“ Yes,” said Mary. “I think I understand, though I do not say I agree.”
Sir John came in just then, opportunely enough, and he found Conolly quite willing to talk about the prospects of the Company, although the ladies were thereby excluded from any part or interest in the conversation. Mary took the opportunity to slip away, unnoticed save by her hostess. When Conolly’s attention was released by Sir John going to the library fore some papers, he found himself alone with Lady Geraldine.
“Mr Conolly,”said Lady Geraldine, overcoming , with obvious effort, her reluctance to speak to him: “although you were of course not aware of it, you chose a most unfortunate moment for explaining your views to Miss Sutherland. There are circumstances which render it very undesirable that her judgment should be biased against marriage just at present.”
“I hardly follow you,” said Conolly, with a benignant self-possession which made Lady Geraldine privately quail. “Are you opposed to the suit of Mr Hoskyn?” She looked at him in consternation.” I see you are surprised by my knowledge of Miss Sutherland’s affairs,” he continued. “But that only convinces me that you do not know Mr Hoskyn. In business matters he can sometimes keep a secret. In personal matters he is indiscretion personified. Everybody in Queen Victoria Street, from the messenger to the Chairman, is informed of the state of his affections.”
“But why, if you knew this, did you talk as you did?”
“Because,” said he, smiling at her impatience, “I did not then know that you disapproved of his proposal.”
“Mr Conolly,” said Lady Geraldine, trying to speak politely: “I don’t disapprove of it.”
“Then we are somehow at cross purposes. I too, approve; and as Hoskyn is not, to my knowledge, likely to be a hero in the eyes of a young lady of Miss Sutherland’s culture, I ventured to warn her that he might be all the better qualified to make her happy.”
“I told her so myself. But if you want to encourage a young girl to marry, surely it is not a very judicious thing to give such a bad account of your own married life.”
“Of my own married life?”
“I mean,” said Lady Geraldine, coloring deeply, “of your own experience of married life — what you have observed in others.” She stopped, feeling that this was a paltry evasion, and added, “I beg your pardon. I fear I have made a very painful blunder.”
“No. An allusion to my marriage — from you — does not pain me. I know your sympathies are not with me; and I am pleased to think that they are therefore where they are most needed and deserved. As to Miss Sutherland, I do not think that what I said will have the effect you fear. In any case, my words are beyond recall. If she refuses Mr Hoskyn, I shall bear the blame. If she accepts him; I will claim to have been your ally.
“She would be angry if she knew that you were aware, all the time you were talking, of her position.”
“Angry with me: yes. That does not matter. But if she knew that Mr. Hoskyn had told me, she would be angry with him; and that would matter very much.”
Before Lady Geraldine could reply, her husband returned; and Conolly withdrew shortly afterwards for the night.
Next day, Mary received from Hoskyn a second letter begging her to postpone her answer until he had seen her, as he had become convinced that such matters ought to be conducted personally instead of by writing. As soon as he had ascertained which hotel was the near Sir John’s house, he would, he wrote, put up there and ask Mary to contrive one long interview. She was not to mention his presence to Lady Geraldine, lest she should think he expected to be asked on a visit. Mary immediately made Lady Geraldine promise that he should not be asked on a visit; and then, to avoid the threatened interview, made up her mind and wrote to him as follows:
Dear Mr. Hoskyn —
I shall not give you the trouble of coming down here to urge what you so frankly proposed in your first letter. 1 trust it will relieve your anxiety to learn that I have decided to accept your offer. However, as the position we are now in is one that we could not properly maintain whilst visiting at the house of a friend, I beg that you will give up all idea of seeing me until I leave Devonshire. My social duties here are so heavy that I can hardly, without seeming rude, absent myself to write a long letter. I suppose you will go back to Trouville until we all return to London. — I am, dear Mr. Hoskyn,
Yours sincerely,
Mary Sutherland.
Mary composed this letter with difficulty, and submitted it to Lady Geraldine, who said, “It is not very loving. That about your social duties is a fib. And you want him to go to Trouville because he cannot write so often.”
“I can do no better,” said Mary. “But you are right. I will burn it and write him another, refusing him point blank. That will be the shortest.”
“No, thank you. This will do very well.” And Lady Geraldine closed it with her own hands and sent it to the post. Later in the afternoon Mary said, “I am exceedingly sorry I sent that letter. I have found out my real mind about Mr Hoskyn at last. I detest him.”
Lady Geraldine only laughed at her.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
One evening the concert room in St. James’s Hall was crowded with people waiting to hear the first public performance of a work by Mr Owen Jack, entitled Prometheus Unbound. It wanted but a minute to eight o’clock; the stalls were filling rapidly; the choristers were already in their seats; and there was a din of tuning from the band. Not far from the orchestra sat Mr John Hoskyn, with a solemn air of being prepared for the worst, and carefully finished at the tie, gloves and hair. Next him was his wife, in a Venetian dress of garnet colored plush. Her black hair was gathered upon her neck by a knot of deep sea green; and her dark eyes peered through lenses framed in massive gold.
On the foremost side bench, still nearer to the orchestra, was a young lady with a beautiful and intelligent face. She was more delicately shaped than Mrs Hoskyn, and was dressed in white. Her neighbors pointed her out to one another as the Szczympliça; but she was now Mrs Adrian Herbert. Her husband was with her; and his regular features seemed no less refined and more thoughtful than those of his wife. Mrs Hoskyn looked at him earnestly for some time. Then she turned as though to look at her husband; but she checked herself in this movement, and directed her attention to the entry of Manlius.
I have counted the band,” whispered Hoskyn; “and it’s eighty-five strong. They can’t give them much less than seven and sixpence apiece for the night, which makes thirty-two pounds all but half a crown, without counting the singers.”
“Nonsense,” said Mary, after looking round apprehensively to see whether her husband’s remark had been overheard. Five pounds apiece would be nearer the — Hush.”
The music had just begun; and Hoskyn had to confine his repudiation of Mary’s estimate to an emphatic shake of the head. The overture, anxiously conducted by Manlius, who was very nervous, lasted nearly half an hour. When it was over, there was silence for a moment, then faint