"I shall do my best to stop it,—to put an end to the idea at once, for Peggy's sake," Sir Anthony retorted folding up his papers with a determined air. "Why, the fellow must be three times her age, if there were nothing else."
Judith sighed. "I am afraid that sometimes to a girl like Peggy that is part of the attraction."
"It is an absurd, an unheard-of thing, that they should try to settle the affair," Sir Anthony grumbled, paying scant heed to his wife's remarks. "Peggy can't have known him a month, and here is my stepmother writing that the engagement, as she calls it, has her warmest approval. While as for Alethea she positively seems to imagine that I shall be grateful to her for having brought it about. I shall give them both a piece of my mind. I shall tell them—Why!"—getting up and going over to the window—"who is this, coming through the rosary? It looks like—I declare it is Stephen Crasster. What in the world brings him down here?" He opened the window as he spoke, and stepped out on to the terrace. "Stephen, old man, is that you?" he called out in my heartiest greeting. "You have come in the nick of time, for I have just heard a piece of news that has taken away my appetite for breakfast."
With her quick womanly intuition, Judith knew what the news would mean to the man who was coming towards them across the rosery, his keen kindly face bright with smiles. She went out on the terrace too; touched her husband's arm.
"I would not speak of it yet, Anthony; they—Peggy might not like it, I mean," stammering a little as she met his astonished gaze. "Something might happen to prevent it."
"No such luck," Sir Anthony said ruefully. "They mean it to be announced formally next week unless I can put a spoke in the wheel."
"Bad news! Have you?" Stephen questioned as he stepped on to the terrace. "Nothing very bad, I trust. How do you do, Lady Carew"—a certain formality creeping into his tone—"For my own part I hope, Anthony, old man, that you may consider I am the bearer of good news this morning. I am conceited enough to think you will. You see before you the new owner of Talgarth."
"What!" Anthony exclaimed with a great laugh, and a hearty squeeze of his friend's hand, while Judith caught herself up in an exclamation that betokened anything but pleasure, and bit her lip. "You don't mean to say that it is settled? How quiet about it you have been. Why didn't you tell me you were thinking of it?"
"I had a fancy for surprising you," Stephen smiled. "And you knew I was looking out for something in the neighbourhood. I have had my eye on Talgarth for some time. Do you remember we rode over to see it on our way to Mereham Park?"
Certainly Crasster's news had the effect of diverting Sir Anthony's mind from Peggy's misdeeds. His countenance lighted up. He looked thoroughly pleased.
"I remember. It will want a lot of doing up, but there are endless possibilities about the old place, and if you got it cheap I daresay you will do very well there. I know Judith and Peggy always say it is the prettiest place in the county."
"I know they do," Crasster assented. "I hope they will honour me by coming over some day soon and suggesting improvements."
"Why, of course they will," Sir Anthony began hastily; then his countenance clouded over. "That is to say, they will if anything happens to prevent Peggy from carrying out this wild scheme of hers. That is what is upsetting me. I have only just heard of it."
Stephen Crasster's grey eyes twinkled. "What scheme of Peggy's do you mean? I have heard nothing of it. What has she been doing now?"
"Worse than ever," Sir Anthony grumbled dismally. "She is going to marry Lord Chesterman."
"What!" The exclamation sounded almost like a groan as it broke from Crasster.
Judith, watching, saw that his dark face had paled suddenly beneath its tan.
"Peggy is going to marry this new Lord Chesterham," Sir Anthony repeated, his tone growing more aggrieved. "How in the world she and Alethea can think I am likely to approve of such a match for her I am at a loss to imagine. Had you any idea that such a thing was in contemplation, Crasster?"
"I? Not the slightest," Stephen answered quietly. After that first movement of involuntary self-betrayal he had dropped as it were a mask over his features. "It is rather sudden, isn't it?"
"Sudden? Of course it is sudden," Sir Anthony said impatiently. "She didn't know him when we left town. And now Alethea sends me word she is engaged to a man I never saw and never heard any good of. Do you know anything of him?"
"I have met him, I think," Stephen said slowly, drawing his dark brows together thoughtfully. "Yes, he was at the Derehams'. He is a good-looking man."
"Good-looking!" Sir Anthony repeated scornfully. "What do I care about that? I want to know what sort of a man he is."
"I am afraid I can't help you there," Crasster said, forcing an apparent lightness into his manner. But, more earnestly, "my knowledge of Peggy tells me that there must be some good in him if Peggy loves him."
"I don't feel so sure about that," Sir Anthony growled. "Peggy wouldn't be the first girl who has been made a fool of. Well, well, I suppose talking won't mend matters. And, anyhow, it is a great thing to know we are going to have you for a neighbour, Stephen, old fellow. How soon do you expect to be down?"
A slight change passed over Stephen's face. "I am down now, that is to say, I am staying in the house and seeing into things generally; there is a lot that wants doing. But I haven't any intention of settling at Talgarth for the present. I am too fond of my profession for that. When I have finished the necessary improvements, I must look about for a suitable tenant, or dispose of it in some way. Perhaps"—with a little laugh in which only Judith's quick ear detected any bitterness—"I may give it to Peggy for a wedding present."
"Nonsense!" Sir Anthony tore the greater part of his correspondence across and threw it into the wastepaper basket. "Nonsense, my dear fellow. You will have to settle down yourself and receive our wedding presents instead. I used to think—"
He was interrupted. Jenkins opened the door and announced Lady Palmer. That lady fluttered in with outstretched hands, and her pretty uncertain smile.
"You must not blame Jenkins, dear Lady Carew. I insisted on being shown in to you at once. I have just heard this delightful news from Alethea, and I felt I must come over at once and offer my congratulations."
Judith submitted with as good a grace as she could to the little airy touch on her cheek which passed for a kiss. Sir Anthony frowned.
"Alethea has been in a hurry," he said shortly. "I have not given my consent yet, and I am Peggy's guardian conjointly with her mother, a fact Alethea seems to forget."
"Oh, I am sure she doesn't. Only you couldn't but approve of this marriage," Lady Palmer rejoined with a deprecating smile. "Lord Chesterham is a great parti. He is the most perfectly charming man, besides being enormously rich, and his title is among the oldest in the country. Our little Peggy will be a very great lady, the envy of all her contemporaries."
"Will she indeed?" Sir Anthony questioned ironically. "I suppose the fact that Lord Chesterham is three times her age, and that he bears a bad reputation will not be taken into consideration."
Lady Palmer opened her great dark eyes to their fullest extent. "Dear Anthony, what does age matter? If Peggy is willing to overlook the little disparity, certainly it does not seem to me that it matters to anyone else. As to Lord Chesterham's reputation, well, you must not rake up old scandals. And now I must confess I had another, a selfish reason, for coming over this morning. I have had a letter to say that some of my jewels—the sapphires poor dear Palmer gave me on my first birthday after our marriage—were heirlooms. Now I know—"
"But, my dear Sybil, I have heard from Spencer, and he says—" Sir, Anthony drew her outside on the terrace.
Judith glanced at Stephen Crasster. In the clear morning light his pleasant dark face looked worn a little weary. He laughed a trifle cynically as he looked after the two