Moody was in no humor to make allowances for the unbridled gayety of youth and good spirits.
"I hate any man who admires you," he burst out pa.s.sionately, "let him be who he may!"
Isabel looked at her strange lover with unaffected astonishment. How unlike Mr. Hardyman, who had treated her as a lady from first to last!
"What an odd man you are!" she said. "You can"t take a joke. I"m sure I didn"t mean to offend you."
"You don"t offend me--you do worse, you distress me."
Isabel"s color began to rise. The merriment died out of her face; she looked at Moody gravely. "I don"t like to be accused of distressing people when I don"t deserve it," she said. "I had better leave you. Let me by, if you please."
Having committed one error in offending her, Moody committed another in attempting to make his peace with her. Acting under the fear that she would really leave him, he took her roughly by the arm.
"You are always trying to get away from me," he said. "I wish I knew how to make you like me, Isabel."
"I don"t allow you to call me Isabel!" she retorted, struggling to free herself from his hold. "Let go of my arm. You hurt me."
Moody dropped her arm with a bitter sigh. "I don"t know how to deal with you," he said simply. "Have some pity on me!"
If the steward had known anything of women (at Isabel"s age) he would never have appealed to her mercy in those plain terms, and at the unpropitious moment. "Pity you?" she repeated contemptuously. "Is that all you have to say to me after hurting my arm? What a bear you are!"
She shrugged her shoulders and put her hands coquettishly into the pockets of her ap.r.o.n. That was how she pitied him! His face turned paler and paler--he writhed under it.
"For G.o.d"s sake, don"t turn everything I say to you into ridicule!" he cried. "You know I love you with all my heart and soul. Again and again I have asked you to be my wife--and you laugh at me as if it was a joke.
I haven"t deserved to be treated in that cruel way. It maddens me--I can"t endure it!"
Isabel looked down on the floor, and followed the lines in the pattern of the carpet with the end of her smart little shoe. She could hardly have been further away from really understanding Moody if he had spoken in Hebrew. She was partly startled, partly puzzled, by the strong emotions which she had unconsciously called into being. "Oh dear me!" she said, "why can"t you talk of something else? Why can"t we be friends? Excuse me for mentioning it," she went on, looking up at him with a saucy smile, "you are old enough to be my father."
Moody"s head sank on his breast. "I own it," he answered humbly. "But there is something to be said for me. Men as old as I am have made good husbands before now. I would devote my whole life to make you happy.
There isn"t a wish you could form which I wouldn"t be proud to obey. You must not reckon me by years. My youth has not been wasted in a profligate life; I can be truer to you and fonder of you than many a younger man.
Surely my heart is not quite unworthy of you, when it is all yours.
I have lived such a lonely, miserable life--and you might so easily brighten it. You are kind to everybody else, Isabel. Tell me, dear, why are you so hard on _me?_"
His voice trembled as he appealed to her in those simple words. He had taken the right way at last to produce an impression on her. She really felt for him. All that was true and tender in her nature began to rise in her and take his part. Unhappily, he felt too deeply and too strongly to be patient, and give her time. He completely misinterpreted her silence--completely mistook the motive that made her turn aside for a moment, to gather composure enough to speak to him. "Ah!" he burst out bitterly, turning away on his side, "you have no heart."
She instantly resented those unjust words. At that moment they wounded her to the quick.
"You know best," she said. "I have no doubt you are right. Remember one thing, however, that though I have no heart, I have never encouraged you, Mr. Moody. I have declared over and over again that I could only be your friend. Understand that for the future, if you please. There are plenty of nice women who will be glad to marry you, I have no doubt.
You will always have my best wishes for your welfare. Good-morning.
Her Ladyship will wonder what has become of me. Be so kind as to let me pa.s.s."
Tortured by the pa.s.sion that consumed him, Moody obstinately kept his place between Isabel and the door. The unworthy suspicion of her, which had been in his mind all through the interview, now forced its way outwards to expression at last.
"No woman ever used a man as you use me without some reason for it," he said. "You have kept your secret wonderfully well--but sooner or later all secrets get found out. I know what is in your mind as well as you know it yourself. You are in love with some other man."
Isabel"s face flushed deeply; the defensive pride of her s.e.x was up in arms in an instant. She cast one disdainful look at Moody, without troubling herself to express her contempt in words. "Stand out of my way, sir!"--that was all she said to him.
"You are in love with some other man," he reiterated pa.s.sionately. "Deny it if you can!"
"Deny it?" she repeated, with flashing eyes. "What right have you to ask the question? Am I not free to do as I please?"
He stood looking at her, meditating his next words with a sudden and sinister change to self-restraint. Suppressed rage was in his rigidly set eyes, suppressed rage was in his trembling hand as he raised it emphatically while he spoke his next words.
"I have one thing more to say," he answered, "and then I have done. If I am not your husband, no other man shall be. Look well to it, Isabel Miller. If there _is_ another man between us, I can tell him this--he shall find it no easy matter to rob me of you!"
She started, and turned pale--but it was only for a moment. The high spirit that was in her rose brightly in her eyes, and faced him without shrinking.
"Threats?" she said, with quiet contempt. "When you make love, Mr.
Moody, you take strange ways of doing it. My conscience is easy. You may try to frighten me, but you will not succeed. When you have recovered your temper I will accept your excuses." She paused, and pointed to the table. "There is the letter that you told me to leave for you when I had sealed it," she went on. "I suppose you have her Ladyship"s orders.
Isn"t it time you began to think of obeying them?"
The contemptuous composure of her tone and manner seemed to act on Moody with crushing effect. Without a word of answer, the unfortunate steward took up the letter from the table. Without a word of answer, he walked mechanically to the great door which opened on the staircase--turned on the threshold to look at Isabel--waited a moment, pale and still--and suddenly left the room.
That silent departure, that hopeless submission, impressed Isabel in spite of herself. The sustaining sense of injury and insult sank, as it were, from under her the moment she was alone. He had not been gone a minute before she began to be sorry for him once more. The interview had taught her nothing. She was neither old enough nor experienced enough to understand the overwhelming revolution produced in a man"s character when he feels the pa.s.sion of love for the first time in the maturity of his life. If Moody had stolen a kiss at the first opportunity, she would have resented the liberty he had taken with her; but she would have thoroughly understood him. His terrible earnestness, his overpowering agitation, his abrupt violence--all these evidences of a pa.s.sion that was a mystery to himself--simply puzzled her. "I"m sure I didn"t wish to hurt his feelings" (such was the form that her reflections took, in her present penitent frame of mind); "but why did he provoke me? It is a shame to tell me that I love some other man--when there is no other man.
I declare I begin to hate the men, if they are all like Mr. Moody. I wonder whether he will forgive me when he sees me again? I"m sure I"m willing to forget and forgive on my side--especially if he won"t insist on my being fond of him because he is fond of me. Oh, dear! I wish he would come back and shake hands. It"s enough to try the patience of a saint to be treated in this way. I wish I was ugly! The ugly ones have a quiet time of it--the men let them be. Mr. Moody! Mr. Moody!" She went out to the landing and called to him softly. There was no answer. He was no longer in the house. She stood still for a moment in silent vexation.
"I"ll go to Tommie!" she decided. "I"m sure he"s the more agreeable company of the two. And--oh, good gracious! there"s Mr. Hardyman waiting to give me my instructions! How do I look, I wonder?"
She consulted the gla.s.s once more--gave one or two corrective touches to her hair and her cap--and hastened into the boudoir.
CHAPTER VI.
FOR a quarter of an hour the drawing-room remained empty. At the end of that time the council in the boudoir broke up. Lady Lydiard led the way back into the drawing-room, followed by Hardyman, Isabel being left to look after the dog. Before the door closed behind him, Hardyman turned round to reiterate his last medical directions--or, in plainer words, to take a last look at Isabel.
"Plenty of water, Miss Isabel, for the dog to lap, and a little bread or biscuit, if he wants something to eat. Nothing more, if you please, till I see him to-morrow."
"Thank you, sir. I will take the greatest care--"
At that point Lady Lydiard cut short the interchange of instructions and civilities. "Shut the door, if you please, Mr. Hardyman. I feel the draught. Many thanks! I am really at a loss to tell you how gratefully I feel your kindness. But for you my poor little dog might be dead by this time."
Hardyman answered, in the quiet melancholy monotone which was habitual with him, "Your Ladyship need feel no further anxiety about the dog.
Only be careful not to overfeed him. He will do very well under Miss Isabel"s care. By the bye, her family name is Miller--is it not? Is she related to the Warwickshire Millers of Duxborough House?"
Lady Lydiard looked at him with an expression of satirical surprise.
"Mr. Hardyman," she said, "this makes the fourth time you have questioned me about Isabel. You seem to take a great interest in my little companion. Don"t make any apologies, pray! You pay Isabel a compliment, and, as I am very fond of her, I am naturally gratified when I find her admired. At the same time," she added, with one of her abrupt transitions of language, "I had my eye on you, and I had my eye on her, when you were talking in the next room; and I don"t mean to let you make a fool of the girl. She is not in your line of life, and the sooner you know it the better. You make me laugh when you ask if she is related to gentlefolks. She is the orphan daughter of a chemist in the country. Her relations haven"t a penny to bless themselves with, except an old aunt, who lives in a village on two or three hundred a year. I heard of the girl by accident. When she lost her father and mother, her aunt offered to take her. Isabel said, "No, thank you; I will not be a burden on a relation who has only enough for herself. A girl can earn an honest living if she tries; and I mean to try"--that"s what she said. I admired her independence," her Ladyship proceeded, ascending again to the higher regions of thought and expression. "My niece"s marriage, just at that time, had left me alone in this great house. I proposed to Isabel to come to me as companion and reader for a few weeks, and to decide for herself whether she liked the life or not. We have never been separated since that time. I could hardly be fonder of her if she were my own daughter; and she returns my affection with all her heart. She has excellent qualities--prudent, cheerful, sweet-tempered; with good sense enough to understand what her place is in the world, as distinguished from her place in my regard. I have taken care, for her own sake, never to leave that part of the question in any doubt. It would be cruel kindness to deceive her as to her future position when she marries. I shall take good care that the man who pays his addresses to her is a man in her rank of life. I know but too well, in the case of one of my own relatives, what miseries unequal marriages bring with them. Excuse me for troubling you at this length on domestic matters. I am very fond of Isabel; and a girl"s head is so easily turned. Now you know what her position really is, you will also know what limits there must be to the expression of your interest in her. I am sure we understand each other; and I say no more."
Hardyman listened to this long harangue with the immovable gravity which was part of his character--except when Isabel had taken him by surprise.
When her Ladyship gave him the opportunity of speaking on his side, he had very little to say, and that little did not suggest that he had greatly profited by what he had heard. His mind had been full of Isabel when Lady Lydiard began, and it remained just as full of her, in just the same way, when Lady Lydiard had done.
"Yes," he remarked quietly, "Miss Isabel is an uncommonly nice girl, as you say. Very pretty, and such frank, unaffected manners. I don"t deny that I feel an interest in her. The young ladies one meets in society are not much to my taste. Miss Isabel is my taste."
Lady Lydiard"s face a.s.sumed a look of blank dismay. "I am afraid I have failed to convey my exact meaning to you," she said.
Hardyman gravely declared that he understood her perfectly. "Perfectly!"
he repeated, with his impenetrable obstinacy. "Your Ladyship exactly expresses my opinion of Miss Isabel. Prudent, and cheerful, and sweet-tempered, as you say--all the qualities in a woman that I admire.
With good looks, too--of course, with good looks. She will be a perfect treasure (as you remarked just now) to the man who marries her. I may claim to know something about it. I have twice narrowly escaped being married myself; and, though I can"t exactly explain it, I"m all the harder to please in consequence. Miss Isabel pleases me. I think I have said that before? Pardon me for saying it again. I"ll call again to-morrow morning and look at the dog as early as eleven o"clock, if you will allow me. Later in the day I must be off to France to attend a sale of horses. Glad to have been of any use to your Ladyship, I am sure.
Good-morning."
Lady Lydiard let him go, wisely resigning any further attempt to establish an understanding between her visitor and herself.