Veritable tears were in her eyes.  Was she affecting to weep sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?

“You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy,” she said, trying to smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice.  “I am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend.  So, keep me as a friend—­say you will be my friend.”

“Nay, you had a right to know,” he protested.

“It was disgraceful—­horrible; but it was necessary for me to know.”

“And now that you do know?”

“Now that I know, I have only to say—­be as merciful in your idea of me as you can.”

She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.

“Be mercenary, but be mine!  I will give you something better to live for than this absurd life of fashion.  You reckon on what our expenditure will be by that standard.  It’s comparative poverty; but—­but you can have some luxuries.  You can have a carriage, a horse to ride.  Active service may come:  I may rise.  Give yourself to me, and you must love me, and regret nothing.”

“Nothing!  I should regret nothing.  I don’t want carriages, or horses, or luxuries.  I could live with you on a subaltern’s pay.  I can’t marry you, Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry you.”

“Charade?” said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head close under his.

“Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me.”

The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.

Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped by an intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while the squire—­full of wine and vindictive humours—­went on humming, “Ah! h’m—­m—­m!  Soh!” said in the doorway to some one behind him:  “And if you have lost your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive down to the Temple for a bed?  I make it an especial request that you sleep here tonight.  I wish it.  I have to speak with you.”

Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his son, who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion, presentable before a lady.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey up to London.  A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation like a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert’s remarks on the care which the garden had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the trim blue and white and red garden beds.  Every word was a blow to him; but he took it, as well as Rhoda’s apparent dilatoriness, among the things