remarked Barold, with a short and somewhat savage laugh.
"Octavia Ba.s.sett?" queried Burmistone. "That"s true. But I am afraid she wouldn"t enjoy it--if you are supposing the man to be an Englishman, brought up in the regulation groove."
"Ah!" exclaimed Barold impatiently: "I was not looking at it from her point of view, but from his."
Mr. Burmistone slipped his hands in his pockets, and jingled his keys slightly, as he did once before in an earlier part of this narrative.
"Ah! from his," he repeated. "Not from hers. His point of view would differ from hers--naturally."
Barold flashed a little, and took his cigar from his mouth to knock off the ashes.
"A man is not necessarily a sn.o.b," he said, "because he is cool enough not to lose his head where a woman is concerned. You can"t marry a woman who will make mistakes, and attract universal attention by her conduct."
"Has it struck you that Octavia Ba.s.sett would?" inquired Burmistone.
"She would do as she chose," said Barold petulantly. "She would do things which were unusual; but I was not referring to her in particular. Why should I?"
"Ah!" said Burmistone. "I only thought of her because it did not strike me that one would ever feel she had exactly blundered. She is not easily embarra.s.sed. There is a _sang-froid_ about her which carries things off."
"Ah!" deigned Barold: "she has _sang-froid_ enough and to spare."
He was silent for some time afterward, and sat smoking later than usual.
When he was about to leave the room for the night, he made an announcement for which his host was not altogether prepared.
"When the _fete_ is over, my dear fellow," he said, "I must go back to London, and I shall be deucedly sorry to do it."
"Look here!" said Burmistone, "that"s a new idea, isn"t it?"
"No, an old one; but I have been putting the thing off from day to day.
By Jove! I did not think it likely that I should put it off, the day I landed here."
And he laughed rather uneasily.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"MAY I GO?"
The very day after this, Octavia opened the fourth trunk. She had had it brought down from the garret, when there came a summons on the door, and Lucia Gaston appeared.
Lucia was very pale; and her large, soft eyes wore a decidedly frightened look. She seemed to have walked fast, and was out of breath. Evidently something had happened.
"Octavia," she said, "Mr. Dugald Binnie is at Oldclough."
"Who is he?"
"He is my grand-uncle," explained Lucia tremulously. "He has a great deal of money. Grandmamma"--She stopped short, and colored, and drew her slight figure up. "I do not quite understand grandmamma, Octavia," she said. "Last night she came to my room to talk to me; and this morning she came again, and--oh!" she broke out indignantly, "how could she speak to me in such a manner!"
"What did she say?" inquired Octavia.
"She said a great many things," with great spirit. "It took her a long time to say them, and I do not wonder at it. It would have taken me a hundred years, if I had been in her place. I--I was wrong to say I did not understand her: I did--before she had finished."
"What did you understand?"
"She was afraid to tell me in plain words.--I never saw her afraid before, but she was afraid. She has been arranging my future for me, and it does not occur to her that I dare object. That is because she knows I am a coward, and despises me for it--and it is what I deserve. If I make the marriage she chooses, she thinks Mr. Binnie will leave me his money.
I am to run after a man who does not care for me, and make myself attractive, in the hope that he will condescend to marry me because Mr.
Binnie may leave me his money. Do you wonder that it took even Lady Theobald a long time to say that?"
"Well," remarked Octavia, "you won"t do it, I suppose. I wouldn"t worry.
She wants you to marry Mr. Barold, I suppose."
Lucia started.
"How did you guess?" she exclaimed.
"Oh! I always knew it. I didn"t guess." And she smiled ever so faintly.
"That is one of the reasons why she loathes me so," she added.
Lucia thought deeply for a moment: she recognized, all at once, several things she had been mystified by before.
"Oh, it is! It is!" she said. "And she has thought of it all the time, when I never suspected her."
Octavia smiled a little again. Lucia sat thinking, her hands clasped tightly.
"I am glad I came here," she said, at length. "I _am_ angry now, and I see things more clearly. If she had only thought of it because Mr. Binnie came, I could have forgiven her more easily; but she has been making coa.r.s.e plans all the time, and treating me with contempt. Octavia," she added, turning upon her, with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, "I think that, for the first time in my life, I am in a pa.s.sion,--a real pa.s.sion. I think I shall never be afraid of her any more." Her delicate nostrils were dilated, she held her head up, her breath came fast. There was a hint of exultation in her tone. "Yes," she said, "I am in a pa.s.sion. And I am not afraid of her at all. I will go home and tell her what I think."
And it is quite probable that she would have done so, but for a trifling incident which occurred before she reached her ladyship.
She walked very fast, after she left the house. She wanted to reach Oldclough before one whit of her anger cooled down; though, somehow, she felt quite sure, that, even when her anger died out, her courage would not take flight with it. Mr. Dugald Binnie had not proved to be a very fascinating person. He was an acrid, dictatorial old man: he contradicted Lady Theobald flatly every five minutes, and bullied his man-servant. But it was not against him that Lucia"s indignation was aroused. She felt that Lady Theobald was quite capable of suggesting to him that Francis Barold would be a good match for her; and, if she had done so, it was scarcely his fault if he had accepted the idea. She understood now why she had been allowed to visit Octavia, and why divers other things had happened. She had been sent to walk with Francis Barold; he had been almost reproached when he had not called; perhaps her ladyship had been good enough to suggest to him that it was his duty to further her plans.
She was as capable of that as of any thing else which would a.s.sist her to gain her point. The girl"s cheeks grew hotter and hotter, her eyes brighter, at every step, because every step brought some new thought: her hands trembled, and her heart beat.
"I shall never be afraid of her again," she said, as she turned the corner into the road. "Never! never!"
And at that very moment a gentleman stepped out of the wood at her right, and stopped before her.
She started back, with a cry.
"Mr. Burmistone!" she said: "Mr. Burmistone!"
She wondered if he had heard her last words: she fancied he had. He took hold of her shaking little hand, and looked down at her excited face.
"I am glad I waited for you," he said, in the quietest possible tone.
"Something is the matter."
She knew there would be no use in trying to conceal the truth, and she was not in the mood to make the effort. She scarcely knew herself.