"Your duty," Clarissa answered, in a low steady voice.

Her heart was beating so violently that she wondered at her power to utter those two words. What was it that she felt--anger, indignation? Alas, no; Pride, delight, rapture, stirred that undisciplined heart. She knew now what was wanted to make her life bright and happy; she knew now that she had loved George Fairfax almost from the first. And her own duty--the duty she was bound in honour to perform--what was that? Upon that question she had not a moment's doubt. Her duty was to resign him without a murmur; never to let him know that he had touched her heart. Even after having done this, there would be much left to her--the knowledge that he had loved her.

"My duty! what is that?" he asked in a hoa.r.s.e hard voice. "To keep faith with Geraldine, whatsoever misery it may bring upon both of us? I am not one of those saints who think of everybody's happiness before their own, Clarissa. I am very human, with all humanity's selfishness. I want to be happy. I want a wife for whom I can feel something more than a cold well-bred liking. I did not think that it was in me to feel more than that.

I thought I had outlived my capacity for loving, wasted the strength of my heart's youth on worthless fancies, spent all my patrimony of affection; but the light shines on me again, and I thank G.o.d that it is so. Yes, Clarissa, come what may, I thank my G.o.d that I am not so old a man in heart and feeling as I thought myself."

Clarissa tried to stem the current of his talk, with her heart still beating stormily, but with semblance of exceeding calmness.

"I must not hear you talk in this wild way, Mr. Fairfax," she said. "I feel as if I had been guilty of a sin against Lady Geraldine in having listened so long. But I cannot for a moment think you are in earnest."

"Do not play the Jesuit, Clarissa. You _know_ that I am in earnest."

"Then the railway accident must have turned your brain, and I can only hope that to-morrow morning will restore your reason."

"Well, I am mad, if you like--madly in love with you. What am I to do? If with some show of decency I can recover my liberty--by an appeal to Lady Geraldine's generosity, for instance--believe me, I shall not break her heart; our mutual regard is the calmest, coolest sentiment possible--if I can get myself free from this engagement, will you be my wife, Clarissa?"

"No; a thousand times no."

"You don't care for me, then? The madness is all on my side?"

"The madness--if you are really in earnest, and not carrying on some absurd jest--is all on your side."

"Well, that seems hard. I was vain enough to think otherwise. I thought so strong a feeling on one side could not co-exist with perfect indifference on the other. I fancied there was something like predestination in this, and that my wandering unwedded soul had met its other half--it's an old Greek notion, you know, that men and women were made in pairs--but I was miserably mistaken, I suppose. How many lovers have you rejected since you left school, Miss Lovel?" he asked with a short bitter laugh. "Geraldine herself could not have given me my quietus more coldly."

He was evidently wounded to the quick, being a creature spoiled by easy conquests, and would have gone on perhaps in the same angry strain, but there was a light step on the floor within, and Lady Laura Armstrong came quickly towards the balcony.

"My dearest Clary, Captain Westleigh tells me that you are quite knocked up--" she began; and then recognizing the belated traveller, cried out, "George Fairfax! Is it possible?"

"George Fairfax, my dear Lady Laura, and not quite so base a delinquent as he seems. I must plead guilty to pushing matters to the last limit; but I made my plans to be here at seven o'clock this evening, and should inevitably have arrived at that hour, but for a smash between Edinburgh and Carlisle."

"An accident! Were you hurt?"

"Not so much as shaken; but the break-down lost me half a dozen hours.

We were stuck for no end of time at a dingy little station whose name I forget, and when I did reach Carlisle, it was too late for any train to bring me on, except the night-mail, which does not stop at Holborough. I had to post from York, and arrived about ten minutes ago--too late for anything except to prove to you that I did make heroic efforts to keep my word."

"And how, in goodness' name, did you get here, to this room, without my seeing you?"

"From the garden. Finding myself too late to make an appearance in the ball-room, I prowled round the premises, listening to the sounds of revelry within; and then seeing Miss Lovel alone here--playing Juliet without a Romeo--I made so bold as to accost her and charge her with a message for you."

"You are amazingly considerate; but I really cannot forgive you for having deferred your return to the last moment. You have quite spoilt Geraldine's evening, to say nothing of the odd look your absence must have to our friends. I shall tell her you have arrived, and I suppose that is all I can do. You must want some supper, by the bye: you'll find plenty of people in the dining-room."

"No, thanks; I had some cold chicken and coffee at Carlisle. I'll ring for a soda-and-brandy when I get to my room, and that's all I shall do to-night. Good-night, Lady Laura; good-night, Miss Lovel."

He dropped lightly across the balcony and vanished. Lady Laura stood in the window for a few moments in a meditative mood, and then, looking up suddenly, said,

"O, by the bye, Clarissa, I came to fetch you for another dance, the last quadrille, if you feel well enough to dance it. Mr. Granger wants you for a partner."

"I don't think I can dance any more, Lady Laura. I refused Captain Westleigh the last waltz."

"Yes, but a quadrille is different. However, if you are really tired, I must tell Mr. Granger so. What was George Fairfax saying to you just now?

You both looked prodigiously serious."

"I really don't know--I forget--it was nothing very particular,"

Clarissa answered, conscious that she was blushing, and confused by that consciousness.

Lady Laura looked at her with a sharp scrutinising glance.

"I think it would have been better taste on George's part if he had taken care to relieve my sister's anxiety directly he arrived, instead of acting the balcony scene in _Romeo and Juliet_. I must go back to Mr. Granger with your refusal, Clarissa. O, here comes Captain Westleigh with some water."

The Captain did appear at this very moment carrying a gla.s.s of that beverage, much to Clarissa's relief, for a _tete-a-tete_ with Lady Laura was very embarra.s.sing to her just now.

"My dear Miss Lovel, you must think me an utter barbarian," exclaimed the Captain; "but you really can't conceive the difficulties I've had to overcome. It seemed as if there wasn't a drop of iced water to be had in the Castle. If you'd wanted Strasburg pies or barley-sugar temples, I could have brought you them by cartloads. Moselle and Maraschino are the merest drugs in the market; but not a creature could I persuade to get me this gla.s.s of water. Of course the fellows all said, 'Yes, sir;' and then went off and forgot all about me. And even when I had got my prize, I was waylaid by thirsty dowagers who wanted to rob me of it. It was like searching for the North-west Pa.s.sage."

Lady Laura had departed by this time. Clarissa drank some of the water and took the Captain's arm to return to the ball-room, which was beginning to look a little empty. On the threshold of the saloon they met Mr. Granger.

"I am so sorry to hear you are not well, Miss Lovel," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Granger, but I am really not ill--only too tired to dance any more."

"So Lady Laura tells me--very much to my regret. I had hoped for the honour of dancing this quadrille with you."

"If you knew how rarely Mr. Granger dances, you'd consider yourself rather distinguished, I think, Miss Lovel," said the Captain, laughing.

"Well, no, I don't often dance," replied Mr. Granger, with a shade of confusion in his manner; "but really, such a ball as this quite inspires a man--and Lady Laura was good enough to wish me to dance."

He remained by Clarissa's side as they walked back through the rooms. They were near the door when Miss Granger met them, looking as cold and prim in her pink c.r.a.pe and pearls as if she had that moment emerged from her dressing-room.

"Do you know how late it is, papa?" she asked, contemplating her parent with severe eyes.

"Well, no, one does not think of time upon such an occasion as this. I suppose it is late; but it would not do for us of the household to desert before the rest of the company."

"I was thinking of saying good-night," answered Miss Granger. "I don't suppose any one would miss me, or you either, papa, if we slipped away quietly; and I am sure you will have one of your headaches to-morrow morning."

There is no weapon so useful in the hands of a dutiful child as some chronic complaint of its parent. A certain nervous headache from which Mr.

Granger suffered now and then served the fair Sophia as a kind of rod for his correction on occasions.

"I am not tired, my dear."

"O, papa, I know your const.i.tution better than you do yourself. Poor Lady Laura, how worn out she must be!"

"Lady Laura has been doing wonders all the evening," said Captain Westleigh. "She has been as ubiquitous as Richmond at Bosworth, and she has the talent of never seeming tired."

Clarissa took the first opportunity of saying good-night. If so important a person as the heiress of Arden Court could depart and not leave a void in the a.s.sembly, there could be a.s.suredly no fear that she would be missed.

Mr. Granger shook hands with her for the first time in his life as he wished her good-night, and then stood in the doorway watching her receding figure till it was beyond his ken.

"I like your friend Miss Lovel, Sophia," he said to his daughter presently.

"Miss Lovel is hardly a friend of mine, papa," replied that young lady somewhat sharply. "I am not in the habit of making sudden friendships, and I have not known Miss Lovel a week. Besides which, she is not the kind of girl I care for."