It was dusk and the landscape was dim, with a grey mist rising off the ground. The lamps on the chaise had been lit, and a comfortable glow came from the windows of the small inn.
“Vidal, can we not stay here for the night?” asked Miss Marling in a fading voice.
His lordship was speaking to one of the ostlers. He finished what he had to say, and then came leisurely towards his cousin. He had put on his greatcoat, an affair of buff-coloured cloth, with three capes at the shoulders. “Tired?” he said.
“Of course I am tired, stupid creature!” replied Miss Marling.
“Go into the inn,” he commanded. “We dine here.”
“I vow I could not eat a morsel!”
He did not pay any heed to this, but walked back to say something to his groom. Miss Marling, hating him, flounced into the km, and was escorted by the landlord to a private parlour. A fire had been kindled in the grate, and Juliana drew up a chair and sat down, spreading her chilled fingers to the warmth.
Presently the Marquis came in. He flung his greatcoat over a chair, and kicked the smouldering logs to a small blaze. “That’s better,” he said briskly.
“You have made it smoke,” remarked Miss Marling in a voice of long suffering.
He looked down at her with a hint of a smile. “You’re hungry, and devilish cross, Ju.”
Her bosom swelled. “You have treated me abominably,” she said.
“Fiddle!” replied the Marquis.
“You let me be jolted and bumped till the teeth rattled in my head. You thrust me into your odious chaise as though I were a mere piece of baggage, and you have not the civility to stay with me.”
“I never drive when I can ride,” said his lordship indifferently.
“I make no doubt at all that had I been Mary Challoner you would have been glad enough to have borne me company!”
The Marquis was snuffing one of the candles, but he looked up at that, and there was a glint in his eye. “That, my dear, is quite another matter,” he said.
Miss Marling told him roundly that he was the rudest creature she had ever met and when he only laughed, she launched into a speech of some length.
He interrupted her to say: “My good cousin, do you wish to catch up with our two runaways, or not?”
“Of course I do! But must we travel at this shocking speed? They cannot reach Dijon for two or three days, and we’ve time enough, I should have thought, to come up with them.”
“I want to overtake them to-night,” Vidal said grimly. “They are not three hours ahead of us now.”
“What! Have we gained on them so fast? Then I take it all back, Vidal, every word. Let us go on at once!”
“We’ll dine first,” answered his lordship.
“How,” demanded Juliana tragically, “can you suppose that I could
“Do you know,” said the Marquis gently, “I find you excessively tedious, Juliana. You complain of the speed at which I choose to travel; you talk a deal of damned nonsense about my incivility and your sensibilities; you spurn dinner as though it were poisoned; you behave in short like a heroine out of a melodrama.”
Miss Marling was prevented from replying by the entrance of two serving-men. Covers were laid, and chairs placed at the table. The men withdrew, and Miss Marling said carefully: “You have a vast deal to say in my dispraise, Vidal. Pray, is it to be expected that I should feel no agitation? To be sure, I am sorry I complained of the speed, but to be left hour upon hour alone in a jolting chaise is enough to try the patience even of a Mary Challoner.”
“No,” said his lordship. A reminiscent smile softened his mouth for a brief moment. “Come and sit down.”
She came, but told him that a glass of wine to revive her was all that was needed.
The Marquis shrugged. “Just as you please, cousin.”
Miss Marling sipped her wine, and watched his lordship carve the capon. She shuddered, and said that she wondered at him. “For my part,” she added, “I should have thought any gentleman of the least sensibility would have refrained from—from gorging when the lady in his company—”
“Ah, but I’m not a gentleman,” said the Marquis. “I have it on the best of authority that I am only a nobleman.”
“Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?” cried his cousin, instantly diverted.
“Mary,” replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine.
“Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I’m not surprised,” said Juliana viciously. “If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must have undergone at your hands.”
“Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings,” answered the Marquis. “She underwent much, but it may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do.”
“Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she is just a dull creature with no nerves at all.”
For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: “She knew.” His lip curled. He glanced scornfully at his cousin. “Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a bullet through me.”
“Tried to put a bullet through you, Dominic?” repeated Miss Marling incredulously. “I never heard a word of this before!”
“It is not a story that I should be likely to tell, since it don’t redound to my credit,” said Vidal drily. “But when you sit there full of airs and graces because you’ve been jolted over a bad road, and sneer at Mary—”
“I didn’t sneer!” said Juliana hastily. “I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?”
“Yes,” said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. “You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you
Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. “Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!” she said, frightened by the expression in his face.
He laughed. “Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.”
She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. “I—I wish I hadn’t come with you!” she said.
“So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid. And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.”
Juliana drew a long breath. “Of course, I didn’t think that you would really force me to eat,” she said. “You— you merely startled me.”
“Well, I shall force you if you don’t take care,” said his lordship. He carved a slice of breast, and handed it to her. “Don’t be tiresome, Juliana. Eat it, and forget your sensibilities. You’ve not much time.”
Juliana took the plate meekly. “Oh, very well,” she said. “I must say, Dominic, if you looked at Mary in that dreadful threatening way I can almost forgive her for running off with Frederick.” She stole a sidelong look at him. “You were not very kind to Mary, apparently.”
“Kind!” ejaculated Vidal. “No, I was not—kind.”
Juliana ate another morsel of capon. “You seem to me to have behaved as though you hated her,” she remarked.
He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. “You’re very anxious to get her in your power again, Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?”
She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the
