Her interest in him seemed promising. He replied conscientiously, "Beyond the duties of General of Brigade, I could not, I say I could not, dare to aspire; I can accept and execute orders; I shrink from responsibility!"
"It is a pity," said she, "that you were not, like my nephew Reginald, entirely dependent on your profession."
She laid such stress on her remark, that the General, who had just expressed a very modest estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject the flattery of her a.s.suming him to be a man of some fortune. He coughed, and said, "Very little." The thought came to him that he might have to make a statement to her in time, and he emphasized, "Very little indeed. Sufficient," he a.s.sured her, "for a gentlemanly appearance."
"I have given you your warning," was her inscrutable rejoinder, uttered within earshot of the young people, to whom, especially to Elizabeth, she was gracious. The damsel"s boating uniform was praised, and her sunny flush of exercise and exposure.
Lady Camper regretted that she could not abandon her parasol: "I freckle so easily."
The General, puzzling over her strange words about a warning, gazed at the red rose of art on her cheek with an air of profound abstraction.
"I freckle so easily," she repeated, dropping her parasol to defend her face from the calculating scrutiny.
"I burn brown," said Elizabeth.
Lady Camper laid the bud of a Falcot rose against the young girl"s cheek, but fetched streams of colour, that overwhelmed the momentary comparison of the sunswarthed skin with the rich dusky yellow of the rose in its deepening inward to soft brown.
Reginald stretched his hand for the privileged flower, and she let him take it; then she looked at the General; but the General was looking, with his usual air of satisfaction, nowhere.
CHAPTER III
"Lady Camper is no common enigma," General Ople observed to his daughter.
Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her, for at her suggestion the General had bought a couple of horses, that she might ride in the park, accompanied by her father or the little groom. Still, the great lady was hard to read. She tested the resources of his income by all sorts of instigation to expenditure, which his gallantry could not withstand; she encouraged him to talk of his deeds in arms; she was friendly, almost affectionate, and most bountiful in the presents of fruit, peaches, nectarines, grapes, and hot-house wonders, that she showered on his table; but she was an enigma in her evident dissatisfaction with him for something he seemed to have left unsaid. And what could that be?
At their last interview she had asked him, "Are you sure, General, you have nothing more to tell me?"
And as he remarked, when relating it to Elizabeth, "One might really be tempted to misapprehend her ladyship"s . . . I say one might commit oneself beyond recovery. Now, my dear, what do you think she intended?"
Elizabeth was "burning brown," or darkly blushing, as her manner was.
She answered, "I am certain you know of nothing that would interest her; nothing, unless . . ."
"Well?" the General urged her.
"How can I speak it, papa?"
"You really can"t mean . . ."
"Papa, what could I mean?"
"If I were fool enough!" he murmured. "No, no, I am an old man. I was saying, I am past the age of folly."
One day Elizabeth came home from her ride in a thoughtful mood. She had not, further than has been mentioned, incited her father to think of the age of folly; but voluntarily or not, Lady Camper had, by an excess of graciousness amounting to downright invitation; as thus, "Will you persist in withholding your confidence from me, General?" She added, "I am not so difficult a person." These prompting speeches occurred on the morning of the day when Elizabeth sat at his table, after a long ride into the country, profoundly meditative.
A note was handed to General Ople, with the request that he would step in to speak with Lady Camper in the course of the evening, or next morning.
Elizabeth waited till his hat was on, then said, "Papa, on my ride to- day, I met Mr. Rolles."
"I am glad you had an agreeable escort, my dear."
"I could not refuse his company."
"Certainly not. And where did you ride?"
"To a beautiful valley; and there we met . . "
"Her ladyship?"
"Yes."
"She always admires you on horseback."
"So you know it, papa, if she should speak of it."
"And I am bound to tell you, my child," said the General, "that this morning Lady Camper"s manner to me was . . . if I were a fool . . .
I say, this morning I beat a retreat, but apparently she . . . I see no way out of it, supposing she . . ."
"I am sure she esteems you, dear papa," said Elizabeth. "You take to her, my dear?" the General inquired anxiously; "a little?--a little afraid of her?"
"A little," Elizabeth replied, "only a little."
"Don"t be agitated about me."
"No, papa; you are sure to do right."
"But you are trembling."
"Oh! no. I wish you success."
General Ople was overjoyed to be reinforced by his daughter"s good wishes. He kissed her to thank her. He turned back to her to kiss her again. She had greatly lightened the difficulty at least of a delicate position.
It was just like the imperious nature of Lady Camper to summon him in the evening to terminate the conversation of the morning, from the visible pitfall of which he had beaten a rather precipitate retreat. But if his daughter cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the crown of it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good commander who has to pa.s.s a fordable river in the enemy"s presence; a dash, a splash, a rattling volley or two, and you are over, established on the opposite bank. But you must be positive of victory, otherwise, with the river behind you, your new position is likely to be ticklish.
So the General entered Lady Camper"s drawing-room warily, watching the fair enemy. He knew he was captivating, his old conquests whispered in his ears, and her reception of him all but pointed to a footstool at her feet. He might have fallen there at once, had he not remembered a hint that Mr. Reginald Rolles had dropped concerning Lady Camper"s amazing variability.
Lady Camper began.
"General, you ran away from me this morning. Let me speak. And, by the way, I must reproach you; you should not have left it to me. Things have now gone so far that I cannot pretend to be blind. I know your feelings as a father. Your daughter"s happiness . . ."
"My lady," the General interposed, "I have her distinct a.s.surance that it is, I say it is wrapt up in mine."
"Let me speak. Young people will say anything. Well, they have a certain excuse for selfishness; we have not. I am in some degree bound to my nephew; he is my sister"s son."
"a.s.suredly, my lady. I would not stand in his light, be quite a.s.sured.
If I am, I was saying if I am not mistaken, I . . . and he is, or has the making of an excellent soldier in him, and is likely to be a distinguished cavalry officer."
"He has to carve his own way in the world, General."