Part 13 (1/2)

Elinor looked up with a well-a.s.sumed expression of rapture; Pauline's look of annoyance indicated that she obeyed greatly against her will.

Sir Oswald saw the captain looking wistfully after the two girlish figures.

”Go,” he said, with a courtly smile. ”Young people like to be together.

I will entertain Lady Hampton.”

Greatly relieved, the captain followed. He was so deeply and so desperately in love that he could not endure to see Pauline Darrell talking even to the girl by her side. He would fain have engrossed every word, every glance of hers himself; he was madly jealous when such were bestowed upon others.

The three walked down the broad cedar path together, the captain all gallant attention, Miss Rocheford all sweetness, Pauline haughty as a young barbaric queen bound by a conqueror's chains. She did not like her companions, and did not even make a feint of being civil to them.

Meanwhile the opportunity so longed for by Lady Hampton had arrived; and the lady seized it with alacrity. She turned to Sir Oswald with a smile.

”You amuse me,” she said, ”by giving yourself such an air of age. Why do you consider yourself so old, Sir Oswald? If it were not that I feared to flatter you, I should say that there were few young men to compare with you.”

”My dear Lady Hampton,” returned the baronet, in a voice that was not without pathos, ”look at this.”

He placed his thin white hand upon his white hair. Lady Hampton laughed again.

”What does that matter? Why, many men are gray even in their youth. I have always wondered why you seek to appear so old, Sir Oswald. I feel sure, judging from many indications, that you cannot be sixty.”

”No; but I am over fifty--and my idea is that, at fifty, one is really old.”

”Nothing of the kind!” she said, with great energy. ”Some of the finest men I have known were only in the prime of life then. If you were seventy, you might think of speaking as you do. Sir Oswald,” she asked, abruptly, looking keenly at his face, ”why have you never married?”

He smiled, but a flush darkened the fine old face.

”I was in love once,” he replied, simply, ”and only once. The lady was young and fair. She loved me in return. But a few weeks before our marriage she was suddenly taken ill and died. I have never even thought of replacing her.”

”How sad! What sort of a lady was she, Sir Oswald--this fair young love of yours?”

”Strange to say, in face, figure, and manner she somewhat resembled your lovely young niece, Lady Hampton. She had the same quiet, graceful manner, the same polished grace--so different from----”

”From Miss Darrell,” supplied the lady, promptly. ”How that unfortunate girl must jar upon you!”

”She does; but there are times when I have hopes of her. We are talking like old friends now, Lady Hampton. I may tell you that I think there is one and only one thing that can redeem my niece, and that is love. Love works wonders sometimes, and I have hopes that it may do so in her case.

A grand master-pa.s.sion such as controls the Darrells when they love at all--that would redeem her. It would soften that fierce pride and hauteur, it would bring her to the ordinary level of womanhood; it would cure her of many of the fantastic ideas that seem to have taken possession of her; it would make her--what she certainly is not now--a gentlewoman.”

”Do you think so?” queried Lady Hampton, doubtfully.

”I am sure of it. When I look at that grand face of hers, often so defiant, I think to myself that she may be redeemed by love.”

”And if this grand master-pa.s.sion does not come to her--if she cares for some one only after the ordinary fas.h.i.+on of women--what then?”

He threw up his hands with a gesture indicative of despair.

”Or,” continued Lady Hampton--”pray pardon me for suggesting such a thing, Sir Oswald, but people of the world, like you and myself, know what odd things are likely at any time to happen--supposing that she should marry some commonplace lover, after a commonplace fas.h.i.+on, and that then the master-pa.s.sion should find her out, what would be the fate of Darrell Court?”

”I cannot tell,” replied Sir Oswald, despairingly.

”With a person, especially a young girl, of her self-willed, original, independent nature, one is never safe. How thankful I am that my niece is so sweet and so womanly!”