Rhoda Fleming. Complete

It became a question with him now, whether Wit and Ambition may dwell together harmoniously in a young man: whether they will not give such manifestation of their social habits as two robins shut in a cage will do: of which pretty birds one will presently be discovered with a slightly ruffled bosom amid the feathers of his defunct associate.

Thus painfully revolving matters of fact and feeling, Sir William cantered, and, like a cropped billow blown against by the wind, drew up in front of Mrs. Lovell, and entered into conversation with that lady, for the fine needles of whose brain he had the perfect deference of an experienced senior. She, however, did not give him comfort. She informed him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell what. She spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome trifling.

“He strains to be Frenchy,” she said. “It may be a good compliment for them to receive: it’s a bad one for him to pay.”

“Alcibiades is not the best of models,” murmured Sir William. “He doesn’t mention Miss Gosling.”

“Oh dear, yes. I have a French acrostic on her name.”

“An acrostic!”

A more contemptible form of mental exercise was not to be found, according to Sir William’s judgement.

“An acrostic!” he made it guttural. “Well!”

“He writes word that he hears Moliere every other night. That can’t harm him. His reading is principally Memoirs, which I think I have heard you call ‘The backstairs of history.’ We are dull here, and I should not imagine it to be a healthy place to dwell in, if the absence of friends and the presence of sunshine conspire to dullness. Algy, of course, is deep in accounts to-day?”

Sir William remarked that he had not seen the young man at the office, and had not looked for him; but the mention of Algernon brought something to his mind, and he said,—

“I hear he is continually sending messengers from the office to you during the day. You rule him with a rod of iron. Make him discontinue that practice. I hear that he despatched our old porter to you yesterday with a letter marked ‘urgent.’”

Mrs. Lovell laughed pleadingly for Algernon.

“No; he shall not do it again. It occurred yesterday, and on no other occasion that I am aware of. He presumes that I am as excited as he is himself about the race—”

The lady bowed to a passing cavalier; a smarting blush dyed her face.

“He bets, does he!” said Sir William. “A young man, whose income, at the extreme limit, is two hundred pounds a year.”

“May not the smallness of the amount in some degree account for the betting?” she asked whimsically. “You know, I bet a little—just a little. If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am tempted to bid it fly.”

“In his case, such conduct puts him on the high road to rascality,” said Sir William severely. “He is doing no good.”

“Then the squire is answerable for such conduct, I think.”

“You presume to say that he is so because he allows his son very little money to squander? How many young men have to contain their expenses within two hundred pounds a year!”

“Not sons of squires and nephews of baronets,” said Mrs. Lovell. “Adieu! I think I see a carrier-pigeon flying overhead, and, as you may suppose, I am all anxiety.”

Sir William nodded to her. He disliked certain of her ways; but they were transparent bits of audacity and restlessness pertaining to a youthful widow, full of natural dash; and she was so sweetly mistress of herself in all she did, that he never supposed her to be needing caution against excesses. Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a pet of Sir William’s.

She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a “pot of money” from alien pockets to his own.

“Algy Blancove’s in for five hundred to me,” he said; adding with energy, “I hope you haven’t lost? No, don’t go and dash my jolly feeling by saying you have. It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand. Have you?”

“A little,” she confessed. “It’s a failing of mine to like favourites. I’m sorry for Algy.”

“I’m afraid he’s awfully hit.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He took it so awfully cool.”

“That may mean the reverse.”

“It don’t with him. But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven’t lost. Not much, is it? Because, I know there’s no guessing, when you are concerned.”

The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.

“I really can’t tell you yet. I may have lost. I haven’t won. I’m not cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. Addio, son of Fortune! I’m at the Opera to-night.”

As she turned her horse from Lord Suckling, the cavalier who had saluted her when she was with Sir William passed again. She made a signal to her groom, and sent the man flying in pursuit of him, while she turned and cantered. She was soon overtaken.

“Madam, you have done me the honour.”

“I wish to know why it is your pleasure to avoid me, Major Waring?”

“In this place?”

“Wherever we may chance to meet.”

“I must protest.”

“Do not. The thing is evident.”

They rode together silently.

Her face was toward the sunset. The light smote her yellow hair, and struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.

“To be condemned without a hearing!” she said. “The most dastardly criminal gets that. Is it imagined that I have no common feelings? Is it manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools. Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience had once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should beware of herding with despicable slanderers.”

She spoke, gazing frontward all the while. The pace she maintained in no degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.

But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold! The falling beams touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.

“If I defend myself?” he said.

“No. All I ask is that you should Accuse me. Let me know what I have done—done, that I have not been bitterly punished for? What is it? what is it? Why do you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me? Not by word, not by look. You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me anything I can grasp. You know how you wound me. And I am alone.”

“That is supposed to account for my behaviour?”

She turned her face to him. “Oh, Major blaring! say nothing unworthy of yourself. That would be a new pain to me.”

He bowed. In spite of a prepossessing anger, some little softness crept through his heart.

“You may conceive that I have dropped my pride,” she said. “That is the case, or my pride is of a better sort.”

“Madam, I fully hope and trust,” said he.