locks in a meditative way, waiting for her sister to speak. But Lady Geraldine seemed scarcely in the mood for lively conversation; her fingers were twisting themselves in and out upon the arm of her chair in a nervous way, and her face had a thoughtful, not to say moody, expression.

Her sister watched her for some minutes silently.

"What is the matter, Geraldine?" she inquired at last. "I can see there is something wrong."

"There is very much that is wrong," the other answered with a kind of suppressed vehemence. "Upon my word, Laura, I believe it is your destiny to stand in my light at every stage of my life, or you would scarcely have happened to have planted that girl here just at this particular time."

"What girl?" cried Lady Laura, amazed at this sudden accusation.

"Clarissa Lovel."

"Good gracious me, Geraldine! what has my poor Clarissa done to offend you?"

"Your poor Clarissa has only set her cap at George Fairfax; and as she happens to be several years younger than I am, and I suppose a good deal prettier, she has thoroughly succeeded in distracting his attention--his regard, perhaps--from myself."

Laura Armstrong dropped the hair-brush, in profound consternation.

"My dear Geraldine, this is the merest jealous folly on your part. Clarissa is the very last girl in the world who would be guilty of such meanness as to try and attract another woman's lover. Besides, I am sure that George's attachment to yourself--"

"Pray, don't preach about that, Laura!" her sister broke in impatiently. "I must be the best judge of his attachment; and you must be the very blindest of women, if you have not seen how your newest pet and _protegee_ has contrived to lure George to her side night after night, and to interest him by her pretty looks and juvenile airs and graces."

"Why, I don't believe George spoke to Miss Lovel once this evening; he was playing chess with you from the moment he came to the drawing-room after dinner."

"To-night was an exceptional case. Mr. Fairfax was evidently on duty. His manner all the evening was that of a man who has been consciously culpable, and is trying to atone for bad behaviour. And your favourite was wounded by his desertion--I could see that."

"She did seem a little depressed, certainly," Lady Laura answered thoughtfully; "I observed that myself. But I know that the girl has a n.o.ble nature, and if she has been so foolish as to be just a little attracted by George Fairfax, she will very quickly awake to a sense of her folly. Pray don't give yourself the faintest uneasiness, Geraldine. I have my plans for Clarissa Lovel, and this hint of yours will make me more anxious to put them into execution. As for George, it is natural to men to flirt; there's no use in being angry with them. I'm sure that wretched Fred of mine has flirted desperately, in his way."

Lady Geraldine gave her shoulders a contemptuous shrug, expressive of a most profound indifference to the delinquencies of Mr. Armstrong.

"Your husband and George Fairfax are two very different people," she said.

"But you don't for a moment suppose there is anything serious in this business?" Laura asked anxiously.

"How can I tell? I sometimes think that George has never really cared for me; that he proposed to me because he thought his mother would like the marriage, and because our names had often been linked together, and our marriage was in a manner expected by people, and so on. Yes, Laura, I have sometimes doubted if he ever loved me--I hate to talk of these things, even to you; but there are times when one must confide in some one--and I have been sorely tempted to break off the engagement."

She rose from her chair, and began to pace up and down the room in a quick impatient way.

"Upon my honour, I believe it would be the happiest thing for both of us,"