'Oh! I've got a month's leave.'

'Then why won't you be at the ball?'

'Because you won't promise me the first waltz.'

'Well--rather than the belles of Minstercombe should--ring their sweet changes in vain, I suppose I must indulge you.'

'A thousand thanks,' he said, lifted his hat, and rode on.

My blood was in a cold boil--if the phrase can convey an idea. Clara rode on homewards without looking round, and I followed, keeping a few yards behind her, hardly thinking at all, my very brain seeming cold inside my skull.

There was small occasion as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot help it--so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had dissolved the spell that bound me. But she spoke first.

'Well, Mr c.u.mbermede?' she said, with a slow interrogation.

'Well, Miss Coningham?' I rejoined, but bitterly, I suppose.

'What's the matter?' she retorted sharply, looking up at me, full in the face, whether in real or feigned anger I could not tell.

'How could you talk _of_ that fellow as you did, and then talk so _to_ him?'

'What right have you to put such questions to me? I am not aware of any intimacy to justify it.'

'Then I beg your pardon. But my surprise remains the same.'

'Why, you silly boy!' she returned, laughing aloud, 'don't you know he is, or will be, my feudal lord. I am bound to be polite to him. What would become of poor grandpapa if I were to give him offence? Besides, I have been in the house with him for a week. He's not a Crichton; but he dances well. Are _you_ going to the ball?'

'I never heard of it. I have not for weeks thought of anything but--but--my writing, till this morning. Now I fear I shall find it difficult to return to it. It looks ages since I saddled the mare!'

'But if you're ever to be an author, it won't do to shut yourself up.

You ought to see as much of the world as you can. I should strongly advise you to go to the ball.'

'I would willingly obey you--but--but--I don't know how to get a ticket.'

'Oh! if you would like to go, papa will have much pleasure in managing that. I will ask him.'

'I'm much obliged to you,' I returned. 'I should enjoy seeing Mr Brotherton dance.'

She laughed again, but it was an oddly constrained laugh.

'It's quite time I were at home,' she said, and gave the mare the rein, increasing her speed as we approached the house. Before I reached the little gate she had given her up to the gardener, who had been on the look-out for us.

'Put on her own saddle, and bring the mare round at once, please,' I called to the man, as he led her and the horse away together.

'Won't you come in, Wilfrid?' said Clara, kindly and seriously.

'No, thank you,' I returned; for I was full of rage and jealousy. To do myself justice, however, mingled with these was pity that such a girl should be so easy with such a man. But I could not tell her what I knew of him. Even if I _could_ have done so, I dared not; for the man who shows himself jealous must be readily believed capable of lying, or at least misrepresenting.

'Then I must bid you good-evening,' she said, as quietly as if we had been together only five minutes. 'I am _so_ much obliged to you for letting me ride your mare!'

She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first time in my life I preferred woods to open gra.s.s. When I went in at length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired early to bed, and pa.s.sed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over everything that had happened---the one moment calling her a coquette, and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A DISAPPOINTMENT.

I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only the type of general womanhood, around which the amorphous loves of my manhood had begun to gather, not the one woman whom the individual man in me had chosen and loved. How could I _love_ that which I did not yet know: she was but the heroine of my objective life, as projected from me by my imagination--not the love of my being. Therefore, when the wings of sleep had fanned the motes from my brain, I was cool enough, notwithstanding an occasional tongue of indignant flame from the ashes of last night's fire, to sit down to my books, and read with tolerable attention my morning portion of Plato. But when I turned to my novel, I found I was not master of the situation. My hero too was in love and in trouble; and after I had written a sentence and a half, I found myself experiencing the fate of Heine when he roused the Sphinx of past love by reading his own old verses:--

Lebendig ward das Marmorbild, Der Stein begann zu achzen.

In a few moments I was pacing up and down the room, eager to burn my moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was, however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, which I flattered myself was to act in a strong-minded manner. There were several fences and hedges between, but I cleared them all without discomfiture. The last jump was into a lane. We, that is my mare and I, had scarcely alighted, when my ears were invaded by a shout. The voice was the least welcome I could have heard, that of Brotherton. I turned and saw him riding up the hill, with a lady by his side.

'Hillo!' he cried, almost angrily, 'you don't deserve to have such a cob.' (He _would_ call her a cob.) 'You don't know-how to use her. To jump her on to the hard like that!'

It was Clara with him!--on the steady stiff old brown horse! My first impulse was to jump my mare over the opposite fence, and take no heed, of them, but clearly it was not to be attempted, for the ground fell considerably on the other side. My next thought was to ride away and leave them. My third was one which some of my readers will judge Quixotic, but I have a profound reverence for the Don--and that not merely because I have so often acted as foolishly as he. This last I proceeded to carry out, and lifting-my hat, rode to meet them. Taking no notice whatever of Brotherton, I addressed Clara--in what I fancied a distant and dignified manner, which she might, if she pleased, attribute to the presence of her companion.

'Miss Coningham,' I said, 'will you allow me the honour of offering you my mare? She will carry you better.'

'You are very kind, Mr c.u.mbermede,' she returned in a similar tone, but with a sparkle in her eyes. 'I am greatly obliged to you. I cannot pretend to prefer old crossbones to the beautiful creature which gave me so much pleasure yesterday.'

I was off and by her side in a moment, helping her to dismount. I did not even look at Brotherton, though I felt he was staring like an equestrian statue. While I shifted the saddles Clara broke the silence, which I was in too great an inward commotion to heed, by asking--

'What is the name of your beauty, Mr c.u.mbermede?'

'Lilith,' I answered.

'What a pretty name! I never heard it before. Is it after any one--any public character, I mean?'

'Quite a public character,' I returned--'Adam's first wife.'

'I never heard he had two,' she rejoined, laughing.

'The Jews say he had. She is a demon now, and the pest of married women and their babies.'

'What a horrible name to give your mare!'

'The name is pretty enough. And what does it matter what the woman was, so long as she was beautiful.'

'I don't quite agree with you there,' she returned, with what I chose to consider a forced laugh.

By this time her saddle was firm on Lilith, and in an instant she was mounted. Brotherton moved to ride on, and the mare followed him. Clara looked back.

'You will catch us up in a moment,' she said, possibly a little puzzled between us.