“If I, for instance, had not previously been made prize of?”
“No—you would have had no patience with her caprices. How dare you smile like that? I have none, sir. No, but I think that a husband like Arthur would have made her a better wife.”
“Arthur has chosen much better.”
“Yes, I know you think Laura perfection. What a pity it was that she was too young for you.”
“She was not. But do you think it a pity?”
“You know what I think. And I love you better for loving her, for she is a darling in word and in deed.”
“What on earth does that mean?” said Charles Hawkesley, laughing. “I never heard such an unearthly arrangement of ideas. A darling in word and in deed.”
“Be quiet,” said Beatrice, smiling, “It is one of my pet phrases, and I won’t have it found fault with. I know when you did not find fault with it.”
“What—was I ever one?”
“No. But somebody was foolish enough to tell you so. And it is like your ingratitude to have forgotten it.”
“I never forget anything. And I agree with you, that though it would have been rather throwing away Arthur Lygon to hand him over to a girl who wanted so much done to her head and her heart, he would perhaps have been more successful than Urquhart. But possibly, Bettina, we may be begging the question after all, and in secret Robert Urquhart and his wife may be devoted lovers, preserving their appearance of distance when before the world.”
“There, now, that is another of your book-writing notions—don’t be angry, darling, you write beautiful books, and you don’t want me at this time of day to tell you I think so—but people do not do those things. I defy a couple of people to love one another, and not let the world see it. Why one look, or one tone, when they are off their guard, tells the whole story. I only wish I could recall to my memory any single thing of that kind in the house at Versailles.”
“You easily might, for we were there for a fortnight.”
“Don’t be a goose.”
“Very well. By the way, are Arthur and his wife coming here on Saturday?”
“Why should they come to an empty house?”
“Do you call that any kind of answer which a decent man is bound to take at his own table? What do you mean, woman?”
“I mean Burnham Beeches.”
“Eh? O!”
“Now, you mean Burnham Beeches.”
“No I do not. I mean to ask you whether you seriously purpose to take advantage of a promise wrung from a man who was hungering and thirsting for a cigar, and whose case, as it is generally believed, you had hidden away in order to extort an excursion?”
“Of course I do. We will go on Saturday, and we will stay on Sunday at Mr. Skindell’s, go to church, dine quietly, and in the evening go on the water. And come—I will make the affair perfect for you—I will go round presently and see whether Laura will come with us and being Arthur.”
“And bring Arthur! And we spent twenty millions in liberating the blacks. However, let us rattle our chains—do as you like.”
“I knew Laura’s name would be a charm.”
“So it is, and—well remembered—here is another charm, which I will bestow upon you.”
Beatrice joined her hands, and caught the trinket.
“How very pretty. An hour-glass, with a pair of wings. Oh, thanks. Did you buy it for me?”
“Of course not. I found it between the leaves of a book at the British Museum.”
“Story. It’s quite new. I thought perhaps that one of your actresses might have given it to you, in gratitude for writing her a good part.”
“You retain very vague notions about the manners and customs of those artists. However, it was not given me by one of my actresses,—I found it in Cockspur Street.”
“Nonsense!”
“Yes, indeed, and in company with a quantity of lovely coral, and behind a thick sheet of plate glass.”
“It is very pretty; but you need not buy any more ornaments for me. I have got quite enough. A winged hour-glass! What does it mean?”
“It means,” said the author rising, and getting to the door, “that the Hawkesleys, of Maida Hill, ought to have finished breakfast before eleven o’clock.”
And he darted out of the room, followed by a merry threat and laugh.
CHAPTER XV.
In company with Arthur Lygon, we will shortly leave Lipthwaite for a time. Brief as his sojourn there had been, it seemed to him that an age had elapsed since he left Gurdon Terrace, and hurried indeed were his preparations for departure, now that he had obtained, as he believed, a clue to his wife’s hiding-place. The only process which he permitted to delay him was the taking leave of Clara, who looked very disconsolate at the idea of being left in the charge of Mrs. Berry, and who had, perhaps, apprehensions that the venomous old Aunt Empson might make her re-appearance when there was no papa present to protect his child. However, Mr. Lygon gave her the most consolatory promises of his speedy return for her, and of the gift of a certain vast and splendidly-furnished doll’s house, once seen in a beatific vision in the Lowther Arcade, and up to that time a thing to be whispered about, not dreamed of as a possession. And, finally, the assurance that her mother would be greatly pleased by Clara’s showing that she could conduct herself like a lady in the absence of her parents, completed the moral strengthening, and Miss Lygon, wiping her eyes, declared herself equal to the endurance proposed to her.
“I need hardly ask,” said Arthur Lygon to Mr. and Mrs. Berry, “that not a word on the subject of Mrs. Lygon may be said to Clara until I return.”
“Not a syllable,” said Mr. Berry.
