But why had he sent her the ring?  She would certainly give him back the ring and bid him bestow it at once upon Miss Boncassen.  Inconstant boy!  Then she would get up and wander away for a time and rebuke herself.  What right had she even to think of inconstancy?  Could she be so irrational, so unjust, as to be sick for his love, as to be angry with him because he seemed to prefer another?  Was she not well aware that she herself did not love him,—­but that she did love another man?  She had made up her mind to marry him in order that she might be a duchess, and because she would give herself to him without any of that horror which would be her fate in submitting to matrimony with one or another of the young men around her.  There might be disappointment.  If he escaped her there would be bitter disappointment.  But seeing how it was, had she any further ground for hope?  She certainly had no ground for anger!

It was thus, within her own bosom, she put questions to herself.  And yet all this before her was simply a game of play in which the girl and the young man were as eager for victory as though they were children.  They were thinking neither of love nor love-making.  That the girl should be so lovely was not doubt a pleasure to him;—­and perhaps to her also that she should be joyous to look at and sweet of voice.  But he, could he have been made to tell all the truth within him, would have still owned that it was his purpose to make Mabel his wife.

When the game was over and the propositions made for further matches and the like,—­Miss Boncassen said that she would betake herself to her own room.  ’I never worked so hard in my life before,’ she said.  ’And I feel like a navvie.  I could drink beer out of a jug and eat bread and cheese.  I won’t play with you any more, Lord Silverbridge, because I am beginning to think it is unladylike to exert myself.’

‘Are you not glad you came over?’ said Lady Mabel to him as he was going off the ground without seeing her.

‘Pretty well,’ he said.

‘Is it not better than stalking?’

‘Lawn-tennis?’

‘Yes;—­lawn-tennis—­with Miss Boncassen.’

‘She plays uncommonly well.’

‘And so do you.’

‘Ah, she has such an eye for distances.’

’And you,—­what have you an eye for?  Will you answer me a question?’

‘Well,—­yes; I think so.’

‘Truly.’

‘Certainly; if I do answer it.’

’Do you not think her the most beautiful creature you ever saw in your life?’ He pushed back his cap and looked at her without making any immediate answer.  ‘I do.  Now tell me what you think.’

‘I think that perhaps she is.’

’I knew you would say so.  You are so honest that you could not bring yourself to tell a fib,—­even to me about that.  Come here and sit down for a moment.’  Of course he sat down by her.  ’You know that Frank came to see me at Grex?’