She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break loose—easy enough to overturn the two old fogies—but—how soon “but” comes, “but” came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father. She remembered her mother’s worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of the ancient and medieval Pamments.
But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you are likely to make a woman do anything?
Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII, was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly on the ground.
Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the old gentleman’s hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears came into his eyes.
Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
“Raw,” thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh’s shoulder. “Very raw piece.”
To some young gentlemen a girl is a “piece.”
“My granddaughter,” said Iden, getting his voice.
“Ah, yes; like to see the galleries—fond of pictures—”
Amaryllis was silent.
“Answer,” said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, “you may.”
“No,” said Amaryllis.
“Hum—let’s see—books—library—carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the place better than I do, you’re an antiquarian and a scholar—I’ve forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?”
“She is fond of pictures,” said Iden, greatly flattered that he should be thought to know the house better than the heir. “She is fond of pictures; she’s shy.”
Amaryllis’ face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her utterance.
Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at arm’s-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the beauties of the picture.
“A grand thing—look,” said he.
“I can’t see,” said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
“Not see!” said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
“Not a good light, perhaps,” said Raleigh. “Come this side.”
She did not move.
“Go that side,” said Iden.
No movement.
“Go that side,” he repeated, sharply.
At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
“Look up,” said Iden. She looked up hastily—above the canvas, and then again at the floor.
Iden’s dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together; Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden’s mind; only consider, intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection would be an immense honour.
Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the mistress.
There is no one so cruel—so utterly inhuman—as an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
“Now you can see,” he said, softly and kindly. “Is it not noble?”
“It looks smoky,” said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last and looking her grandfather in the face.
“Smoky!” he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous rebellion.
“Smoky,” he repeated.
“Smoky and—dingy,” said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing that Raleigh’s gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
Now there was nothing in Raleigh’s manner to give offence—on the contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant—but she remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the “Lamb” and it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures, and his place altogether with marked contempt.
“I do not care for these pictures,” she said. “I will leave now, if you please,” and she moved towards the door.
“Stop!” cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her. “Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!”
He could not catch her, she had left the gallery—he slipped in his haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
“Ungrateful!” he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled, and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he would have spat upon the floor.
Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
“Pardon me, Miss Iden,” he said, as she hastily descended. “Really I should have liked you to have seen the house—will you sit down a moment? Forgive me if I said or did—. No, do stay—please—” as she made straight for the hall. “I am so sorry—really sorry—unintentional”—in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. “At least let me see you through the fair—rough people. Let me open the door—”
The iron-studded door in the
