“Look here, Nebbie—­we mustn’t think about her!  She’s a bewildering little person, with a good deal of the witch glamour in her eyes and smile,—­and it’s quite absurd for such staid and humdrum creatures as you and I, Nebbie, to imagine that we can ever be of the slightest service to her, or to dream that she ever gives us a single thought when she has once turned her back upon us.  But it is a pity she should cry about anything!—­her eyes were not made for tears—­her life was not created for sorrow!  It should be all sunshine and roses for her—­French damask roses, of course!” and he smiled—­“with their hearts full of perfume and their petals full of colour!  As for me, there should only be the grey of her plots of lavender,—­lavender that is dried and put away in a drawer, and more often than not helps to give fragrance to the poor corpse ready for burial!”

He sighed, and opened his Homer.  Greek, for once, failed to ease his heartache, and the Iliad seemed singularly over-strained and deadly dull.

XXI

That evening before joining her guests at the usual eight o’clock repast, Maryllia told Cicely Bourne of the disagreeable ‘surprise’ which had been treacherously contrived for her at Sir Morton Pippitt’s tea-party by the unexpected presence of the loathed wooer whom she sought to avoid.

“Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must certainly have known he was to be there,”—­she said—­“And I think, from her look, Eva Beaulyon knew also.  But neither of them gave me a hint.  And now if I were to say anything they would only laugh and declare that they ’thought it would be fun.’  There’s no getting any help or sympathy out of such people.  I’m sorry!—­but—­as usual—­I must stand alone.”

“I daresay every one of them was in the plot—­men and all, if the truth were told!”—­burst out Cicely, indignantly—­“And Mrs. Fred is at the bottom of the mischief.  It’s a shame!  Your aunt is a brute, Maryllia!  I would say so to her face if she were here!  She’s a calculating, selfish, title-grubbing brute!  There!  What are you going to do?”

“Nothing!”—­and Maryllia looked thoughtfully out of the window at the flaming after-glow of the sunset, bathing all the landscape in a flood of coppery crimson—­“I shall just go on as usual.  When I go down to dinner presently, I shall not speak of to-day’s incident at all.  Eva Beaulyon and Margaret Courtenay will expect me to speak of it—­and they will be disappointed.  If they allude to it, I shall change the subject.  And I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius Longford, to dinner next week, as guests of Sir Morton Pippitt,—­that’s all.”

Cicely opened her big dark eyes.

“You will actually invite Roxmouth?”

“Of course I will—­of course I must. I want everyone here to see and understand how absolutely indifferent I am to him.”

“They will never see—­they will never understand!” said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively—­“My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to ‘ce cher Roxmouth’ the more the world will talk!  They will say you are merely acting a part.  “No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions of a prospective Duke.”