Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Geoffrey», sayfa 14

One of the latter, however, is worthy of note. It is a plain gold band on which stands out a figure of Atalanta posed as when she started for her famous race. It had been sent to her on her marriage by Mr. Maxwell, in hearty remembrance, no doubt, of the night when she by her fleetness had saved his life.

She is looking very beautiful to-night. As she enters the room, nearly every one stops talking, and careless of good breeding, stares at her. There is a touch of purity about Mona that is perhaps one of her chiefest charms.

Even Lady Rodney can hardly take her eyes from the girl's face as she advances beneath the full glare of the chandelier, utterly unconscious of the extent of the beauty that is her rich gift.

Sir Nicholas, going up to her, takes her by both hands, and leads her gently beneath the huge bunch of mistletoe that still hangs from the centre-lamp. Here, stooping, he embraces her warmly. Mona, coloring, shrinks involuntarily a few steps backward.

"Forgive me, my sister," says Nicholas, quickly. "Not the kiss, but the fact that until now I never quite understood how very beautiful you are!"

Mona smiles brightly – as might any true woman – at so warm a compliment. But Doatie, putting on a pathetic little moue that just suits her baby face, walks over to her fiance and looks up at him with appealing eyes.

"Don't altogether forget me, Nicholas," she says, in her pretty childish way, pretending (little rogue that she is) to be offended.

"You, my own!" responds Nicholas, in a very low tone, that of course means everything, and necessitates a withdrawal into the curtained recess of the window, where whisperings may be unheard.

Then the carriages are announced, and every one finishes his and her tea, and many shawls are caught up and presently all are driving rapidly beneath the changeful moon to Chetwoode.

Now, strange as it may seem, the very moment Mona sets her foot upon the polished ballroom floor, and sees the lights, and hears the music, and the distant splashing of water in some unknown spot, and breathes the breath of dying flowers, all fears, all doubts, vanish; and only a passionate desire to dance, and be in unison with the sweet sounds that move the air, overfills her.

Then some one asks her to dance, and presently – with her face lit up with happy excitement, and her heart throbbing – she is actually mingling with the gay crowd that a moment since she has been envying. In and out among the dancers they glide, Mona so happy that she barely has time for thought, and so gives herself up entirely to the music to the exclusion of her partner. He has but a small place in her enjoyment. Perhaps, indeed, she betrays her satisfaction rather more than is customary or correct in an age when the nil admirari system reigns supreme. Yet there are many in the room who unconsciously smile in sympathy with her happy smile, and feel warmed by the glow of natural gladness that animates her breast.

After a little while, pausing beside a doorway, she casts an upward glance at her companion.

"I am glad you have at last deigned to take some small notice of me," says he, with a faint touch of pique in his tone. And then, looking at him again, she sees it is the young man who had nearly ridden over her some time ago, and tells herself she has been just a little rude to his Grace the Duke of Lauderdale.

"And I went to the utmost trouble to get an introduction," goes on Lauderdale, in an aggrieved voice; "because I thought you might not care about that impromptu ceremony at the lodge-gate; and yet what do I receive for my pains but disappointment? Have you quite forgotten me?"

"No. Of course I remember you now," says Mona, taking all this nonsense as quite bona fide sense in a maddeningly fascinating fashion. "How unkind I have been! But I was listening to the music, not to our introduction, when Sir Nicholas brought you up to me, and – and that is my only excuse." Then, sweetly, "You love music?"

"Well, I do," says the duke. "But I say that perhaps as a means of defence. If I said otherwise, you might think me fit only 'for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.'"

"Oh, no! you don't look like that," says Mona, with a heavenly smile. "You do not seem like a man that could not be 'trusted.'"

He is delighted with her ready response, her gayety, her sweetness, her freshness; was there ever so fair a face? Every one in the room by this time is asking who is the duke's partner, and Lady Chetwoode is beset with queries. All the women, except a very few, are consumed with jealousy; all the men are devoured with envy of the duke. Beyond all doubt the pretty Irish bride is the rage of the hour.

She chatters on gayly to the duke, losing sight of the fact of his rank, and laughing and making merry with him as though he were one of the ordinary friends of her life. And to Lauderdale, who is susceptible to beauty and tired of adulation, such manner has its charm, and he is perhaps losing his head a little, and is conning a sentence or two of a slightly tender nature, when another partner coming up claims Mona, and carries her away from what might prove dangerous quarters.

"Malcolm, who was that lovely creature you were talking to just now?" asks his mother, as Lauderdale draws near her.

"That? Oh, that was the bride, Mrs. Rodney," replies he. "She is lovely, if you like."

"Oh, indeed!" says the duchess, with some faint surprise. Then she turns to Lady Rodney, who is near her, and who is looking cold and supercilious. "I congratulate you," she says, warmly. "What a face that child has! How charming! How full of feeling! You are fortunate in securing so fair a daughter."

"Thank you," says Lady Rodney, coldly, letting her lids fall over her eyes.

"I am sorry I have missed her so often," says the duchess, who had been told that Mona was out when she called on her the second time, and who had been really not at home when Mona returned her calls. "But you will introduce me to her soon, I hope."

Just at this moment Mona comes up to them, smiling and happy.

"Ah! here she is," says the duchess, looking at the girl's bright face with much interest, and turning graciously towards Mona. And then nothing remains but for Lady Rodney to get through the introduction as calmly as she can, though it is sorely against her will, and the duchess, taking her hand, says something very pretty to her, while the duke looks on with ill-disguised admiration in his face.

They are all standing in a sort of anteroom, curtained off, but only partly concealed from the ballroom. Young Lady Chetwoode, who, as I have said, is a special pet with the duchess, is present, with Sir Guy and one or two others.

"You must give me another dance, Mrs. Rodney, before your card is quite full," says the duke, smiling. "If, indeed, I am yet in time."

"Yes, quite in time," says Mona. Then she pauses, looking at him so earnestly that he is compelled to return her gaze. "You shall have another dance," she says, in her clear voice, that is perfectly distinct to every one; "but you must not call me Mrs. Rodney: I am only Mrs. Geoffrey!"

A dead silence follows. Lady Rodney raises her head, scenting mischief in the air.

"No?" says Lauderdale, laughing. "But why, then? There is no other Mrs. Rodney, is there?"

"No. But there will be when Captain Rodney marries. And Lady Rodney says I have no claim to the name at all. I am only Mrs. Geoffrey."

She says it all quite simply, with a smile, and a quick blush that arises merely from the effort of having to explain, not from the explanation itself. There is not a touch of malice in her soft eyes or on her parted lips.

Lady Chetwoode looks at her fan and then at Sir Guy. The duchess, with a grave expression, looks at Lady Rodney. Can her old friend have proved herself unkind to this pretty stranger? Can she have already shown symptoms of that tyrannical temper which, according to the duchess, is Lady Rodney's chief bane? She says nothing, however, but, moving her fan with a beckoning gesture, draws her skirts aside, and motions to Mona, to seat herself beside her.

Mona obeys, feeling no shrinking from the kindly stout lady who is evidently bent on being "all things" to her. It does occur, perhaps, to her laughter-loving mind that there is a paucity of nose about the duchess, and a rather large amount of "too, too solid flesh;" but she smothers all such iniquitous reflections, and commences to talk with her gayly and naturally.

CHAPTER XXIII
HOW MONA INTERVIEWS THE DUCHESS – AND HOW SHE SUSTAINS CONVERSATION WITH THE RODNEYS' EVIL GENIUS

For some time they talk together, and then the duchess, fearing lest she may be keeping Mrs. Geoffrey from the common amusement of a ballroom, says, gently, —

"You are not dancing much?"

"No," says Mona, shaking her head. "Not – not to-night. I shall soon."

"But why not to-night?" asks her Grace, who has noticed with curiosity the girl's refusal to dance with a lanky young man in a hussar uniform, who had evidently made it the business of the evening to get introduced to her. Indeed, for an hour he had been feasting his eyes upon her fresh young beauty, and, having gone to infinite trouble to get presented to her, had been rewarded for his trouble by a little friendly smile, a shake of the head, and a distinct but kindly refusal to join in the mazy dance.

"But why?" asks the duchess.

"Because" – with a quick blush – "I am not accustomed to dancing much. Indeed, I only learned to-day, and I might not be able to dance with every one."

"But you were not afraid to dance with Lauderdale, my son?" says the duchess, looking at her.

"I should never be afraid of him," returns Mona. "He has kind eyes. He is" – slowly and meditatively – "very like you."

The duchess laughs.

"He may be, of course," she says. "But I don't like to see a gay child like you sitting still. You should dance everything for the night."

"Well, as I say, I shall soon," returns Mona, brightening, "because Geoffrey has promised to teach me."

"If I were 'Geoffrey,' I think I shouldn't," says the duchess, meaningly.

"No?" raising an innocent face. "To much trouble, you think, perhaps. But, bless you, Geoffrey wouldn't mind that, so long as he was giving me pleasure." At which answer the duchess is very properly ashamed of both her self and her speech.

"I should think very few people would deem it a trouble to serve you," she says, graciously. "And perhaps, after all, you don't much care about dancing."

"Yes, I do," says Mona, truthfully. "Just now, at least. Perhaps" – sadly – "when I am your age I sha'n't."

This is a betise of the first water. And Lady Rodney, who can hear – and is listening to – every word, almost groans aloud.

The duchess, on the contrary, gives way to mirth, and, leaning back in her chair, laughs softly but with evident enjoyment. Mona contemplates her curiously, pensively.

"What have I said?" she asks, half plaintively. "You laugh, yet I did not mean to be funny. Tell me what I said."

"It was only a little touch of nature," explains her Grace. "On that congratulate yourself. Nature is at a discount these days. And I – I love nature. It is so rare, a veritable philosopher's stone. You only told me what my glass tells me daily, – that I am not so young as I once was, – that, in fact, when sitting next pretty children like you, I am quite old."

"Did I say all that?" asks Mrs. Geoffrey, with wide eyes. "Indeed, I think you mistake. Old people have wrinkles, and they do not talk as you do. And when one is sweet to look at, one is never old."

To pay a compliment perfectly one must, I think, have at least a few drops of Irish blood in one's veins. As a rule, the happy-go-lucky people of Ireland can bring themselves to believe thoroughly, and without hypocrisy, in almost anything for the time being, – can fling themselves heart and soul into their flatteries, and come out of them again as victors. And what other nation is capable of this? To make sweet phrases is one thing; to look as if you felt or meant them is quite another.

The little suspicion of blarney trips softly and naturally from Mona's tongue. She doesn't smile as she speaks, but looks with eyes full of flattering conviction at the stout but comely duchess. And in truth it may be that in Mona's eyes she is sweet to look at, in that she has been kind and tender towards her in her manner.

And the duchess is charmed, pleased beyond measure That faint touch about the wrinkles was the happiest of the happy. Only that morning her Grace, in spite of her unapproachable maid and unlimited care, had seen an additional line around her mouth that had warned her of youth's decline, and now to meet some one oblivious of this line is sweet to her.

"Then you didn't go out much in Ireland?" she says, thinking it more graceful to change the conversation at this point.

"Out? Oh, ever so much," says Mrs. Geoffrey.

"Ah!" says the duchess, feeling puzzled. "Then perhaps they don't dance in Ireland.

"Yes, they do indeed, a great deal; at least I have heard so."

"Then I suppose when there you were too young to go out?" pursues the poor duchess, striving for information.

"I wasn't," says Mona: "I went out a great deal. All day long I was in the open air. That is what made my hands so brown last autumn."

"Were they brown?"

"As berries," says Mona, genially.

"At least they are a pretty shape," says the duchess glancing at the slim little hands lying gloved in their owner's lap. "But I don't think you quite understood the 'going out' in the light that I did. I mean, did you go much into society?"

"There wasn't much society to go into," says Mona, "and I was only fifteen when staying with Aunt Anastasia. She," confidentially, "made rather a grand match for us, you know." (Lady Rodney grinds her teeth, and tells herself she is on the point of fainting.) "She married the Provost of Trinity College; but I don't think he did her any good. She is the oddest old thing! Even to think of her now makes me laugh. You should have seen her," says Mrs. Geoffrey, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to her usual merry laugh, that rings like a peal of silver bells, "with her wig that had little curls all over it, and her big poke-bonnet like a coal-scuttle!"

"Well, I really wish I had seen her," says the good-humored duchess, smiling in sympathy, and beginning to feel herself more capable of thorough enjoyment than she has been for years. "Was she witty, as all Irish people are said to be?"

"Oh, dear, no," says Mona, with an emphatic shake of her lovely head. "She hadn't the least little bit of wit in her composition. She was as solemn as an Eng – I mean a Spaniard (they are all solemn, are they not?), and never made a joke in her life, but she was irresistibly comic all the same." Then suddenly, "What a very pretty little woman that is over there, and what a lovely dress!"

"Very pretty indeed, and quite good taste and that. She's a Mrs. Lennox, and her husband is our master of the hounds. She is always quite correct in the matter of clothes." There is an awful reservation in her Grace's tone, which is quite lost upon Mona. "But she is by no means little in her own opinion, and in fact rather prides herself upon her – er – form generally," concludes the duchess, so far at a loss for a word as to be obliged to fall back upon slang.

"Her form!" says Mrs. Geoffrey, surveying the tiny Mrs. Lennox from head to foot in sheer wonderment. "She need hardly pride herself on that. She hasn't much of it, has she?"

"Yes, – in her own estimation," says the duchess, somewhat severely, whose crowning horror is a frisky matron, to which title little Mrs. Lennox may safely lay claim.

"Well, I confess that puzzles me," says Mona, knitting her straight brows and scanning the small lady before her with earnest eyes, who is surrounded by at least a dozen men, with all of whom she is conversing without any apparent effort. "I really think she is the smallest woman I ever saw. Why, I am only medium height, but surely I could make two of her. At least I have more figure, or form, as you call it, than she has."

The duchess gives it up. "Yes, and a far better one, too," she says, amiably, declining to explain. Indeed, she is delighted to meet a young woman who actually regards slang as a foreign and unstudied language, and shrinks from being the first to help her to forget the English tongue. "Is there much beauty in Ireland?" she asks, presently.

"Yes, but we are all so different from the English. We have no pretty fair hair in Ireland, or at least very little of it."

"Do you admire our hair? And we are all so heartily tired of it," says the duchess. "Well, tell me more about your own land. Are the women all like you? In style, I mean. I have seen a few, of course, but not enough to describe a whole."

"Like me? Oh, no," says Mrs. Geoffrey. "Some of them are really beautiful, like pictures. When I was staying with Aunt Anastasia – the Provost's wife, you remember – I saw a great many pretty people. I saw a great many students, too," says Mona, brightening, "and liked them very much. They liked me, too."

"How strange!" says the duchess, with an amused smile. "Are you quite sure of that?"

"Oh, quite. They used to take me all over the college, and sometimes to the bands in the squares. They were very good to me."

"They would be, of course," says the duchess.

"But they were troublesome, very troublesome," says Mrs. Geoffrey, with a retrospective sigh, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands together on her lap. "You can't imagine what a worry they were at times, – always ringing the college bell at the wrong hours, and getting tight!"

"Getting what?" asks the duchess, somewhat taken aback.

"Tight, – screwed, – tipsy, you know," replies Mona, innocently. "Tight was the word they taught me. I think they believed it sounded more respectable than the others. And the Divinity boys were the worst. Shall I tell you about them?"

"Do," says the duchess.

"Well, three of them used to come to see Aunt Anastasia; at least they said it was auntie, but they never spoke to her if they could help it, and were always so glad when she went to sleep after dinner."

"I think your Aunt Anastasia was very good to them," says the duchess.

"But after a bit they grew very tiresome. When I tell you they all three proposed to me every day for a week, you will understand me. Yet even that we could have borne, though it was very expensive, because they used to go about stealing my gloves and my ribbons, but when they took to punching each other's heads about me auntie said I had better go to Uncle Brian for a while: so I went; and there I met Geoffrey," with a brilliant smile.

"I think Geoffrey owes those Divinity boys more than he can ever pay," says the duchess, very prettily. "You must come and see me soon, child. I am an old woman, and seldom stir from home, except when I am positively ordered out by Malcom, as I was to-night. Come next Thursday. There are some charming trifles at the old Court that may amuse you, though I may fail to do so."

"I sha'n't want any trifles to amuse me, if you will talk to me," says Mona.

"Well, come early. And now go and dance with Mr. Darling. He has been looking at me very angrily for the last three minutes. By the by," putting up her glasses, "is that little girl in the lemon-colored gown his sister?"

"Yes; that is Sir Nicholas's Doatie Darling," returns Mona, with a light laugh. And then Nolly leads her away, and, feeling more confident with him, she is once again dancing as gayly as the best.

"Your foot is plainly 'on your native heath,'" says Nolly, "though your name may not be 'McGregor.' What on earth were you saying to that old woman for the last four hours?"

"It was only twenty minutes," says Mona.

"Twenty minutes! By Jove, she must be more interesting than we thought," says Mr. Darling, "if you can put it at that time. I thought she was going to eat you, she looked so pleased with you. And no wonder, too: " with a loud and a hearty sigh.

"She was very nice to me," says Mona, "and is, I think, a very pleasant old lady. She asked me to go and see her next Thursday."

"Bless my stars!" says Nolly; "you have been going it. That is the day on which she will receive no one but her chief pets. The duchess, when she comes down here, reverses the order of things. The rest have an 'at home' day. She has a 'not at home' day."

"Where are people when they are not at home?" asks Mona, simply.

"That's the eighth wonder of the world," says Mr. Darling, mysteriously. "It has never yet been discovered. Don't seek to pry too closely into it; you might meet with a rebuff."

"How sad Nicholas looks!" says Mona, suddenly.

In a doorway, somewhat out of the crush, Sir Nicholas is standing. His eyes are fixed on Dorothy, who is laughing with a gay and gallant plunger in the distance. He is looking depressed and melancholy; a shadow seems to have fallen into his dark eyes.

"Now he is thinking of that horrid lawsuit again," says Nolly, regretfully, who is a really good sort all round. "Let us go to him."

"Yes; let me go to him," says Mona, quickly; "I shall know what to say better than you."

After a little time she succeeds in partially lifting the cloud that has fallen on her brother. He has grown strangely fond of her, and finds comfort in her gentle eyes and sympathetic mouth. Like all the rest, he has gone down before Mona, and found a place for her in his heart. He is laughing at some merry absurdity of hers, and is feeling braver, more hopeful, when a little chill seems to pass over him, and, turning, he confronts a tall dark young man who has come leisurely – but with a purpose – to where he and Mona are standing.

It is Paul Rodney.

Sir Nicholas, just moving his glass from one eye to the other, says "Good evening" to him, bending his head courteously, nay, very civilly, though without a touch, or suspicion of friendliness. He does not put out his hand, however, and Paul Rodney, having acknowledged his salutation by a bow colder and infinitely more distant than his own, turns to Mona.

"You have not quite forgotten me, I hope, Mrs. Rodney. You will give me one dance?"

His eyes, black and faintly savage, seem to burn into hers.

"No; I have not forgotten you," says Mona, shrinking away from him. As she speaks she looks nervously at Nicholas.

"Go and dance, my dear," he says, quickly, in a tone that decides her. It is to please him, for his sake, she must do this thing; and so, without any awkward hesitation, yet without undue haste, she turns and lays her hand on the Australian's arm. A few minutes later she is floating round the room in his arms, and, passing by Geoffrey, though she sees him not, is seen by him.

"Nicholas, what is the meaning of this?" says Geoffrey, a few moments later, coming up with a darkening brow to where Nicholas is leaning against a wall. "What has possessed Mona to give that fellow a dance? She must be mad, or ignorant, or forgetful of everything. She was with you: why did you not prevent it?"

"My dear fellow, let well alone," says Nicholas, with his slow, peculiar smile. "It was I induced Mona to dance with 'that fellow,' as you call him. Forgive me this injury, if indeed you count it one."

"I don't understand you," says Geoffrey, still rather hotly.

"I think I hardly understand myself: yet I know I am possessed of a morbid horror lest the county should think I am uncivil to this man merely because he has expressed a hope that he may be able to turn me out of doors. His hope may be a just one. I rather think it is: so it pleased me that Mona should dance with him, if only to show the room that he is not altogether tabooed by us."

"But I wish it had been any one but Mona," says Geoffrey, still agitated.

"But who? Doatie will not dance with him, and Violet he never asks. I fell back, then, upon the woman who has so little malice in her heart that she could not be ungracious to any one. Against her will she read my desire in my eyes, and has so far sacrificed herself for my sake. I had no right to compel your wife to this satisfying of my vanity, yet I could not resist it. Forget it; the dance will soon be over."

"It seems horrible to me that Mona should be on friendly terms with your enemy," says Geoffrey, passionately.

"He is not my enemy. My dear boy, spare me a three-act drama. What has the man done, beyond wearing a few gaudy rings, and some oppressive neckties, that you should hate him as you do? It is unreasonable. And, besides, he is in all probability your cousin. Parkins and Slow declare they can find no flaw in the certificate of his birth; and – is not every man at liberty to claim his own?"

"If he claims my wife for another dance, I'll – " begins Geoffrey.

"No, you won't," interrupts his brother, smiling. "Though I think the poor child has done her duty now. Let him pass. It is he should hate me, not I him."

At this Geoffrey says something under his breath about Paul Rodney that he ought not to say, looking the while at Nicholas with a certain light in his blue eyes that means not only admiration but affection.

Meantime, Mona, having danced as long as she desires with this enemy in the camp, stops abruptly before a curtained entrance to a small conservatory, into which he leads her before she has time to remonstrate: indeed, there is no apparent reason why she should.

Her companion is singularly silent. Scarce one word has escaped him since she first laid her hand upon his arm, and now again dumbness, or some hidden feeling, seals his lips.

Of this Mona is glad. She has no desire to converse with him, and is just congratulating herself upon her good fortune in that he declines to speak with her, when he breaks the welcome silence.

"Have they taught you to hate me already?" he asks, in a low, compressed tone, that make her nerves assert themselves.

"I have been taught nothing," she says, with a most successful grasp at dignity. "They do not speak of you at the Towers, – at least, not unkindly." She looks at him as she says this, but lowers her eyes as she meets his. This dark, vehement young man almost frightens her.

"Yet, in spite of what you say, you turn from me, you despise me," exclaims he, with some growing excitement.

"Why should I despise you?" asks she, slowly, opening her eyes.

The simple query confounds him more than might a more elaborate one put by a clever worldling. Why indeed?

"I was thinking about this impending lawsuit," he stammers, uneasily. "You know of it, of course? Yet why should I be blamed?"

"No one blames you," says Mona; "yet it is hard that Nicholas should be made unhappy."

"Other people are unhappy, too," says the Australian, gloomily.

"Perhaps they make their own unhappiness," says Mona, at random. "But Nicholas has done nothing. He is good and gentle always. He knows no evil thoughts. He wishes ill to no man."

"Not even to me?" with a sardonic laugh.

"Not even to you," very gravely. There is reproof in her tone. They are standing somewhat apart, and her eyes have been turned from him. Now, as she says this, she changes her position slightly, and looks at him very earnestly. From the distant ballroom the sound of the dying music comes sadly, sweetly; a weeping fountain in a corner mourns bitterly, as it seems to Mona, tear by tear, perhaps for some lost nymph.

"Well, what would you have me do?" demands he, with some passion. "Throw up everything? Lands, title, position? It is more than could be expected of any man."

"Much more," says Mona; but she sighs as she says it, and a little look of hopelessness comes into her face. It is so easy to read Mona's face.

"You are right," he says, with growing vehemence: "no man would do it. It is such a brilliant chance, such a splendid scheme – ." He checks himself suddenly. Mona looks at him curiously, but says nothing. In a second he recovers himself, and goes on: "Yet because I will not relinquish my just claim you look upon me with hatred and contempt."

"Oh, no," says Mona, gently; "only I should like you better, of course, if you were not the cause of our undoing."

"'Our'? How you associate yourself with these Rodneys!" he says, scornfully; "yet you are as unlike them as a dove is unlike a hawk. How came you to fall into their nest? And so if I could only consent to efface myself you would like me better, – tolerate me in fact? A poor return for annihilation. And yet," impatiently, "I don't know. If I could be sure that even my memory would be respected by you – ." He pauses and pushes back his hair from his brow.

"Why could you not have stayed in Australia?" says Mona, with some excitement. "You are rich; your home is there; you have passed all your life up to this without a title, without the tender associations that cling round Nicholas and that will cost him almost his life to part with. You do not want them, yet you come here to break up our peace and make us all utterly wretched."

"Not you," says Paul, quickly. "What is it to you? It will not take a penny out of your pocket. Your husband," with an evil sneer, "has his income secured. I am not making you wretched."

"You are," says Mona, eagerly. "Do you think," tears gathering in her eyes, "that I could be happy when those I love are reduced to despair?"

"You must have a large heart to include all of them," says Rodney with a shrug. "Whom do you mean by 'those you love?' Not Lady Rodney, surely. She is scarcely a person, I take it to inspire that sentiment in even your tolerant breast. It cannot be for her sake you bear me such illwill?"

"I bear you no illwill; you mistake me," says Mona, quietly: "I am only sorry for Nicholas, because I do love him."

"Do you?" says her companion, staring at her, and drawing his breath a little hard. "Then, even if he should lose to me lands, title, nay, all he possesses, I should still count him a richer man than I am."

"Oh, poor Nicholas!" says Mona sadly, "and poor little Doatie!"

"You speak as if my victory was a foregone conclusion," says Rodney. "How can you tell? He may yet gain the day, and I may be the outcast."