“Ah! that’s well,” said Mrs. Poynsett.

“From your point of view,” said Julius, smiling.

“If he will only speak out before it has had time to go deep with Frank!”

CHAPTER IX Cold Heart

At that very moment the two sisters in question were driving home in the opposite corners of the carriage in the dark.

“Really, Lenore,” was Lady Tyrrell saying, “you are a very impracticable girl.”

There was a little low laugh in answer.

“What blast has come and frozen you up into ice?” the elder sister added caressingly; but as she felt for Eleonora’s hand in the dark, she obtained nothing but the cold handle of a fan.  “That’s just it!” she said, laughing; “hard ivory, instead of flesh and blood.”

“I can’t help it!” was the answer.

“But why not?  I’m sure you had admiration enough to turn any girl’s head.”

No answer.

Lady Tyrrell renewed her address still more tenderly—­“Lenore, darling, it is quite needful that you should understand your position.”

“I am afraid I understand it only too well,” came in a smothered voice.

“It may be very painful, but it ought to be made clear before you how you stand.  You know that my father was ruined—­there’s no word for it but ruined.”

“Yes.”

“He had to give up the property to the creditors, and live on an allowance.”

“I know that.”

“And, of course, I can’t bear speaking of it; but the house is really let to me.  I have taken it as I might any other house to let.”

“Yes,” again assented Eleonora.

“And do you know why?”

“You said it was for the sake of the old home and my father!” said the girl, with a bitter emphasis on the said.

“So it was!  It was to give you the chance of redeeming it, and keeping it in the family.  It is to be sold, you know, as soon as you are of age, and can give your consent.  I can’t buy it.  Mine is only a jointure, a life income, and you know that you might as well think of Mary buying Golconda; but you—­you—­with such beauty as yours—­might easily make a connection that would save it.”

There was only a choked sound.

“I know you feel the situation painfully, after having been mistress so long.”

“Camilla, you know it is not that!”

“Ah, my dear, I can see farther than you avow.  You can’t marry till you are twenty-one, you know; but you might be very soon engaged, and then we should see our way.  It only depends on yourself.  Plenty of means, and no land to tie him down, ready to purchase and to settle down.  It would be the very thing; and I see you are a thoroughly sensible girl, Lena.”

“Indeed!  I am not even sensible enough to know who is to be this purchaser.”

“Come, Lena, don’t be affected.  Why! he was the only poor creature you were moderately gracious to.”