While Lucilla made this rapid summary of affairs and took her stand in her own mind, Mr. Cavendish had taken a chair and had opened the conversation. He hoped he had not been entirely forgotten, though a fortnight’s absence was a severe tax on anybody’s memory—
“A fortnight!” said Miss Marjoribanks; “how happy you must have been while you have been away!—for I assure you a month is a month at Carlingford; and one does not get such ornaments in two weeks,” said Lucilla, putting her hand to her chin, which made Mr. Cavendish laugh, and look more nervous than ever.
“It is a souvenir of where I have been,” he said. “I could imagine I had been gone two years, judging by my own feelings. I am so pleased to see that you remember how long it is. I dare say it looked a little droll running away so, but I dared not trust myself with leave-takings,” Mr. Cavendish said, with an air of sentiment. “I have been watching over a poor friend of mine on his sickbed. He was once very good to me, and when he sent for me I could not delay or refuse him. I found he had telegraphed for me when I got home the last Thursday evening I was here,” he continued, looking Lucilla full in the face with the candour of conscious truth—though, to be sure, when people are stating a simple fact, it is seldom that they take the pains to be so particular. “I started by the night-train, and crossed the Channel while you were all fast asleep. I wonder if anyone gave me a thought,” continued Mr. Cavendish; and it was still more and more impressed upon Lucilla that he had all the signs of a man who had come to propose.
“I cannot say about that night in particular, but I am sure a great many people have given you a thought,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “We have all been wondering what had become of you, where you were, and when you were coming back. So far as I am concerned, I have missed you dreadfully,” said Lucilla, with her usual openness; and she really thought for a moment that Mr. Cavendish in a sudden transport was going down on his knees.
“I scarcely hoped for so much happiness,” he said; and though he kept up the tone proper to good society, which might mean sport or earnest according as the occasion required, there was a certain air of gratitude and tenderness in his face which sent Lucilla’s active mind a-wondering. “He is thinking of the music-stand,” she said to herself, and then went on with what she was saying; for though Miss Marjoribanks had a very good opinion of herself, it had not occurred to her that Mr. Cavendish was very deeply in love—with her, at all events.
“Ah, yes—not only for the flirting, you know, which of itself is a dreadful loss; but then you were so good in keeping the gentlemen to their duty. I missed you dreadfully—there has been nobody at all to help me,” said Lucilla. Her tone was so genuinely plaintive that Mr. Cavendish grew more and more moved. He put down his hat, he cleared his throat, he got up and walked to the window—evidently he was getting up his courage for the last step.
“But I heard you had some distinguished strangers here,” he said, coming back to his seat without having, as it appeared, made up his mind. “My sister wrote—that is to say I heard—I really don’t remember how I got the news; a dean, or bishop, or something—?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Archdeacon Beverley; he came precisely the night you went away,” said Lucilla. “Didn’t you see him? I thought you stayed till after he came into the room. A nice clergyman is very nice, you know; but, after all, a man who has some experience in society—and we have had no music to speak of since you went away. Poor dear Barbara has had such a bad cold. In short, we have all been at sixes and sevens; and the Archdeacon—”
“Oh, never mind the Archdeacon,” said Mr. Cavendish, and Miss Marjoribanks felt that he had not winced at the name, though he did glance up at her in spite of himself with a little gleam in his eyes when she mentioned Barbara Lake. Perhaps this was because he knew nothing about the Archdeacon, perhaps because he was prepared to hear the Archdeacon named. Lucilla did not give him all the benefit of the uncertainty, for she began to get a little impatient, and to wonder, if the man had come to propose, as appearances suggested, why he did not do it and get done with it?—which was a very reasonable question. This time, however, it certainly was coming. “I don’t like nice clergymen,” said Mr. Cavendish, “especially not when it is you who find them so. If I could really flatter myself that you missed me—”
“We all did,” said Lucilla; “there is no compliment about
