Part 11 (2/2)

”Huh!” grunted the disgusted General. ”If he did, he probably wouldn't speak at all. It seems to me, Harry, that you must lie awake at nights planning how you can arrange to say just the wrong thing upon all occasions--you do it so constantly.”

”Oh, that's it--just lay everything on me!” responded his dutiful offspring sulkily. ”I'm always doing the wrong thing--if you believe what other people say. Seems to me that the best thing I can do is to take myself off, and then everybody will be happy. I say, Barch, when you feel like yourself again you'll find me either at the stables or in the pater's blessed ruin taking lessons in etiquette from the family ghost--if the pater has been able to rake up one and coax him to reside there.”

And with this ill-natured dig at his father's pet weakness this engaging young gentleman lurched down the steps of the veranda and walked surlily away round the angle of the house.

The place which he had spoken of as ”the pater's ruin” was a little fad of the General's, whose love of antiquities and the like had tempted him to transform a bare and unattractive part of the Grange grounds into something at least picturesque if not in the very highest good taste.

Ancient ruins had always been a pa.s.sion with him, but as you can't have ancient ruins in modern Wimbledon, the General had had a ruin built for himself, modelling it after the crumbling remains of an old Scottish castle which had appealed to his artistic eye, planting it with ferns and enwrapping ivy and vines of Virginia creeper, and even supplying it with owls and bats to keep up the illusion. It was his one harmless weakness, his one foible--that ruin; and n.o.body but his son ever mocked him for it, though many laughed in their sleeves and secretly made game of his foolish whim.

Cleek had heard of the ”ruin” at Wuthering Grange before he had ever set foot inside the gates of the place; and hearing of it again--now, like this--he felt that he would like to kick the young cub who could publicly mock his father's folly in this fas.h.i.+on. He saw the General's kindly old face flush with anger and mortification, and was not at all surprised when he presently made an excuse to get away and retired indoors.

Meantime, Cleek's plan of pretending illness had panned out precisely as he had imagined, and was productive of the results he desired.

Essentially feminine and of a highly sympathetic nature, Lady Katharine hovered near him, doing all in her power to ease the sufferings of one whom she shrewdly suspected of being very near to the heart of her dearest friend, and this naturally brought Geoffrey to the little group surrounding him, and enabled him to study his att.i.tude at close quarters.

The more he saw of Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir, the better he liked him; but although the young man occasionally turned an adoring look upon Lady Katharine, and appeared to be doing his best to share her evident high spirits, it was apparent to Cleek, after a moment's study, that his att.i.tude was for the most part a.s.sumed. He made no attempt to get away from the others and have the lady of his heart all to himself, and whenever he and she were for a moment separated from Mrs. Raynor and Ailsa Lorne, he was nervous, distressed, and acted with an air of restraint that was as puzzling as it was p.r.o.nounced.

A chance remark regarding the state of Lord St. Ulmer's health brought from Lord St. Ulmer's daughter the happy, excited remark:

”Oh, Geoff, dear, he's improving every hour, and he has been so wonderfully kind and tender to me this afternoon that I could kiss him.

Just think, he says that things can go on now just as they did before Count de Louvisan came; that there is nothing now to come between us, Geoff; nothing to keep us apart for another moment!”

”Really? That's ripping!” said young Clavering, and in his effort to appear delighted smiled the ghastliest parody of a smile possible to conceive. It was so p.r.o.nounced that even Lady Katharine herself noticed it and looked puzzled and distressed.

”You don't seem very glad,” she said, a note of pain in her voice, a look of pain in her reproachful eyes. ”_Aren't_ you glad, Geoff? And is that why you did not come over to see me before?”

”Don't be silly, Kathie. I couldn't come any earlier because--well, because I couldn't, that's all.”

”A very lucid explanation, I must say. What is the matter with you, Geoff? You're not a bit like yourself to-day--is he, Ailsa?”

But Ailsa made no reply. There was none really needed. Geoffrey had taken hardly any notice, but as if struck with a sudden thought, whipped out a notebook and began shuffling the pages nervously through his fingers.

”I'd nearly forgotten, Kathie,” he said apologetically; ”my mother asked if you would lend her these books.” He handed her the torn leaf with something scribbled upon it. ”Any time will do, but she said you would have them.”

Lady Katharine looked down at the writing, and a wave of colour surged over her face.

”But----” she commenced.

”I don't want them now; in fact, I can't stop even now, only I just wanted to know that you were all right.”

There was no mistaking the look of adoration on the young man's face, but she looked at him reproachfully.

”Going back again, so soon!” she said softly, averting her head, while her lips trembled and her hand clutched painfully on the leaf of the notebook.

”I'm afraid I must, dear,” responded Geoff. Then he turned swiftly to Cleek, who had been watching the little scene, the peculiar one-sided smile looping up the corners of his mouth.

”Good-bye, Mr. Barch; pleased to have met you,” he said without, however, coming forward and offering his hand.

”Thanks! same to you; good-bye,” replied Cleek, and that same smile was still on his face when a minute or two later, young Clavering having taken his departure, Cleek was rejoined by Ailsa Lorne.

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