He had been to Paris, then, thought Vansittart. He could afford to take his pleasure in that holiday capital, while his daughters were on short commons at Fernhurst.
“Was Paris very full?” asked Vansittart.
“I hardly know. I met a good many people I know. One meets more Englishmen than Parisians on the boulevards at this season. April is the Englishman’s month. Your neighbour, Mr. Sefton, was at the Continental—in point of fact, he and I went to Paris together.”
This explained matters to Vansittart. No doubt Sefton paid the bills for both travellers.
“Mr. Sefton is not a neighbour of mine, but of my sister’s,” he said. “My father and his father were good friends before I was born, but I know nothing of this gentleman.”
“A mutual loss,” replied the Colonel. “Sefton is a very fine fellow, as I told you the last time you were here. You can hardly fail to get on with him when you do make his acquaintance.”
“I saw him at the hunt ball, and I must confess that I was not favourably impressed by his manner.”
“Sefton’s manner is the worst part of him,” conceded Colonel Marchant. “He has been spoilt by Dame Fortune, and is inclined to be arrogant. An only child, brought up in the expectation of wealth, and taught by a foolish mother to believe that a landed estate and a fine income constitute a kind of royalty. Sefton might easily be a worse fellow than he is. For my own part, I cannot speak too warmly of him. He has been a capital neighbour, the best neighbour we had, until Lady Hartley was good enough to take a fancy to my girls.”
“I hope you don’t compare Lady Hartley with Mr. Sefton, father,” cried the impulsive Hetty. “There is more kindness in a cup of tea from Lady Hartley than in all the game, and fruit, and trout, and things with which Mr. Sefton loads us.”
“They are enthusiasts, these girls of mine,” said the Colonel, blandly. “Lady Hartley has made them her creatures.”
“Her name reminds me that I must be moving on,” said Vansittart. “I hope you will all forgive this invasion. I was anxious to learn how you all were. It seems a long time since I was in this part of the world.”
“It is a long time,” said Eve, almost involuntarily.
Those few words rejoiced his heart. They sounded like a confession that she had missed him and regretted him, since those long friendly walks and talks in the clear cold January afternoons. He had never in all their conversation spoken to her in the words of a lover, but he had shown her that he liked her society, and it might be that she had thought him cold and cowardly when he left her without any token of warmer feeling than this casual friendship of the roads, lanes, and family tea-table. To go away, and stay away for three months, and make no sign! A cruel treatment, if, if, in those few familiar hours, he had touched her girlish heart by the magnetic power of unspoken love.
He left the Homestead happy in the thought that she was not indifferent to the fact of his existence; that he was something more to her than a casual acquaintance.
He was to see her next day; and it would be his own fault if he did not see her the day after that; and the next, and the next; until the solemn question had been asked, and the low-breathed answer had been given, and she was his forever. All was in his own hand now. He had but to satisfy himself upon one point—her acquaintance with Sefton, what it meant, and how far it had gone—and then the rest was peace, the perfect peace of happy and confiding love.
He was unfilial enough to be glad that his mother was not at Redwold. There would be no restraining influence, no maternal arm stretched out to pluck him from his fate. He would be free to fulfil his destiny; and when the fair young bride was won, it would be easy for her to win her own way into that motherly heart. Mrs. Vansittart was not a woman to withhold her affection from her son’s wife.
Lady Hartley appeared in the portico as the cart drove up to the door.
“What a fright you have given me!” she said. “Did anything happen to the train?”
“Nothing but what usually happens to trains.”
“But you are an hour late.”
“I called on Colonel Marchant. It never occurred to me that you could be uneasy on my account, or I should not have stopped on the way. I am very sorry, my dear Maud,” he concluded, as he kissed her in the hall.
“You are not cured of your infatuation, Jack.”
“Not cured, or likely to be cured, in your way. I have heard nothing but your praises, Maud. You seem to have been a fairy godmother to those motherless girls.”
“Have I not? How did you like their appearance? Did you see any improvement?”
“A monstrous improvement. They were all neatly dressed, and in one colour.”
“That was my doing, Jack.”
“Really! But how did you manage it, without wounding their feelings?”
“My tact, Jack, my exquisite tact,” cried Maud, gaily.
They were in her morning-room by this time, and Vansittart sank into a low armchair, prepared to hear all she had to tell. Maud had generally a great deal to say to her brother after an interval of severance.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” she began. “It grieved me to see those poor girls in their coats of many colours, or rather in their assemblage of colours among the five sisters, so I felt I must do something. I was always looking at them, and thinking how much better I
