Elinor looked up with a well-a.s.sumed expression of rapture; Pauline"s look of annoyance indicated that she obeyed greatly against her will.
Sir Oswald saw the captain looking wistfully after the two girlish figures.
"Go," he said, with a courtly smile. "Young people like to be together.
I will entertain Lady Hampton."
Greatly relieved, the captain followed. He was so deeply and so desperately in love that he could not endure to see Pauline Darrell talking even to the girl by her side. He would fain have engrossed every word, every glance of hers himself; he was madly jealous when such were bestowed upon others.
The three walked down the broad cedar path together, the captain all gallant attention, Miss Rocheford all sweetness, Pauline haughty as a young barbaric queen bound by a conqueror"s chains. She did not like her companions, and did not even make a feint of being civil to them.
Meanwhile the opportunity so longed for by Lady Hampton had arrived; and the lady seized it with alacrity. She turned to Sir Oswald with a smile.
"You amuse me," she said, "by giving yourself such an air of age. Why do you consider yourself so old, Sir Oswald? If it were not that I feared to flatter you, I should say that there were few young men to compare with you."
"My dear Lady Hampton," returned the baronet, in a voice that was not without pathos, "look at this."
He placed his thin white hand upon his white hair. Lady Hampton laughed again.
"What does that matter? Why, many men are gray even in their youth. I have always wondered why you seek to appear so old, Sir Oswald. I feel sure, judging from many indications, that you cannot be sixty."
"No; but I am over fifty--and my idea is that, at fifty, one is really old."
"Nothing of the kind!" she said, with great energy. "Some of the finest men I have known were only in the prime of life then. If you were seventy, you might think of speaking as you do. Sir Oswald," she asked, abruptly, looking keenly at his face, "why have you never married?"
He smiled, but a flush darkened the fine old face.
"I was in love once," he replied, simply, "and only once. The lady was young and fair. She loved me in return. But a few weeks before our marriage she was suddenly taken ill and died. I have never even thought of replacing her."
"How sad! What sort of a lady was she, Sir Oswald--this fair young love of yours?"
"Strange to say, in face, figure, and manner she somewhat resembled your lovely young niece, Lady Hampton. She had the same quiet, graceful manner, the same polished grace--so different from----"
"From Miss Darrell," supplied the lady, promptly. "How that unfortunate girl must jar upon you!"
"She does; but there are times when I have hopes of her. We are talking like old friends now, Lady Hampton. I may tell you that I think there is one and only one thing that can redeem my niece, and that is love. Love works wonders sometimes, and I have hopes that it may do so in her case.
A grand master-pa.s.sion such as controls the Darrells when they love at all--that would redeem her. It would soften that fierce pride and hauteur, it would bring her to the ordinary level of womanhood; it would cure her of many of the fantastic ideas that seem to have taken possession of her; it would make her--what she certainly is not now--a gentlewoman."
"Do you think so?" queried Lady Hampton, doubtfully.
"I am sure of it. When I look at that grand face of hers, often so defiant, I think to myself that she may be redeemed by love."
"And if this grand master-pa.s.sion does not come to her--if she cares for some one only after the ordinary fashion of women--what then?"
He threw up his hands with a gesture indicative of despair.
"Or," continued Lady Hampton--"pray pardon me for suggesting such a thing, Sir Oswald, but people of the world, like you and myself, know what odd things are likely at any time to happen--supposing that she should marry some commonplace lover, after a commonplace fashion, and that then the master-pa.s.sion should find her out, what would be the fate of Darrell Court?"
"I cannot tell," replied Sir Oswald, despairingly.
"With a person, especially a young girl, of her self-willed, original, independent nature, one is never safe. How thankful I am that my niece is so sweet and so womanly!"
Sir Oswald sat for some little time in silence. He looked on this fair ancestral home of his, with its n.o.ble woods and magnificent gardens.
What indeed would become of it if it fell into the ill-disciplined hands of an ill-disciplined girl--unless, indeed, she were subject to the control of a wise husband?
Would Pauline ever submit to such control? Her pale, grand face rose before him, the haughty lips, the proud, calm eyes--the man who mastered her, who brought her mind into subjection, would indeed be a superior being. For the first time a doubt crossed Sir Oswald"s mind as to whether she would ever recognize that superior being in Captain Langton.
He knew that there were depths in the girl"s nature beyond his own reach. It was not all pride, all defiance--there were genius, poetry, originality, grandeur of intellect, and greatness of heart before which the baronet knew that he stood in hopeless, helpless awe.
Lady Hampton laid her hand on his arm.
"Do not despond, old friend," she said. "I understand you. I should feel like you. I should dread to leave the inheritance of my fathers in such dangerous hands. But, Sir Oswald, why despond? Why not marry?"
The baronet started.
"Marry!" he repeated. "Why, I have never thought of such a thing."
"Think of it now," counseled the lady, laughingly; "you will find the advice most excellent. Instead of tormenting yourself about an ill-conditioned girl, who delights in defying you, you can have an amiable, accomplished, elegant, and gentle wife to rule your household and attend to your comfort--you might have a son of your own to succeed you, and Darrell Court might yet remain in the hands of the Darrells."
"But, my dear Lady Hampton, where should I find such a wife? I am no longer young--who would marry me?"
"Any sensible girl in England. Take my advice, Sir Oswald. Let us have a Lady Darrell, and not an ill-trained girl who will delight in setting the world at defiance. Indeed, I consider that marriage is a duty which you owe to society and to your race."
"I have never thought of it. I have always considered myself as having, so to speak, finished with life."
"You have made a great mistake, but it is one that fortunately can be remedied."
Lady Hampton rose from her seat, and walked a few steps forward.
"I have put his thoughts in the right groove," she mused; "but I ought to say a word about Elinor."
She turned to him again.
"You ask me who would marry you. Why, Sir Oswald, in England there are hundreds of girls, well-bred, elegant, graceful, gentle, like my niece, who would ask nothing better from fortune than a husband like yourself."
She saw her words take effect. She had turned his thoughts and ideas in the right direction at last.
"Shall we go and look after our truants?" she asked, suavely.
And they walked together down the path where Pauline had so indignantly gathered the broken lily. As though unconsciously, Lady Hampton began to speak of her niece.
"I have adopted Elinor entirely," she said--"indeed there was no other course for me to pursue. Her mother was my youngest sister; she has been dead many years. Elinor has been living with her father, but he has just secured a government appointment abroad, and I asked him to give his daughter to me."
"It was very kind of you," observed Sir Oswald.
"Nay, the kindness is on her part, not on mine. She is like a sunbeam in my house. Fair, gentle, a perfect lady, she has not one idea that is not in itself innately refined and delicate. I knew that if she went into society at all she would soon marry."
"Is there any probability of that?" asked Sir Oswald.
"No, for by her own desire we shall live very quietly this year. She wished to see Darrell Court and its owner--we have spoken so much of you--but with that exception we shall go nowhere."