“I ought to thank you for your honesty,” said he, with a reaction to bitterness, and they rose and returned to the others, met by many a significant look and shrug.  Fane observed it, and determined to go.  He was in no humour to be watched and commented on as a suitor of Cecil’s.  His dog-cart hadn’t come, but he lit a cigar, and walked to meet it.  “So that’s settled,” thought he.  “And now the sooner I get out of this horrid country the better.  I wish I hadn’t refused a share of that moor; I should have been just in time for it.  Well, she is a nice girl—­far too good for that scamp, Du Meresq.  I might have suspected what was going on there.  Poor child! what a life he will lead her if it comes off, but most likely it won’t.  It must be Du Meresq; for, though I was evidently meant by the Colonel, I remember that Madame never seemed especially pleased to see me.”

How unfeeling women are!  Cecil forgot her remorse at Fane’s disappointment in exultation at having so successfully removed a serious obstacle from her path, and her eye sparkled with wicked amusement as she noticed the marked coldness of Mrs. Rolleston’s manner, due to her supposed flirtation with the Major.

The Colonel, too, who returned shortly afterwards, glanced round and inquired for Fane.

“Gone, I think,” said Cecil, innocently; and he also threw upon her a look of gloom and reproach.  No engaged young lady could be gayer than Cecil the rest of the evening.  She became the life of the party, would keep everybody as late as possible:  and certainly more than one shared the opinion of Mrs. Rolleston, whom her daughter mischievously tried to confirm in it, that the arbour had been the scene of a proposal and acceptance.

As the elder lady was slowly undressing that night, Cecil, still with the same provoking brightness on her face, peeped in.

“Are you sleepy, mamma?”

There was something in her manner that brought Mrs. Rolleston’s annoyance to the culminating point.  She thought the faithless damsel had come to announce her engagement, and demand sympathy and congratulations.  So, with a view to arrest any aggressive gush, she said, with some asperity,—­“I am glad you have come, for I wanted to tell you, Cecil, how bad it looked your walking off in that way with Major Fane.”

“I suppose it was rather strong,” said the girl coolly; “but I like him so much.  I had no idea he was so nice.”

Mrs. Rolleston took refuge in the ill-assumed dignity of rising anger.

“I suppose, mamma, he is very well off?  Papa often wonders that he goes soldiering on.”

“Really, Cecil, whatever your speculations may be, it was not a delicate act, sitting apart with him for half-an-hour in a dark arbour.”

“I thought he might propose,”—­Mrs. Rolleston’s face expressed, “Are you mad?”—­“or give me a chance somehow of saying what I wanted to.  And what’s more,” she continued, “I am not certain whether he meant to, or not.  To be sure, I didn’t give him much time.”