"Charlie! Charlie!" sounded from outside. "Tea"s ready."
Calder rose and took Charlie by the arm.
"Should I be safe," he asked solemnly, "in allowing myself to fall in love with Miss Bush.e.l.l, or are you likely to step in again?"
"You mean it? Honor bright, Calder?"
"Yes."
"Where"s Bradshaw? By Jove, where"s Bradshaw?"
"Bradshaw? What the devil has Bradshaw----?"
"Why, a train, man--a train to town."
"I don"t want to go to town, bless the man---"
"You! No, but I do. To town, Calder--to Agatha, you old fool."
"Oh, that"s your lay?"
"Yes, of course. I couldn"t go back on you, but if you"re off---"
"Charlie, old fellow, think again."
"Go to the deuce! Where"s that---?"
"Charlie, Charlie! Tea!"
"Hang tea!" he cried; but Calder dragged him off, telling him that to-morrow would do for Bradshaw.
At tea Charlie"s spirits were very much better, and it was observed that Calder Wentworth paid marked attention to Millie Bush.e.l.l, so that, when they started for the Pool, Millie was prevailed upon to be one of the party, on the understanding that Mr. Went worth would take care of her. This time the expedition went off more quietly than it had previously, but at the last moment the ladies declared that they would, be late for dinner if they waited till it was time for Agatha Merceron to come.
"Oh, nonsense!" said Calder. "Come over to the temple, Miss Bush.e.l.l. I won"t upset the canoe."
"Well, if you insist," said Millie.
Then Mrs. Marland remarked in the quietest voice in the world---
"There"s some one in the temple."
"What?" cried Millie.
"Eh?" exclaimed Calder.
"Nonsense!" said Charlie.
"I saw a face at the window," insisted Mrs. Marland.
"Oh, Mrs. Marland! Was it very awful?"
"Not at all, Millie--very pretty," and she gave Charlie a look full of meaning.
"Look, look!" cried Millie in strong agitation.
And, as they looked, a slim figure in white came quietly out of the temple, a smile--and, alas! no vestige of a blush--on her face, walked composedly down the steps, and, standing on the lowest one, thence--did not throw herself into the water--but called, in the most natural voice in the world, "Which of you is coming to fetch me?"
Charlie looked at Calder. Calder said,
"I think you"d better put her across, old man. And--er--we might as well walk on."
They turned away, Millie"s eyes wide in surprise, Mrs. Marland smiling the smile of triumphant sagacity.
"I was coming to you to-morrow," cried Charlie the moment his canoe b.u.mped against the stops.
"What do you mean, sir, by staying away a whole week? How could you?"
"I don"t know," said Charlie. "You see, I couldn"t come till Calder----
"Oh, what about Calder?"
"He"s all right."
"What? Miss--the girl you upset out of the canoe?"
"I think so," said Charlie.
"Ah, well!" said Agatha. "But how very curious!" Then she smiled at Charlie, and asked, "But what love can there be, Mr. Merceron, where there is deceit?"
Charlie took no notice at all of this question.
"Do you mind Calder going?" he whispered.
"Well, not much," said Miss Glyn.
Thus it was that the barony of Warmley returned to the house of Merceron, and the portrait of the wicked lord came to hang once more in the dining-room. So the curtain falls on the comedy; and what happened afterwards behind the scenes, whether another comedy, or a tragedy, or a mixed half-and-half sort of entertainment, now grave, now gay, sometimes perhaps delightful, and again of tempered charm--why, as to all this, what reck the spectators who are crowding out of the theatre and home to bed?
But it seems as if, in spite of certain drawbacks in Agatha Merceron"s character, nothing very dreadful can have happened, because Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth, who are very particular folk, went to stay at the Court the other day, and their only complaint was that Charlie and his bride were always at the Pool!
And, for his own part, if he may be allowed a word (which some people say he ought not to be) here, just at the end, the writer begs to say that he once knew Agatha, and--he would have taken the risks. However, a lady to whom he has shown this history differs entirely from him, and thinks that no sensible man would have married her. But, then, that is not the question.
THE CURATE OF POLTONS
I must confess at once that at first, at least, I very much admired the curate. I am not referring to my admiration of his fine figure--six feet high and straight as an arrow--nor of his handsome, open, ingenuous countenance, or his candid blue eye, or his thick curly hair.
No; what won my heart from an early period of my visit to my cousins, the Poltons of Poltons Park, was the fervent, undisguised, unashamed, confident, and altogether matter-of-course manner in which he made love to Miss Beatrice Queenborough, only daughter and heiress of the wealthy shipowner Sir Wagstaff Queenborough, Bart., and Eleanor his wife. It was purely the manner of the curate"s advances that took my fancy: in the mere fact of them there was nothing remarkable. For all the men in the house (and a good many outside) made covert. stealthy, and indirect steps in the same direction; for Trix (as her friends called her) was, if not wise, at least pretty and witty, displaying to the material eye a charming figure, and to the mental a delicate heartlessness--both attributes which challenge a self-respecting mans best efforts. But then came the fatal obstacle. From heiresses in reason a gentleman need neither shrink nor let himself be driven; but when it comes to something like twenty thousand a year--the reported amount of Trix"s dot--he distrusts his own motives almost as much as the lady"s relatives distrust them for him. We all felt this--Stanton, Rippleby, and I; and, although I will not swear that we spoke no tender words and gave no meaning glances, yet we reduced such concessions to natural weakness to a minimum, not only when Lady Queenborough was by, but at all times. To say truth, we had no desire to see our scalps affixed to Miss Trix"s pretty belt, nor to have our hearts broken (like that of the young man in the poem) before she went to Homburg in the autumn. With the curate it was otherwise. He--Jack Ives, by the way, was his name--appeared to rush, not only upon his fate, but in the face of all possibility and of Lady Queenborough. My cousin and hostess, Dora Polton, was very much distressed about him. She said that he was such a nice young fellow, and that it was a great pity to see him preparing such unhappiness for himself. Nay, I happen to know that she spoke very seriously to Trix, pointing out the wickedness of trifling with him; whereupon Trix, who maintained a bowing acquaintance with her conscience, avoided him for a whole afternoon and endangered all Algy Stanton"s prudent resolutions by taking him out in the Canadian canoe.