"Then I must discuss the matter with Rosalie. It is not to be discussed with you."
"You mean that you will exercise your authority in the matter?"
"In England, my dear girl, the master of a house is still sometimes guilty of exercising authority in matters which concern the reputation of his female relatives. In the absence of your father, I shall not allow you, while you are under my roof, to endanger your name in any degree. I am, at least, your brother by marriage. I intend to protect you."
"Thank you," said Betty.
"You are young and extremely handsome, you will have an enormous fortune, and you have evidently had your own way all your life. A girl, such as you are, may either make a magnificent marriage or a ridiculous and humiliating one. Neither American young women, nor English young men, are as disinterested as they were some years ago. Each has begun to learn what the other has to give."
"I think that is true," commented Betty.
"In some cases there is a good deal to be exchanged on both sides. You have a great deal to give, and should get exchange worth accepting. A beggared estate and a tainted t.i.tle are not good enough."
"That is businesslike," Betty made comment again.
Sir Nigel laughed quietly.
"The fact is--I hope you won"t misunderstand my saying it--you do not strike me as being UN-businesslike, yourself."
"I am not," answered Betty.
"I thought not," rather narrowing his eyes as he watched her, because he believed that she must involuntarily show her hand if he irritated her sufficiently. "You do not impress me as being one of the girls who make unsuccessful marriages. You are a modern New York beauty--not an early Victorian sentimentalist." He did not despair of results from his process of irritation. To gently but steadily convey to a beautiful and spirited young creature that no man could approach her without ulterior motive was rather a good idea. If one could make it clear--with a casual air of sensibly taking it for granted--that the natural power of youth, wit, and beauty were rendered impotent by a greatness of fortune whose proportions obliterated all else; if one simply argued from the premise that young love was no affair of hers, since she must always be regarded as a gilded chattel, whose cost was writ large in plain figures, what girl, with blood in her veins, could endure it long without wincing?
This girl had undue, and, as he regarded such matters, unseemly control over her temper and her nerves, but she had blood enough in her veins, and presently she would say or do something which would give him a lead.
"When you marry----" he began.
She lifted her head delicately, but ended the sentence for him with eyes which were actually not unsmiling.
"When I marry, I shall ask something in exchange for what I have to give."
"If the exchange is to be equal, you must ask a great deal," he answered. "That is why you must be protected from such fellows as Mount Dunstan."
"If it becomes necessary, perhaps I shall be able to protect myself,"
she said.
"Ah!" regretfully, "I am afraid I have annoyed you--and that you need protection more than you suspect." If she were flesh and blood, she could scarcely resist resenting the implication contained in this. But resist it she did, and with a cool little smile which stirred him to sudden, if irritated, admiration.
She paused a second, and used the touch of gentle regret herself.
"You have wounded my vanity by intimating that my admirers do not love me for myself alone."
He paused, also, and, narrowing his eyes again, looked straight between her lashes.
"They ought to love you for yourself alone," he said, in a low voice.
"You are a deucedly attractive girl."
"Oh, Betty," Rosy had pleaded, "don"t make him angry--don"t make him angry."
So Betty lifted her shoulders slightly without comment.
"Shall we go back to the house now?" she said. "Rosalie will naturally be anxious to hear that what has been done in your absence has met with your approval."
In what manner his approval was expressed to Rosalie, Betty did not hear this morning, at least. Externally cool though she had appeared, the process had not been without its results, and she felt that she would prefer to be alone.
"I must write some letters to catch the next steamer," she said, as she went upstairs.
When she entered her room, she went to her writing table and sat down, with pen and paper before her. She drew the paper towards her and took up the pen, but the next moment she laid it down and gave a slight push to the paper. As she did so she realised that her hand trembled.
"I must not let myself form the habit of falling into rages--or I shall not be able to keep still some day, when I ought to do it," she whispered. "I am in a fury--a fury." And for a moment she covered her face.
She was a strong girl, but a girl, notwithstanding her powers. What she suddenly saw was that, as if by one movement of some powerful unseen hand, Rosy, who had been the centre of all things, had been swept out of her thought. Her anger at the injustice done to Rosy had been as nothing before the fire which had flamed in her at the insult flung at the other. And all that was undue and unbalanced. One might as well look the thing straightly in the face. Her old child hatred of Nigel Anstruthers had sprung up again in ten-fold strength. There was, it was true, something abominable about him, something which made his words more abominable than they would have been if another man had uttered them--but, though it was inevitable that his method should rouse one, where those of one"s own blood were concerned, it was not enough to fill one with raging flame when his malignity was dealing with those who were almost strangers. Mount Dunstan was almost a stranger--she had met Lord Westholt oftener. Would she have felt the same hot beat of the blood, if Lord Westholt had been concerned? No, she answered herself frankly, she would not.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
A GREAT BALL
A certain great ball, given yearly at Dunholm Castle, was one of the most notable social features of the county. It took place when the house was full of its most interestingly distinguished guests, and, though other b.a.l.l.s might be given at other times, this one was marked by a degree of greater state. On several occasions the chief guests had been great personages indeed, and to be bidden to meet them implied a selection flattering in itself. One"s invitation must convey by inference that one was either brilliant, beautiful, or admirable, if not important.
Nigel Anstruthers had never appeared at what the uninvited were wont, with derisive smiles, to call The Great Panjandrum Function--which was an ironic designation not employed by such persons as received cards bidding them to the festivity. Stornham Court was not popular in the county; no one had yearned for the society of the Dowager Lady Anstruthers, even in her youth; and a not too well-favoured young man with an ill-favoured temper, noticeably on the lookout for grievances, is not an addition to one"s circle. At nineteen Nigel had discovered the older Lord Mount Dunstan and his son Tenham to be congenial acquaintances, and had been so often absent from home that his neighbours would have found social intercourse with him difficult, even if desirable. Accordingly, when the county paper recorded the splendours of The Great Panjandrum Function--which it by no means mentioned by that name--the list of "Among those present" had not so far contained the name of Sir Nigel Anstruthers.
So, on a morning a few days after his return, the master of Stornham turned over a card of invitation and read it several times before speaking.
"I suppose you know what this means," he said at last to Rosalie, who was alone with him.
"It means that we are invited to Dunholm Castle for the ball, doesn"t it?"
Her husband tossed the card aside on the table.
"It means that Betty will be invited to every house where there is a son who must be disposed of profitably.
"She is invited because she is beautiful and clever. She would be invited if she had no money at all," said Rosy daringly. She was actually growing daring, she thought sometimes. It would not have been possible to say anything like this a few months ago.
"Don"t make silly mistakes," said Nigel. "There are a good many handsome girls who receive comparatively little attention. But the hounds of war are let loose, when one of your swollen American fortunes appears. The obviousness of it "virtuously" makes me sick. It"s as vulgar--as New York."
What befel next brought to Sir Nigel a shock of curious enlightenment, but no one was more amazed than Rosy herself. She felt, when she heard her own voice, as if she must be rather mad.
"I would rather," she said quite distinctly, "that you did not speak to me of New York in that way."
"What!" said Anstruthers, staring at her with contempt which was derision.
"It is my home," she answered. "It is not proper that I should hear it spoken of slightingly."
"Your home! It has not taken the slightest notice of you for twelve years. Your people dropped you as if you were a hot potato."
"They have taken me up again." Still in amazement at her own boldness, but somehow learning something as she went on.