"I didn"t want telling," she said placidly. "I knew it was all safe."
"Then you knew what only the G.o.ds knew--for I only got in by seventeen votes."
"Yes, so I heard. I was very sorry for Burrows."
She put one foot on the stone fender, raised her pretty dress with one hand, and leant the other lightly against the mantelpiece. The att.i.tude was full of grace, and the little sighing voice fitted the curves of a mouth which seemed always ready to laugh, yet seldom laughed frankly.
As she made her remark about Burrows Tressady smiled.
"My prophetic soul was right," he said deliberately; "I knew you would be sorry for Burrows."
"Well, it _is_ hard on him, isn"t it? You can"t deny you"re a carpet-bagger, can you?"
"Why should I? I"m proud of it."
Then he looked round him. The rest of the party--not without whispers and smothered laughter--had withdrawn from them. Some of the ladies had already gone up to dress. The men had wandered away into a little library and smoking-room which opened on the hall. Only the squire, safe in a capacious armchair a little way off, was absorbed in a local paper and the last humours of the election.
Satisfied with his glance, Tressady put his hands into his pockets, and leant back against the fireplace, in a way to give himself fuller command of Miss Sewell"s countenance.
"Do you never give your friends any better sympathy than you have given me in this affair, Miss Sewell?" he said suddenly, as their eyes met.
She made a little face.
"Why, I"ve been an angel!" she said, poking at a prominent log with her foot.
George laughed.
"Then our ideas of angels agree no better than the rest. Why didn"t you come and hear the poll declared, after promising me you would be there?"
"Because I had a headache, Sir George."
He responded with a little inclination, as though ceremoniously accepting her statement.
"May I ask at what time your headache began?"
"Let me see," she said, laughing; "I think it was directly after breakfast."
"Yes. It declared itself, if I remember right, immediately after certain remarks of mine about a Captain Addison?"
He looked straight before him, with a detached air.
"Yes," said Letty, thoughtfully; "it was a curious coincidence, wasn"t it?"
There was a moment"s silence. Then she broke into infectious laughter.
"Don"t you know," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder--"don"t you know that you"re a most foolish and wasteful person? We get along capitally, you and I--we"ve had a rattling time all this week--and then you will go and make uncivil remarks about my friends--in public, too!
You actually think I"m going to let you tell Aunt Watton how to manage me! You get me into no end of a fuss--it"ll take me weeks to undo the mischief you"ve been making--and then you expect me to take it like a lamb! Now, do I look like a lamb?"
All this time she was holding him tight by the arm, and her dimpled face, alive with mirth and malice, was so close to his that a moment"s wild impulse flashed through him to kiss her there and then. But the impulse pa.s.sed. He and Letty Sewell had known each other for about three weeks.
They were not engaged--far from it. And these--the hand on the arm, and the rest--were Letty Sewell"s ways.
Instead of kissing her, then, he scanned her deliberately.
"_I_ never saw anyone more plainly given over to obstinacy and pride,"
he said quietly; "I told you some plain facts about the character of a man whom I know, and you don"t, whereupon you sulk all day, you break all your promises about coming to Malford, and when I come back you call me names."
She raised her eyebrows and withdrew her hand.
"Well, it"s plain, isn"t it? that I must have been in a great rage. It was very dull upstairs, though I did write reams to my best friend all about you--a very candid account--I shall have to soften it down. By the way, are you ever going to dress for dinner?"
George started, and looked at his watch.
"Are we alone? Is anyone coming from outside?"
"Only a few "locals," just to celebrate the occasion. I know the clergyman"s wife"s coming, for she told me she had been copying one of my frocks, and wanted me to tell her what I thought."
George laughed.
"Poor lady!"
"I don"t _think_ I shall be nice to her," said Letty, playing with a flower on the mantelpiece. "Dowdy people make me feel wicked. Well, _I_ must dress."
It was now his turn to lay a detaining hand.
"Are you sorry?" he said, bending over to her. His bright grey eyes had shaken off fatigue.
"For what? Because you got in?"
Her face overflowed with laughter. He let her go. She linked her arm in that of the daughter of the house--Miss Florence Watton--who was crossing the hall at the moment, and the two went upstairs together, she throwing back one triumphant glance at him from the landing.
George stood watching them till they disappeared. His expression was neither soft nor angry. There was in it a mocking self-possession which showed that he too had been playing a part--mingled, perhaps, with a certain perplexity.
CHAPTER II
George Tressady came down very late for dinner, and found his hostess on the verge of annoyance. Mrs. Watton was a large, commanding woman, who seldom thought it worth while to disguise any disapproval she might feel--and she had a great deal of that commodity to expend, both on persons and inst.i.tutions.
George hastened to propitiate her with the usual futilities: he had supposed that he was in excellent time, his watch had been playing tricks, and so on.
Mrs. Watton, who, after all, on this great day beheld in the new member the visible triumph of her dearest principles, received these excuses at first with stiffness, but soon thawed.
"Oh, you _naughty_ boy, you naughty, mendacious boy!" said a sprightly voice in Tressady"s ear. ""Excellent time," indeed! I saw you--for shame!"
And Lady Tressady flounced away from her son, laughing over her shoulder in one of her accustomed poses. She wore white muslin over cherry-coloured silk. The display of neck and shoulders could hardly have been more lavish; and the rouge on her cheeks had been overdone, which rarely happened. George turned from her hurriedly to speak to Lord Fontenoy.
"What a fool that woman is!" thought Mrs. Watton to herself, as her sharp eye followed her guest. "She will make George positively dislike her soon--and all the time she is bound to get him to pay her debts, or there will be a smash. What! dinner? John, will you please take Lady Tressady; Harding, will you take Mrs. Hawkins"--pointing her second son towards a lady in black sitting stiffly on the edge of an ottoman; "Mr.