She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did not answer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast, his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, 'Well, 'tisn't my fault,' he said; and then relenting again, 'But there, I know what women are--vapours one day, kissing the next. I'll try again, my lady. I am not proud.'
She flung him a gesture that meant assent, dissent, dismissal, as he pleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering, 'Well, well, have it your own way. I'll go for this time. But hang all prudes, say I,' he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the door on her.
As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and, throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all too sharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whose affections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of the prettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted life with him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? What wonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame, or that she presently passed from the extremity of grief to the extremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George's heartless desertion and more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintz of the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and there choked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?
Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with her back to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stole through the disordered masses of her hair; her face to the empty room. Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him, she could pursue him with a woman's unrelenting spite, she could hound him from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of these things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she had bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weapons that he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effect that, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she would not take.
Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the tool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia's pale face, and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Here was a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she could bring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heard that his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another? and such another that marry almost whom he might she would take precedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought, worthy of a smaller mind than Julia's; but she was a woman, and passionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the general, came home to her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; it would convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that she had taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her a home, a place, a settled position in the world.
She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulse rather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, with trembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of a bell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared her resolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulled frantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the passage, and Mrs. Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.
'Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back,' Julia cried, breathing quickly.
'To come back?'
'Yes! The gentleman who was here now.'
'Oh, yes, the gentleman,' Mrs. Olney murmured. 'Your ladyship wishes him?'
Julia's very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. 'Yes, I wish to see him,' she said imperiously. 'Tell him to come to me!'
She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while the woman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her face set hard, until far down the outer passage--Mrs. Olney had left the door open--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded Lord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitude that made the best of his white silk stockings.
'See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma'am!' he cried. 'To hear was to obey, to obey was to fly! If it's Pitt's diamond you need, or Lady Mary's soap-box, or a new conundrum, or--hang it all! I cannot think of anything else, but command me! I'll forth and get it, stap me if I won't!'
'My lord, it is nothing of that kind,' Julia answered, her voice steady, though her cheeks burned.
'Eh? what? It's not!' he babbled. 'Then what is it? Command me, whatever it is.'
'I believe, my lord,' she said, smiling faintly, 'that a woman is always privileged to change her mind--once.'
My lord stared. Then, gathering her meaning as much from her heightened colour as from her words, 'What!' he screamed. 'Eh? O Lord! Do you mean that you will have me? Eh? Have you sent for me for that? Do you really mean that?' And he fumbled for his spy-glass that he might see her face more clearly.
'I mean,' Julia began; and then, more firmly, 'Yes, I do mean that,' she said, 'if you are of the same mind, my lord, as you were half an hour ago.'
'Crikey, but I am!' Lord Almeric cried, fairly skipping in his joy. 'By jingo! I am! Here's to you, my lady! Here's to you, ducky! Oh, Lord! but I was fit to kill myself five minutes ago, and those fellows would have done naught but roast me. And now I am in the seventh heaven. Ho! ho!' he continued, with a comical pirouette of triumph, 'he laughs best who laughs last. But there, you are not afraid of me, pretty? You'll let me buss you?'
But Julia, with a face grown suddenly white, shrank back and held out her hand.
'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to get near her.
She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand to kiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship will pardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shaken me. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'
'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'
But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, with a little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.
CHAPTER XXVI
BOON COMPANIONS
Lord Almeric flew down the stairs on the wings of triumph, rehearsing at each corner the words in which he would announce his conquest. He found his host and the tutor sitting together in the parlour, in the middle of a game of shilling hazard; which they were playing, the former with as much enjoyment and the latter with as much good-humour as consisted with the fact that Mr. Pomeroy was losing, and Mr. Thomasson played against his will. The weather had changed for the worse since morning. The sky was leaden, the trees were dripping, the rain hung in rows of drops along the rails that flanked the avenue. Mr. Pomeroy cursed the damp hole he owned and sighed for town and the Cocoa Tree. The tutor wished he were quit of the company--and his debts. And both were so far from suspecting what had happened upstairs, though the tutor had his hopes, that Mr. Pomeroy was offering three to one against his friend, when Lord Almeric danced in upon them.
'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me, and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine, and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!'
Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand. 'My dear lord,' he said,