“I can, and do choose her, above all other women; and if she is as pure and true as I believe her to be, I shall ask her to be my wife. The more disreputable her father, the gladder I shall be to take her away from him—”
“And when her father is your father-in-law how will you deal with him?”
“Leave that problem to me. I am not an idiot, or a youth fresh from the University. I shall know how to meet the difficulty.”
“You will not have that man at Merewood, Jack,” cried Maud, excitedly, “to loaf about my mother’s garden—the garden that is hers now—and to play cards in my mother’s drawing-room?”
“You are running on very fast, Maud. No; if I marry Eve Marchant be assured I shall not keep open house for her father. He has not been so good a parent as to make his claim indisputable.”
“Such a marriage will break mother’s heart,” sighed Maud.
“You know better than that, Maud! You know that only a disreputable marriage would seriously distress my mother, and there can be nothing disreputable in a marriage with a good and pure-minded girl. I promise you that I will not offer myself to Eve Marchant until I feel assured of her perfect truth. There is only one point upon which I have the shadow of a doubt. It seemed to me, from certain trifling indications, that there had been some kind of flirtation between her and Sefton.”
“I cannot quite make that out, Jack,” answered Maud, thoughtfully. “I have seen them together several times since you left. There is certainly something, on his side. He pursues her in a manner—contrives to place himself near her at every opportunity, and puts on a confidential air when he talks to her. I have watched them closely in her interest, for I really like her. I don’t think she encourages him. Indeed I believe she detests him; but she is not as standoffish as she might be; and I have seen her occasionally talking very confidentially with him—as if they had a secret understanding.”
“That’s it,” cried Vansittart, inwardly raging. “There is a secret, and I must be possessed of that secret before I confess my love.”
“And how do you propose to pluck out the heart of the mystery?”
“In the simplest manner—by questioning Eve herself. If she is the woman I think her she will answer me truthfully. If she is false and shifty—why then—I whistle her down the wind, and you will never hear more of this fond dream of mine.”
“Well, Jack, you must go your own way. You were always my master, and I can’t pretend to master you now. You’ll have an opportunity of seeing Eve and Mr. Sefton tomorrow. He is coming to my afternoon. I hope you’ll be civil to him.”
“As civil as I can. I’ll break no bounds, Maud; but I believe the man to be a scoundrel. If he were pursuing Eve with any good motive he would have spoken out before now.”
“Precisely my view of the case. It is shameful to compromise her by motiveless attentions. There goes the gong. I am glad we have had this quiet talk. You will not act precipitately, will you, Jack?” concluded his sister, appealingly, as she moved towards the door.
“I will act as I have said, Maud, not otherwise.”
“Well,” with a sigh, “I believe she will come through the ordeal, and that I am destined to have her for my sister.”
“You have made her love you already. That leaves less work for you in the future.”
“Poor mother! She will be woefully disappointed.”
“True,” said Vansittart; “but as I couldn’t marry all her protégées, perhaps it is just as well I should marry none of them; and be assured I should not love Eve Marchant if I didn’t believe that she would be a good and loving daughter to my mother.”
“Every lover believes as much. It is all nonsense,” said Maud, as she ran off to her dressing-room.
Mr. Sefton made an early appearance at Lady Hartley’s afternoon. He arrived before the Marchants, and when there were only about a dozen people in the long drawing-room, and Vansittart guessed by the way he loitered near a window overlooking the drive that he was on the watch for the sisters.
Lady Hartley introduced her brother to Mr. Sefton, with the respect due to the owner of one of the finest estates in the county, a man of old family and aristocratic connections. Sefton was particularly cordial, and began to make conversation in the most amiable way, a man not renowned for amiability to his equals. The Miss Marchants were announced while he and Vansittart were talking, and Sefton’s attention began to wander immediately, although he continued the discussion of hopes and fears about that by-election which was disturbing every politician’s mind; or which at any rate served as a topic among people who had nothing to say to each other.
Only two out of the three grown-up sisters appeared, Eve and Jenny. The more diplomatic Sophy thought she improved her social status by occasional absence.
Sefton broke away from the conversation at the first opening, and went straight to Eve, who was talking to little Mr. Tivett, arrived that afternoon, no holidays being complete in a country house without such a man as Tivett, with his little thin voice, good nature, and willing to fetch and carry for the weaker sex.
Vansittart stood aloof for a little while, talking to a comfortable matron, who was evidently attached to the landed interest, as her conversation dwelt upon the weather in its relation to agriculture and the lambing season. He could see that Eve received Sefton’s advances with coldest politeness. On her part there was no touch of the earnest and confidential air which had so distressed him that afternoon by the lake. She talked with Sefton for a few minutes, and
