Lucio bowed his head gravely.

"They must indeed," he replied--"Especially as the latest news of science is that G.o.d has given up the business."

Miss Fitzroy looked displeased,--but the Earl laughed uproariously. At that moment a step was heard outside, approaching the open doorway of the drawing-room, and Miss Chesney's quick ears caught the sound. She shook herself out of her reclining att.i.tude instantly and sat erect.

"It's Sibyl!" she said with a half-laughing half-apologetic flash of her brown eyes at us all--"I never can loll before Sibyl!"

My heart beat fast as the woman whom poets might have called the G.o.ddess of their dreams, but whom I was now disposed to consider as an object of beauty lawfully open to my purchase, entered, clad in simple white, unrelieved by any ornaments save a golden waistbelt of antique workmanship, and a knot of violets nestled among the lace at her bosom.

She looked far lovelier than when I had first seen her at the theatre; there was a deeper light in her eyes and a more roseate flush on her cheeks, while her smile as she greeted us was positively dazzling.

Something in her presence, her movements, her manner, sent such a tide of pa.s.sion through me that for a moment my brain whirled in a dizzy maze, and despite the cold calculations I had made in my own mind as to the certainty I had of winning her for my wife, there was a wondrous charm of delicate dignity and unapproachableness about her that caused me for the moment to feel ashamed, and inclined to doubt even the power of wealth to move this exquisite lily of maidenhood from her sequestered peace. Ah, what fools men are! How little do we dream of the canker at the hearts of these women 'lilies' that look so pure and full of grace!

"You are late, Sibyl," said her aunt severely.

"Am I?" she responded with languid indifference--"So sorry! Papa, are you an extemporized fire-screen?"

Lord Elton hastily moved to one side, rendered suddenly conscious of his selfish monopoly of the blaze.

"Are you not cold, Miss Chesney?" continued Lady Sibyl, in accents of studied courtesy--"Would you not like to come nearer the fire?"

Diana Chesney had become quite subdued, almost timid in fact.

"Thank-you!"--she murmured, and her eyes drooped with what might have been called retiring maiden modesty, had not Miss Chesney's qualities soared far beyond that trite description.

"We heard some shocking news this morning, Mr Tempest," said Lady Sibyl, looking at Lucio rather than at me--"No doubt you read it in the papers,--an acquaintance of ours, Viscount Lynton, shot himself last night."

I could not repress a slight start. Lucio gave me a warning glance, and took it upon himself to reply.

"Yes, I read a brief account of the affair--terrible indeed! I also knew him slightly."

"Did you? Well, he was engaged to a friend of mine," went on Lady Sibyl--"I myself think she has had a lucky escape, because though he was an agreeable man enough in society, he was a great gambler, and very extravagant, and he would have run through her fortune very quickly. But she cannot be brought to see it in that light,--she is dreadfully upset.

She had set her heart on being a Viscountess."

"I guess," said Miss Chesney demurely, with a sly sparkle of her eyes--"it's not only Americans who run after t.i.tles. Since I've been over here I've known several real nice girls marry downright mean dough-heads just for the sake of being called 'my lady' or 'your grace.'

I like a t.i.tle very well myself--but I also like a man attached to it."

The Earl smothered a chuckling laugh,--Lady Sibyl gazed meditatively into the fire and went on as though she had not heard.

"Of course my friend will have other chances,--she is young and handsome--but I really think, apart from the social point of view, that she was a little in love with the Viscount----"

"Nonsense! nonsense!" said her father somewhat testily. "You always have some romantic notion or other in your head Sibyl,--one 'season' ought to have cured you of sentiment--ha-ha-ha! She always knew he was a dissolute rascal, and she was going to marry him with her eyes wide open to the fact. When I read in the papers that he had blown his brains out in a hansom, I said 'Bad taste--bad taste! spoiling a poor cabby's stock-in-trade to satisfy a selfish whim!' ha-ha!--but I thought it was a good riddance of bad rubbish. He would have made any woman's life utterly miserable."

"No doubt he would!" responded Lady Sibyl, listlessly; "But, all the same, there is such a thing as love sometimes."

She raised her beautiful liquid eyes to Lucio's face, but he was not looking her way, and her stedfast gaze met mine instead. What my looks expressed I know not; but I saw the rich blood mantle warmly in her cheeks, and a tremor seemed to pa.s.s through her frame,--then she grew very pale. At that moment one of the gorgeous footmen appeared at the doorway.

"Dinner is served, my lud."

"Good!" and the Earl proceeded to 'pair' us all. "Prince, will you take Miss Fitzroy,--Mr Tempest, my daughter falls to your escort,--I will follow with Miss Chesney."

We set off in this order down the stairs, and as I walked behind Lucio with Lady Sibyl on my arm, I could not help smiling at the extreme gravity and earnestness with which he was discussing church matters with Miss Charlotte, and the sudden enthusiasm that apparently seized that dignified spinster at some of his remarks on the clergy, which took the form of the most affectionate and respectful eulogies, and were totally the reverse of the ideas he had exchanged with me on the same subject.

Some spirit of mischief was evidently moving him to have a solemn joke with the high-bred lady he escorted, and I noted his behaviour with a good deal of inward amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Then you know the dear Canon?" I heard Miss Charlotte say.

"Most intimately!" replied Lucio with fervour--"and I a.s.sure you I am thankful to have the privilege of knowing him. A truly perfect man!--almost a saint--if not quite!"

"So pure-minded!" sighed the spinster.

"So free from every taint of hypocrisy!" murmured Lucio with intense gravity.

"Ah yes! Yes indeed! And so----"

Here they pa.s.sed into the dining-room and I could hear no more. I followed with my beautiful partner, and in another minute we were all seated at table.

XII

The dinner went on in the fashion of most dinners at great houses,--commencing with arctic stiffness and formality, thawing slightly towards the middle course, and attaining to just a pleasant warmth of mutual understanding when ices and dessert gave warning of its approaching close. Conversation at first flagged unaccountably, but afterwards brightened under Lucio's influence to a certain gaiety. I did my best to entertain Lady Sibyl, but found her like most 'society'

beauties, somewhat of a vague listener. She was certainly cold, and in a manner irresponsive,--moreover I soon decided that she was not particularly clever. She had not the art of sustaining or appearing to sustain interest in any one subject; on the contrary, she had, like many of her cla.s.s, an irritating habit of mentally drifting away from you into an absorbed reverie of her own in which you had no part, and which plainly showed you how little she cared for anything you or anyone else happened to be saying. Many little random remarks of hers however implied that in her apparently sweet nature there lurked a vein of cynicism and a certain contempt for men, and more than once her light words stung my sense of self-love almost to resentment, while they strengthened the force of my resolve to win her and bend that proud spirit of hers to the meekness befitting the wife of a millionaire and--a genius. A genius? Yes,--G.o.d help me!--that is what I judged myself to be. My arrogance was two-fold,--it arose not only from what I imagined to be my quality of brain, but also from the knowledge of what my wealth could do. I was perfectly positive that I could buy Fame,--buy it as easily as one buys a flower in the market,--and I was more than positive that I could buy love. In order to commence proving the truth of this, I threw out a 'feeler' towards my object.

"I believe," I said suddenly, addressing the Earl--"you used to live in Warwickshire at Willowsmere Court did you not?"

Lord Elton flushed an apoplectic red, and swallowed a gulp of champagne hastily.

"Yes-er-yes. I--er had the place for some time,--rather a bore to keep up,--wants quite an army of servants."

"Just so;" I replied with a nod of appreciative comprehension--"I presume it will require a considerable domestic retinue. I have arranged to purchase it."

Lady Sibyl's frigid composure was at last disturbed--she looked strangely agitated,--and the Earl stared till his eyes seemed likely to fall out of his head.

"You? _You_ are going to buy Willowsmere?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Yes. I have wired to my lawyers to settle the matter as quickly as possible"--and I glanced at Lucio whose steel-bright eyes were fixed on the Earl with curious intentness,--"I like Warwickshire,--and as I shall entertain a great deal I think the place will suit me perfectly."

There was a moment's silence. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy sighed deeply, and the lace bow on her severely parted hair trembled visibly. Diana Chesney looked up with inquisitive eyes and a little wondering smile.

"Sibyl was born at Willowsmere,"--said the Earl presently in rather a husky voice.

"A new charm is added to its possession by that knowledge,"--I said gently, bowing to Lady Sibyl as I spoke--"Have you many recollections of the place?"

"Indeed, indeed I have!" she answered with a touch of something like pa.s.sion vibrating in her accents--"There is no corner of the world I love so well! I used to play on the lawns under the old oak-trees, and I always gathered the first violets and primroses that came out on the banks of the Avon. And when the hawthorn was in full flower I used to make believe that the park was fairyland and I the fairy queen----"

"As you were and are!" interposed Lucio suddenly.

She smiled and her eyes flashed,--then she went on more quietly--