Bath Tangle

beg your pardon, but—we should not suit!”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the ring. “You have no need to beg my pardon: I will beg yours instead. The truth is that we both made a mistake. I wish you extremely happy, and I feel sure you will be—but Mr Goring is quite right: there’s plenty of time before you need think of marriage. As for your reputation, and your sisters, and all the rest of that nonsense, you needn’t regard it!” He glanced at the ring in his hand, and said: “I think you had better keep this—but wear it on another finger!”

“Oh, thank you!” gasped Emily naively.

He turned from her, to confront Mrs Floore, who had heaved herself up out of her chair, and was eyeing him with sharp suspicion. He grinned at her. “Don’t worry, ma’am! All that you would like to say to me, and a great deal more, has already been hurled at my head, and I fancy there is more to come. I am delighted to have made your acquaintance, and I trust that—next year, perhaps—I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you, and Emily, of course, at Rotherham House! By the way, don’t send a notice to the papers! I shall be sending one that will obviate the necessity, and will convince the world that I have treated Emily abominably—which, I own, I have!”

“So that’s it, is it?” said Mrs Floore. “Of all the impudence! Well, I’m sorry for her, that’s all! And I hope with all my heart that she’ll lead you such a dance as will put you in your place once and for all!”

“She will do her best. Pay me a visit when you come to town, Goring, and we’ll put the gloves on. You shall tell me, too, how you enjoyed taking care of Lady Serena: you had my sympathy!”

A brief bow, and he was gone. Half an hour later, he was being admitted to the house in Laura Place by Fanny’s footman. He found the butler in the drawing-room, engaged in lighting the candles in the wall-sconces. “Masterly, Lybster!” he said. “Go and tell the Lady Serena that although you did not let me in I am nevertheless here, and should like to see her immediately!”

“Her ladyship, my lord,” said Lybster, with an apologetic cough, “informed me that if your lordship should happen to cross the threshold, she would partake of dinner in her bedchamber.”

“Did she, by God? Go and tell her ladyship that if she does not come down to me, I shall go up to her!”

“Yes, my lord—if your lordship insists!” said Lybster, and departed.

He did not return, but within five minutes Serena swept into the room, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes far too fierce to suit the dove-grey gown she was wearing. “How—dare—you send me insolent messages by my own servants?” she demanded.

“I thought that would fetch you down,” he remarked, walking forward.

“Yes, and you will be shortly extremely sorry that it did! If you think, Ivo—”

This speech ended abruptly. Not only was she roughly jerked into Rotherham’s arms, but her mouth was crushed under his. For a moment or two, she strained every muscle to break free, and then, quite suddenly, the fight went out of her, and she seemed to melt into his embrace. It tightened ruthlessly, and only relaxed sufficiently to allow her to get her breath when Rotherham at last raised his head, and looked down into her eyes.

“Well, you beautiful, bad-tempered thorn in my flesh! Well? Have you done scolding yet?”

She lay against his arm, her head flung back on his shoulder, her eyes glinting at him under their curved lids. “Detestable creature! Mannerless, conscienceless, overbearing, selfish, arrogant—oh, how much I dislike you!” she sighed. “And how much you dislike me! I’d as lief be mauled by a tiger! You’re mad, too. Never were you more thankful to be rid of anything than of me! Own it! All these years—!”

“Never!” he assented fervently. “I swore then that never again would I put it in your power to drive me to the brink of insanity with your obstinate, headstrong, willful, intolerable conduct! But it’s no use, Serena! don’t you know that? I thought I had torn you out of my heart—I thought you were nothing to me but an old friend’s daughter—until—What made you do it, Serena? What crazy folly made you do it?”

The smile vanished from her eyes. “O God, I don’t know! I meant it, Ivo! When I saw him again—oh, I felt I was a girl—a nineteen-year-old! Perhaps it was because I was so lonely, perhaps because he still loved me so much, thought me a goddess, flattered me—oh, Ivo, worshipped me as you never did, I’ll swear!”

“No, I don’t worship you,” he said, mocking her. “I know you for what you are, you enchanting termagant! And what you are I can’t exist without! I saw him worshipping you, poor devil, and shutting his eyes to your imperfections! I pitied him, but I held him in contempt as well, because what is most admirable in you he liked least! I’ll open no gates for you, my girl! you’ll take any fence I take, and we’ll clear it neck and neck!” He felt the response in the quiver that ran through her, and laughed, and kissed her again. “You may set the country alight, if you choose, but ride rough-shod over me you will not, if we fight from cockcrow to sundown!”

“Ivo, Ivo!” she whispered, turning her face into his shoulder. She seemed to struggle with herself, and looked up at last, to say: “I cannot—I must not! It is too base—and oh, what would Papa say to me for behaving ungentlemanly! Ivo, I have been Hector’s dream!”

“It’s a dream he has awakened from, believe me!” he said dryly. “Lord, Serena, the clever fool that you are! Stop mouthing fustian to me, or I’ll shake some sense into you! Haven’t you seen what has been going on under your nose? Your calflove doesn’t want to be your husband! He is hoping to God he may become your father-in-law!”

She stared at him with knit brows; then she began to laugh. He kissed her again, heard a slight sound, and looked over her head towards the door. Major Kirkby, quietly entering the room, was standing with one hand on the door, watching them.

“I don’t beg your pardon, Kirkby,” Rotherham said. “I am reclaiming my own property.”

Serena pulled herself out of his arms, and went towards the Major, her hands held out: “Hector, forgive me! I have used you so shamefully: I think I must be the most fickle wretch alive!”

He took her hands and kissed them. “Not as fickle as I! Nor such a crass fool! My dear, I wish you happy with all my heart! You are a grander creature than any I ever dreamed of.”

She smiled. “Only I am not your dear. And you are the kindest and best of men, but not my love!”

He was still holding her hands, rather flushed, a rueful look in his eye. “There is something—I don’t know how to tell you! I must appear worse than a fool!”

“I’ve told her already,” interposed Rotherham. “I see no need to wish you happy: you will both be extremely happy!” He held out his hand, and gripped the Major’s, saying, with his derisive smile: “Do you own at last that I was right, when I told Spenborough seven years ago that you and Serena would never suit? When I met you again, in this house, I came prepared to dislike you profoundly: I ended the evening most sincerely pitying you! You are too good a man for such a termagant, Kirkby!”

“How like you—how very like you!” Serena said. Her eyes went to the door. “Fanny! Oh, foolish Fanny, why didn’t you tell me to take my claws out of Hector weeks ago? My dear, you were made for one another!”

“Oh, Serena, I feel a traitress!” Fanny said, her eyes brimming over.

“No, why should you? I’m afraid you will be shocked, my dear, but I am going to marry the odious Marquis after all!”

“Hector said it would be so,” Fanny said, sighing. “I do so much hope that you will be happy, dearest!”

“You don’t depend upon it, however, Lady Spenborough?”

She blushed rosily. “Oh, no, no! I mean, yes! Only it has always seemed to me that you held one another in positive aversion!”

“Acute of you!”

She had never known how to take his abrupt, incomprehensible remarks, and was always flurried by them. She said quickly: “I am so very glad you have made up your differences! My lord would have been so happy!” She saw Serena’s face quiver, and added at once: “Only, how very awkward it will be for you! How shall you advertise it? For you will be dreadfully roasted, you know, if you, announce your engagement for the second time!”

Serena turned laughing eyes towards Rotherham. “Fanny is perfectly right! Shall we say that the engagement between the Marquis of Rotherham and the Lady Serena Carlow has been