her.  Uncle Dick had once again called her “My little Jack,” though he groaned immediately afterwards and, getting up, looked out of the window, and Uncle Edward left the library door ajar.  Jacqueline laid her head upon her arm and laughed.  It was coming right—­it was coming right!—­and next year they would all dance at Fontenoy with light hearts, at Unity’s wedding.  It had begun to come right the evening of the day that she had met Ludwell Cary in the cedar wood.  She wondered, slightly, at that coincidence, and then she fell again to dreaming.

Lewis was coming; he had passed through the gate—­and she started up.  He rode on to the back of the house, left his horse there, and, striding through the hall and down the three stone steps, joined her where she stood upon the greensward, among the fallen leaves.  “Good-evening to you!” she said, touched his shoulder with her hand, and raised her face to his.  He drew her to him, kissed her with fierce passion, and let her go, then walked to the beech tree and stood with his back to the house, staring at the long wall of the mountains, dark now against a pale gold sky.  She followed him.  “Lewis! what is the matter?”

He answered without turning, “We are not going, quite yet awhile, over the mountains.  Man proposes, and Ludwell Cary disposes.  Well! we will stay merrily at home.  But he shall pay the score!”

“What do you mean?”

“Two weeks!  What may not happen over there in two weeks?  And I bound here, hard and fast, hand and foot!  By what?—­by the plaything code of a plaything honour!  Now, if he were any other man under the canopy, I would not stay!  The question is, is it imaginable that all this was of set purpose?”

“Lewis, what is the matter?”

Rand turned.  “The matter, child?  The matter is that you may unpack, and that we will give a dinner party!  We do not travel to-morrow; no, nor the next day, nor the next!  I have to await a gentleman’s leisure.”

She hung upon his arm.  “Lewis, Lewis, what is it?  You are trembling—­”

He laughed.  “Do you think it is with fear?”

“Don’t, don’t!” she cried.  “Don’t be so angry—­don’t look so black!  I am afraid of you.  What is it, dearest, dearest?”

“Wait,” he said harshly.  “Wait, Jacqueline, a moment.”

He put her abruptly from him, walked to the doorstone, and, sitting down, bowed his face upon his hands.  For some moments he remained thus, while she stood under the beech tree, her hand upon her heart, watching him.  At last he lifted his head, rose, and came back to her.  “To-day, in the court room, I challenged Ludwell Cary.  He has named, as is his right, time and place of our meeting.  The time, something more than two weeks from to-day; the place, five miles from Richmond.  I confess that I was taken by surprise.  I had expected to-morrow morning and the wood beyond the race-course.  If I thought—­what, by all the gods, I do think!—­that he had dared—­that he had done this deliberately, with intent to keep me here, I—­Jacqueline! why, Jacqueline!”