unable to control her annoyance any longer. Granted that Lord Stowmaries was the richest, most promising "parti" that had ever come her way; that he was young, good-looking, owned half the county of Hertford, and one of the oldest names in England, and that, moreover, he was of sufficiently amiable disposition to be fashioned into a model husband by and by! granted all that, say I! Had not all these advantages, I pray you to admit, caused the fair Julia to hide her ill-humour for close on half an hour, whilst the young man frowned and sighed, gave curt answers to her most charming sallies, and had failed to notice that a filmy handkerchief, lace-edged and delicately perfumed, had been dropped on that veriest exact spot of the carpet which was most conveniently situated for sinking on one knee within a few inches of the most adorable foot in London?
But now the irascible beauty was at the end of her tether. She rose—wrathfully kicking aside that same handkerchief which her surly visitor had failed to notice—and took three quick steps in the direction of the bell-pull.
"And now, my lord," she said, "I pray you to excuse me."
And she stretched out her hand in a gesture intended to express the full measure of her wrath.
Lord Stowmaries roused himself from his unpleasant torpor.
"To excuse you, fair one?" he murmured in the tone of a man who has just wakened from slumber, and is still unaware of what has been going on around him whilst he slept.
"Ay, my good lord," she replied with a shrill note of sarcasm very apparent in the voice which so many men had compared to that of a nightingale. "I fain must tear myself away from the delights of your delectable company—though I confess 'twere passing easy to find more entertaining talk than yours has been this last half-hour."
"Would you be cruel to me now, Mistress?" he said with a deep and mournful sigh, "now, when—"
"Now, when what?" she retorted still pettishly, though a little mollified by his obvious distress.
She turned back towards him, and presently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"My lord," she said resolutely, "either you tell me now and at once what ails you this afternoon, or I pray you leave me, for in your present mood, by my faith, your room were more enjoyable than your company."
He took that pretty hand which still lingered on his shoulder, and pressing it for a few lingering seconds between both his, he finally conveyed its perfumed whiteness to his lips.
"Don't send me away," he pleaded pathetically; "I am the most miserable of mortals, and if you closed your doors against me now, you would be sending your most faithful adorer straight to perdition."
"Tut, man!" she rejoined impatiently, "you talk like a gaby. In the name of Heaven, tell me what ails you, or I vow you'll send me into my grave with choler."
"I have been trying to tell you, Mistress, this past half-hour."
"Well?"
"But Lud help me, I cannot."
"Then it's about a woman," she concluded with firm decision.
He gave no reply. The conclusion was obvious.
The fair Julia frowned. This was threatening to become serious. It was no mere question of moodiness then, of ill-humour anon to be forgiven and dissipated with a smile.
There was a woman at the bottom of my lord Stowmaries' ill-humour. A woman who had the power to obtrude her personality between his mental vision and the daintiest apparition that had ever turned a man's brain dizzy with delight. A woman in fact who might prove to be an obstacle to the realisation of Mistress Julia Peyton's most cherished dreams.
All thoughts of anger, of petulance, of bell-pulls and peremptory congés fled from the beauty's mind. She sat down again opposite the young man; she rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands; she looked serious, sympathetic, interested, anything you like. A sufficiency of moisture rose to her eyes to render them soft and lustrous, appealing and irresistible. Her lips parted and quivered just sufficiently to express deep emotion held courageously in check, whilst from beneath the little lace cap one or two rebellious curls free from powder, golden in colour, and silky in texture, were unaccountably allowed to escape.
Thus equipped for the coming struggle, she repeated her question, not peremptorily this time, but gently and in a voice that trembled slightly with the intensity of sympathy.
"What ails my lord?"
"Nothing short of despair," he replied, whilst his eyes rested with a kind of mournful abnegation on the enchanting picture so tantalisingly near to him.
"Is it quite hopeless, then?" she asked.
"Quite."
"An entanglement?"
"No. A marriage."
Outwardly she made no sign. Mistress Julia was not one of those simpering women who faint, or scream, or gasp at moments of mental or moral crises. I will grant you that the colour left her cheek, and that her fingers for one brief instant were tightly clutched—no longer gracefully interlaced—under her chin. But this was in order to suppress emotion, not to make a show of it.
There was only a very momentary pause, the while she now, with deliberate carelessness, brushed a rebellious curl back into its place.
"A marriage, my good lord," she said lightly; "nay! you must be jesting—or else mayhap I have misunderstood.—A marriage to render you moody?—Whose marriage could that be?—"
"Mine, Mistress—my marriage," exclaimed Lord Stowmaries, now in tones of truly tragical despair; "curse the fate that brought it about, the parents who willed it, the necessity which forced them to it, and which hath wrecked my life."
Mistress Julia now made no further attempt to hide her fears. Obviously the young man was not jesting. The tone of true misery in his voice was quite unmistakable. It was the suddenness of the blow which hurt her so. This fall from the pinnacle of her golden dreams. For weeks and months now she had never thought of herself in the future as other than the Countess of Stowmaries, chatelaine of Maries Castle, the leader of society both in London and in Newmarket, by virtue of her husband's wealth and position, of her own beauty, tact and grace.
She had even with meticulous care so reorganised her mind and memory, that she could now eliminate from them all recollections of the more humble past—the home at Norwich, the yeoman father, kindly but absorbed in the daily struggle for existence, the busy, somewhat vulgar mother, the sordid existence peculiar to impoverished smaller gentry; then the early marriage with Squire Peyton. It had seemed brilliant then, for the Squire, though past his youth, had a fine house, and quite a few serving men—but no position—he never came to London and Mistress Julia's knowledge of Court and society was akin to that which children possess of fairies or of sprites.
But Squire Peyton it appears had more money than he had owned to in his lifetime. He had been something of a miser apparently, for even his young widow was surprised when at his death—which occurred if you remember some twenty-four months ago—she found herself possessed of quite a pleasing fortune.
This was the beginning of Mistress Julia's golden dreams, of her longings towards a more brilliant future, which a lucky second marriage could easily now secure for her. The thousand pounds a year which she possessed enabled her to take a small house in Holborn Row, and to lay herself out to cut a passable figure in London society. Not among the Court set, of course, but there were all the young idlers about town, glad enough to be presented to a young and attractive widow, endowed with some wealth of her own, and an inordinate desire to please.
The first few idlers soon attracted others, and gradually the pretty widow's circle of acquaintances widened. If that circle was chiefly composed of men, who shall blame the pretty widow?
It was a husband she wanted, and not female companionship. Lord Swannes, if you remember, paid her his court, also Sir Jeremiah Harfleet, and it was well known that my lord of Craye—like the true poet that he was—was consumed with love of her. But as soon as Mistress Julia