The Talisman Ring

before her invention gave out and her cousin was able to interpolate a remark. He observed that since the Duke had gone to the guillotine, her fate, had she married him, would have been a melancholy one.

In this opinion, however, Eustacie could not concur. To have become a widow at the age of eighteen would, she held, have been йpatant, and of all things the most romantic. “Moreover,” she added, “it was a very good match. I should have been a duchess, and although Grandpapa says—said—that it is vulgar to care for such things, I do think that I should have liked to have been a duchess.”

“Oh, I agree with you, ma chиre!” he said cordially. “You would have made a charming duchess. But in these revolutionary times one must moderate one’s ideas, you know. Consider, instead, the advantages of becoming a baroness.”

“A baroness?” she faltered, fixing her eyes on his face with an expression of painful intensity. “What do you mean?”

He met her eyes with slightly raised brows, and for a moment stood looking down at her as though he were trying to read her thoughts. “My dear cousin, what in the world have I said to alarm you?” he asked.

Recollecting herself, she answered quickly: “I am not at all alarmed, but I do not understand what you mean. Why should I think about being a baroness?”

He pulled up a chair and sat down on it, rather nearer to her than she liked, and stretching out his hand laid it on one of hers. “I might make you one,” he said.

She sat as straight and as stiff as a wooden puppet, but her cheeks glowed with the indignation that welled up in her. The glance she bent on him was a very fiery one, and she said bluntly: “You are not a baron, you!”

“We don’t know that,” he replied, “but we might find out. In fact, I have already recommended Tristram to do so.”

“You mean that you would like very much to know that Ludovic is dead?”

He smiled. “Let us say rather than I should like very much to know whether he is dead, my dear.”

She repressed the impulse to throw off his hand, and said in a thoughtful voice: “Yes, I suppose you want to be Lord Lavenham. It is very natural.”

He shrugged. “I do not set great store by it, but I should be glad of the title if it could win me the one thing I want.”

This was too much for Eustacie, and she did pull her hand away, exclaiming: “Voyons, do you think I marry just for a title, me?”

“Oh no, no, no!” he said, smiling. “You would undoubtedly marry for love were it possible, but you have said yourself that your situation is awkward, and, alas, I know that you are not in love with me. I am offering a marriage of expediency, and when one is debarred from a love-match, dear cousin, it is time to give weight to material considerations.”

“True, very true!” she said. “And you have given weight to them, n’est-ce pas? I am an heiress, as you reminded me yesterday.”

“You are also enchanting,” he said, with unwonted feeling.

“Merci du compliment! I regret infinitely that I do not find you enchanting, too.”

“Ah, you are in love with romance!” he replied. “You imagine to yourself some hero of adventure, but it is a sad truth that in these humdrum days such people no longer exist.”

“You know nothing of the matter: they do exist!” said Eustacie hotly.

“They would make undesirable husbands,” he remarked. “Take poor Ludovic, for instance, whose story has, I believe, a little caught your fancy. You think him a very figure of romance, but you would be disappointed in him if ever you met him, I dare say.”

She blushed, and turned her face away. “I do not wish to talk of Ludovic. I do not think of him at all.”

He looked amused. “My dear, is it as bad as that? I should not—I really should not waste a moment’s thought on him. One is sorry for him, one even liked him, but he was nothing but a rather stupid young man, after all.”

She compressed her lips tightly, as though afraid some unguarded words might escape her. He watched her for a moment, and presently said: “Do you know, you look quite cross, cousin? Now, why?”

She replied, keeping her gaze fixed on a blazing log of wood in the grate: “It does not please me that you should suppose I am in love with someone I have never seen. It is a betise.”

“It would be,” he agreed. “Let us by all means banish Ludovic from our minds, and talk, instead, of ourselves. You want certain things, Eustacie, which I could give you.”

“I do not think it.”

“It is nevertheless true. You would like a house in town, and to lead precisely the life I lead. You could not support the thought of becoming Tristram’s wife, because he would expect you to be happy in Berkshire, rearing his children. Now, I should not expect anything so dull of you. Indeed, I should deprecate it. I do not think the domestic virtues are very strong in me. I should require only of my wife that her taste in dress should do me justice.”

“You propose to me a manage de convenance” said Eustacie, “and I have made up my mind that that is just what I do not want.”

“I proposed to you what I thought might be acceptable. Forget it! I love you.”

She got up quickly, a vague idea of flight in her mind. He, too, rose, and before she could stop him, put his arms round her. “Eustacie!” he said. “From the moment of first laying eyes on you I have loved you!”

An uncontrollable shudder ran through her. She wrenched herself out of his embrace, and cast him such a glance of repulsion that he stepped back, the smile wiped suddenly from his face.

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, but after a slight pause the ugly gleam vanished, and he was smiling again. He moved away to the other side of the fireplace, and drawled: “It seems that you do not find me so sympathetic as you would have had me believe, cousin. Now, I wonder why you wanted to come here today?”

“I thought you would advise me. I did not suppose that you would try to make love to me. That is quite another thing!”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Is it? But I think—yes, I think I have once or twice before informed you of my very earnest desire to marry you.”

“Yes, but I have said already that I will not. It is finished.”

“Perfectly,” he bowed. “Let us talk of something else. There was something I had in mind to ask you, as I remember. What can it have been? Something that intrigued me.” He half closed his eyes, as though in an effort of memory. “Something to do with your flight from the Court ... ah yes, I have it! The mysterious groom! Who was the mysterious groom, Eustacie?”

The question came as a shock to her; her heart seemed to leap in her chest. To gain time she repeated: “The mysterious groom?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “The groom who did not exist. Do tell me!”

“Oh!” she said, with a rather artificial laugh, “that is my very own adventure, and quite a romantic history! I assure you. How did you know of it?”

“In the simplest way imaginable, my dear cousin. My man Gregg fell in with a certain riding-officer at Cowfold yesterday, and from him gleaned this most interesting tale. I am consumed by curiosity. A groom whom you vouched for, and whom Tristram vouched for, and who yet did not exist.”

“Well, truly, I think it was wrong of me to save him from the riding-officer,” confessed Eustacie, with a great air of candour, “but you mist understand that I was under an obligation to him. One pays one’s debts, after all!”

“Such a sentiment does you credit,” said the Beau affably. “What was the debt?”

“Oh, the most exciting thing!” she replied. “I did not tell you the whole yesterday, because Sarah’s brother is a Justice of the Peace, and one must be careful, but I was captured by smugglers that night, and but for the man I saved I should have been killed. Murdered, you know. Conceive of it!”

“How very, very alarming for you!” said the Beau.

“Yes, it was. There were a great many of them, and they were afraid I should betray them, and they said I must at once be killed. Only this one—the one I said was my groom—took my part, and he would not permit that I should be killed. I think he was the leader, because they listened to him.”

“I never till now heard that chivalry existed amongst smugglers,” remarked the Beau.

“No, but he was not a preux chevalier, you know. He was quite rough, and not at