'You are a witch!' he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face.
'Thank you,' she answered, looking at him over her fan. 'Last time you said, "D--n the girl!" It is clear I am improving your manners, Sir George. You are now so polite, that presently you will consult me.'
So she could read his very thoughts! Could set him on the rack! Could perceive when pain and not irritation underlay the oath or the compliment. He was always discovering something new in her; something that piqued his curiosity, and kept him amused. 'Suppose I consult you now?' he said.
She swung her fan to and fro, playing with it childishly, looking at the light through it, and again dropping it until it hung from her wrist by a ribbon. 'As your highness pleases,' she said at last. 'Only I warn you, that I am not the Bottle Conjuror.'
'No, for you are here, and he was not there,' Sir George answered, affecting to speak in jest. 'But tell me; what shall I do in this case? A claim is made against me.'
'It's the bomb,' she said, 'that burst, Sir George, is it not?'
'The same. The point is, shall I resist the claim, or shall I yield to it? What do you say, ma'am?'
She tossed up her fan and caught it deftly, and looked to him for admiration. Then, 'It depends,' she said. 'Is it a large claim?'
'It is a claim--for all I have,' he answered slowly. It was the first time he had confessed that to any one, except to himself in the night watches.
If he thought to touch her, he succeeded. If he had fancied her unfeeling before, he did so no longer. She was red one minute and pale the next, and the tears came into her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried, her breast heaving, 'you should not have told me! Oh, why did you tell me?' And she rose hurriedly as if to leave him; and then sat down again, the fan quivering in her hand.
'But you said you would advise me!' he answered in surprise.
'I! Oh, no! no!' she cried.
'But you must!' he persisted, more deeply moved than he would show. 'I want your advice. I want to know how the case looks to another. It is a simple question. Shall I fight, Julia, or shall I yield to the claim?'
'Fight or yield?' she said, her voice broken by agitation. 'Shall you fight or yield? You ask me?'
'Yes.'
'Then fight! Fight!' she answered, with surprising emotion: and she rose again to her feet. And again sat down. 'Fight them to the last, Sir George!' she cried breathlessly. 'Let the creatures have nothing! Not a penny! Not an acre!'
'But--if it is a righteous claim?' he said, amazed at her excitement.
'Righteous?' she answered passionately. 'How can a claim be righteous that takes all that a man has?'
He nodded, and studied the road awhile, thinking less of her advice than of the strange fervour with which she had given it. At the end of a minute he was surprised to hear her laugh. He felt hurt, and looked up to learn the reason; and was astounded to find her smiling at him as lightly and gaily as if nothing had occurred to interrupt her most whimsical mood; as if the question he had put to her had not been put, or were a farce, a jest, a mere pastime!
'Sho, Sir George,' she said, 'how silly you must think me to proffer you advice; and with an air as if the sky were falling? Do you forgive me?'
'I forgive you _that_,' Sir George answered. But, poor fellow, he winced under her sudden change of tone.
'That is well,' she said confidently. 'And there again, do you know you are changed; you would not have said that a week ago. I have most certainly improved your manners.'
Sir George made an effort to answer her in the same strain. 'Well, I should improve,' he said. 'I come very regularly to school. Do you know how many days we have sat here, _ma belle_?'
A faint colour tinged her cheek. 'If I do not, that dreadful Mr. Thomasson does,' she answered. 'I believe he never lets me go out of his sight. And for what you say about days--what are days, or even weeks, when it is a question of reforming a rake, Sir George? Who was it you named to me yesterday,' she continued archly, but with her eyes on the toe of her shoe which projected from her dress, 'who carried the gentleman into the country when he had lost I don't know how many thousand pounds? And kept him there out of harm's way?'
'It was Lady Carlisle,' Sir George answered drily; 'and the gentleman was her husband.'
It was Julia's turn to draw figures in the dust of the roadway, which she did very industriously; and the two were silent for quite a long time, while some one's heart bumped as if it would choke her. At length--'He was not quite ruined, was he?' she said, with elaborate carelessness; her voice was a little thick--perhaps by reason of the bumping.
'Lord, no!' said Sir George. 'And I am, you see.'
'While I am not your wife!' she answered; and flashed her eyes on him in sudden petulance; and then, 'Well, perhaps if my lady had her choice--to be wife to a rake can be no bed of roses, Sir George! While to be wife to a ruined rake--perhaps to be wife to a man who, if he were not ruined, would treat you as the dirt beneath his feet, beneath his notice, beneath--'
She did not seem to be able to finish the sentence, but rose choking, her face scarlet. He rose more slowly. 'Lord!' he said humbly, looking at her in astonishment, 'what has come to you suddenly? What has made you angry with me, child?'
'Child?' she exclaimed. 'Am I a child? You play with me as if I were!'
'Play with you?' Sir George said, dumfounded; he was quite taken aback by her sudden vehemence. 'My dear girl, I cannot understand you. I am not playing with you. If any one is playing, it is you. Sometimes--I wonder whether you hate me or love me. Sometimes I am happy enough to think the one; sometimes--I think the other--'
'It has never struck you,' she said, speaking with her head high, and in her harshest and most scornful tone, 'that I may do neither the one nor the other, but be pleased to kill my time with you--since I must stay here until my lawyer has done his business?'
'Oh!' said Soane, staring helplessly at the angry beauty, 'if that be all--'
'That is all!' she cried. 'Do you understand? That is all.'
He bowed gravely. 'Then I am glad that I have been of use to you. That at least,' he said.
'Thank you,' she said drily. 'I am going into the house now. I need not trouble you farther.'
And sweeping him a curtsey that might have done honour to a duchess, she turned and sailed away, the picture of disdain. But when her face was safe from his gaze and he could no longer see them, her eyes filled with tears of shame and vexation; she had to bite her trembling lip to keep them back. Presently she slackened her speed and almost stopped--then hurried on, when she thought that she heard him following. But he did not overtake her, and Julia's step grew slow again, and slower until she reached the portico.
Between love and pride, hope and shame, she had a hard fight; happily a coach was unloading, and she could stand and feign interest in the passengers. Two young fellows fresh from Bath took fire at her eyes; but one who stared too markedly she withered with a look, and, if the truth be told, her fingers tingled for his ears. Her own ears were on the alert, directed backwards like a hare's. Would he never come? Was he really so simple, so abominably stupid, so little versed in woman's ways? Or was he playing with her? Perhaps, he had gone into the town? Or trudged up the Salisbury road; if so, and if she did not see him now, she might not meet him until the next morning; and who could say what might happen in the interval? True, he had promised that he would not leave Marlborough without seeing her; but things had altered between them since then.
At last--at last, when