"Are you—the—the—L. C.?" demanded the maiden of ten lustres, casting her eyes to the ground with virgin modesty.
"L. C. ar——My dear madam, I don't quite understand you," faltered Belle, taken aback for once in his life.
"Was it not you," faltered the fair one, shaking out a pocket-handkerchief that sent a horrible odor of musk to the olfactory nerves of poor Belle, most fastidious connoisseur in perfume, "who advertised for a kindred heart and sympathetic soul?"
"Really, my good lady," began Belle, still too aghast by the chestnut front to recover his self-possession.
"Because," simpered his inamorata, too agitated by her own feelings to hear his horrible appellative, keeping him at bay there with the fatal milestone behind him and the awful brown stuff in front of him—"because I, too, have desired to meet with some elective affinity, some spirit-tie that might give me all those more subtle sympathies which can never be found in the din and bustle of the heartless world; I, too, have pined for the objects of your search—love and domestic happiness. Oh, blessed words, surely we might—might we not?——"
She paused, overcome with maidenly confusion, and buried her face in the musk-scented handkerchief. Tom and I, where we stood perdus, burst into uncontrollable shouts of laughter. Poor Belle gave one blank look of utter terror at the tout ensemble of brown stuff, straw poke, and chestnut front. He forgot courtesy, manners, and everything else; his lips were parted, with his small white teeth glancing under his silky moustaches, his sleepy eyes were open wide, and as the maiden lady dropped her handkerchief, and gave him what she meant to be the softest and most tender glance, he turned straight round, sprang on his bay, and rushed down the Yarmouth road as if the whole of the dignitaries of the church and law were tearing after him to force him nolens volens into carrying out the horrible promise in his cursed line in the Daily. What was Tom's and my amazement to see the maiden lady seat herself astride on the milestone, and join her cachinnatory shouts to ours, fling her green veil into a hawthorn tree, jerk her bonnet into our faces, kick off her brown stuff into the middle of the road, tear off her chestnut front and yellow mask, and perform a frantic war-dance on the roadside turf. No less a person than that mischievous monkey and inimitable mimic Little Nell!
"You young demon!" shouted Gower, shrieking with laughter till he cried. "A pretty fellow you are to go tricking your senior officer like this. You little imp, how can you tell but what I shall court-martial you to-morrow?"
"No, no, you won't!" cried Little Nell, pursuing his frantic dance. "Wasn't it prime? wasn't it glorious? wasn't it worth the Kohinoor to see? You won't go and peach, when I've just given you a better farce than all old Buckstone's? By Jove! Belle's face at my chestnut front! This'll be one of his prime conquests, eh? I say, old fellows, when Charles Mathews goes to glory, don't you think I might take his place, and beat him hollow, too?"
When we got back to barracks, we found Belle prostrate on his sofa, heated, injured, crestfallen, solacing himself with Seltzer-and-water, and swearing away anything but mildly at that "wretched old woman." He bound us over to secrecy, which, with Little Nell's confidence in our minds, we naturally promised. Poor Belle! to have been made a fool of before two was humiliation more than sufficient for our all-conquering blondin. For one who had so often refused to stir across a ball-room to look at a Court beauty, to have ridden out three miles to see an old maid of fifty with a chestnut front! The insult sank deep into his soul, and threw him into an abject melancholy, which hung over him all through mess, and was not dissipated till a letter came to him from Mrs. Greene's, when we were playing loo in Fairlie's room. That night Fairlie was in gay spirits. He had called at Fern Chase that morning, and though he had not been able to see Geraldine alone, he had passed a pleasant couple of hours there, playing pool with her and her sisters, and had been as good friends as ever with his old playmate.
"Well, Belle," said he, feeling good-natured even with him that night, "did you get any good out of your advertisement? Did your lady turn out a very pretty one?"
"No: deuced ugly, like the generality," yawned poor Belle, giving me a kick to remind me of my promise. Little Nell was happily about the city somewhere with Pretty Face, or the boy would scarcely have kept his countenance.
"What amusement you can find in hoaxing silly women," said Fairlie, "is incomprehensible to me. However, men's tastes differ, happily. Here comes another epistle for you, Belle; perhaps there's better luck for you there."
"Oh! I shall have no end of letters. I sha'n't answer any more. I think it's such a deuced trouble. Diamonds trumps, eh?" said Belle, laying the note down till he should have leisure to attend to it. Poor old fellow! I dare say he was afraid of another onslaught from maiden ladies.
"Come, Belle," said Glenville; "come, Belle, open your letter; we're all impatience. If you won't go, I will in your place."
"Do, my dear fellow. Take care you're not pounced down upon by a respectable papa for intentions, or called to account by a fierce brother with a stubby beard," said Belle, lazily taking up the letter. As he did so, the melancholy indolence on his face changed to eagerness.
"The deuce! the Vane crest!"
"A note of invitation, probably?" suggested Gower.
"Would they send an invitation to Patty Greene's? I tell you it's addressed to L. C.," said Belle, disdainfully, opening the letter, leaving its giant deer couchant intact. "I thought it very likely; I expected it, indeed—poor little dear! I oughtn't to have let it out. Ain't you jealous, old fellows? Little darling! Perhaps I may be tricked into matrimony after all. I'd rather a presentiment that advertisement would come to something. There, you may all look at it, if you like."
It was a dainty sheet of scented cream-laid, stamped with the deer couchant, such as had brought us many an invitation down from Fern Chase, and on it was written, in delicate caligraphy:
"G. V. understands the meaning of the advertisement, and will meet L. C. at the entrance of Fern Wood, at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning."
There was a dead silence as we read it; then a tremendous buzz. Cheaply as we held women, I don't think there was one of us who wasn't surprised at Geraldine's doing any clandestine thing like this. He sat with a look of indolent triumph, curling his perfumed moustaches, and looking at the little autograph, which gave us evidence of what he often boasted—Geraldine Vane's regard.
"Let me look at your note," said Fairlie, stretching out his hand.
He soon returned it, with a brief, "Very complimentary indeed!"
When the men left, I chanced to be last, having mislaid my cigar-case. As I looked about for it, Fairlie addressed me in the same brief, stern tone between his teeth with which he spoke to Belle.
"Hardinge, you made this absurd bet with Courtenay, did you not? Is this note a hoax upon him?"
"Not that I know of—it doesn't look like it. You see there is the Vane crest, and the girl's own initials."
"Very true." He turned round to the window again, and leaned against it, looking out into the dawn, with a look upon his face that I was very sorry to see.
"But it is not like Geraldine," I began. "It may be a trick. Somebody may have stolen their paper and crest—it's possible. I tell you what I'll do to find out; I'll follow