第84章

Lord Silverbridge found his sister alone. 'I particularly want you,' said he, 'to come and call upon Lady Mabel Grex. She wishes to know you, and I am sure you would like her.'

'But I haven't been out anywhere yet,' she said. 'I don't feel as though I wanted to go anywhere.'

Nevertheless she was very anxious to know Lady Mabel Grex, of whom she had heard much. A girl if she has had a former love passage says nothing of it to her new lover; but a man is not so reticent.

Frank Tregear had perhaps not told her everything, but he had told her something. 'I was very fond of her,--very fond of her,' he had said. 'And so I am still,' he had added. 'As you are my love of loves, she is my friend of friends.' Lady Mary had been satisfied by the assurance, but had become anxious to see the friend of friends. She resisted at first her brother's entreaties. She felt that her father in delivering her over to the seclusions of The Horns had intended to preclude her from showing herself in London.

She was conscious that she was being treated with cruelty, and had a certain pride in her martyrdom. She would obey her father to the letter; she would give him no right to call her conduct in question; but he and any other to whom he might entrust the care of her, should be made to know that she thought him cruel. He had his power to which she must submit. But she also had hers,--to which it was possible he might be made to submit. 'I do not know that papa would wish me to go,' she said.

'But it is just what he would wish. He thinks a good deal about Mabel.'

'Why should he think of her at all?'

'I can't exactly explain,' said Silverbridge, 'but he does.'

'If you mean to tell me that Mabel Grex is anything particular to you, and that papa approves of it, I will go round the world to see her.' But he had not meant to tell his this. The request had been made at Lady Mabel's instance. When his sister had spoken of her father's possible objection, then he had become eager in explaining the Duke's feeling, not remembering that such anxiety might betray himself. At that moment Lady Cantrip came in, and the question was referred to her. She did not see any objection to such a visit, and expressed her opinion that it would be a good thing that Mary should be taken out. 'She should begin to go somewhere,' said Lady Cantrip. And so it was decided. On the next Friday he would come down early in his hansom and drive her up to Belgrave Square. Then he would take her to Carlton Terrace, and Lady Cantrip's carriage should pick her up there and bring her home. He would arrange it all.

'What did you think of the American beauty?' asked Lady Cantrip when that was settled.

'I thought she was a beauty.'

'So I perceived. You had eyes for nobody else,' said Lady Cantrip, who had been at the garden-party.

'Somebody introduced her to me, and then I had to walk about the grounds with her. That's the kind of thing one always does in these places.'

'Just so. That is what "those places" are meant for, I suppose.

But it was not apparently a great infliction.' Lord Silverbridge had to explain that it was not an infliction;--that it was a privilege, seeing that Miss Boncassen was both clever and lovely; but that it did not mean anything in particular.

When he took his leave he asked his sister to go out into the grounds with him for a moment. This she did almost unwillingly, fearing that he was about to speak to her of Tregear. But he had no such purpose on his mind. 'Of course you know,' he began, 'all that was nonsense you were saying about Mabel.'

'I did not know.'

'I was afraid you might blurt out something before her.'

'I should not be so imprudent.'

'Girls do make such fools of themselves sometimes. They are always thinking about people being in love. But it is the truth that my father said to me the other day how very much he liked what he had heard of her, and that he would like you to know her.'

On that same evening Silverbridge wrote from the Beargarden the shortest possible note to Lady Mabel, telling her what he had arranged. 'I and Mary propose to call in B. Square on Friday at two. I must be early because of the House. You will give us lunch.

S.' There was no word of endearment,--none of those ordinary words which people who hate each other use to one another. But he received the next day at home a much more kindly-written note from her:

'DEAR LORD SILVERBRIDGE, 'You are so good! You always do just what you think people will like best. Nothing could please me so much as seeing your sister, of whom of course I have heard very very much. There shall be nobody here but Miss Cass.

'Yours most sincerely, M.G.'

'How I do wish I were a man!' his sister said to him when they were in the hansom together.

'You'd have a great deal more trouble.'

'But I'd have a hansom of my own, and go where I pleased. How would you like to be shut up in a place like The Horn?'

'You can go out if you like.'

'Not like you. Papa thinks it's the proper place for me to live in, and so I must live there. I don't think a woman ever chooses how or where she shall live herself.'

'You are not going to take up woman's rights, I hope.'

'I think I shall if I stay at The Horns much longer. What would papa say if he heard that I was going to give a lecture at the Institute?'

'The governor has had so many things to bear that a trifle such as that would make but little difference.'

'Poor papa!'

'He was dreadfully cut up about Gerald. And then he is so good! He said more to me about Gerald than he ever did about my own little misfortune at Oxford; but to Gerald himself he said almost nothing. Now he has forgiven me because he thinks I am constant at the House.'

'And are you?'

'Not so much as he thinks. I do go there,--for his sake. He has been so good about my changing sides.'

'I think you were quite right there.'

'I am beginning to think I was quite wrong. What did it matter to me?'

'I suppose it did make papa unhappy.'