“If so, it will be best that the Duke should speak to him.”

There was another pause, but hardly long enough to attract notice.  “Perhaps so,” she said; “but not quite yet.  He is so peculiar, so touchy.  The Duke is not quite like my father and he would think himself suspected.”

“I cannot imagine that if he is in earnest.”

“That is because you do not know him as I do.  Only think where I should be if I were to lose him!”

“Lose him!”

“Oh, aunt, now that you know it I do hope that you will be my friend.  It would kill me if he were to throw me over.”

“But why should he throw you over if he proposed to you only last month?”

“He might do it if he thought that he were interfered with.  Of course I should like my uncle to speak to him, but not quite immediately:  If he were to say that he had changed his mind, what could I do, or what could my uncle do?”

“That would be very singular conduct.”

“Men are so different now, aunt.  They give themselves so much more latitude.  A man has only to say that he has changed his mind and nothing ever comes of it.”

“I have never been used to such men, my dear.”

“At any rate do not ask the Duke to speak to him to-day.  I will think about it and perhaps you will let me see you to-morrow, after we all come in.”  To this the Duchess gravely assented.  “And I hope you won’t be angry because you found me walking with him, or because I did not go to church.  It is everything to me.  I am sure, dear aunt, you will understand that” To this the Duchess made no reply, and they both entered the house together.  What became of Lord Rufford neither of them saw.

Arabella when she regained her room thought that upon the whole fortune had favoured her by throwing her aunt in her way.  She had, no doubt, been driven to tell a series of barefaced impudent lies,—­lies of such a nature that they almost made her own hair stand on end as she thought of them;—­but they would matter nothing if she succeeded; and if she failed in this matter she did not care much what her aunt thought of her.  Her aunt might now do her a good turn; and some lies she must have told;—­such had been the emergencies of her position!  As she thought of it all she was glad that her aunt had met her; and when Lord Rufford was summoned to take her out to dinner on that very Sunday,—­a matter as to which her aunt managed everything herself,—­she was immediately aware that her lies had done her good service.

“This was more than I expected,” Lord Rufford said when they were seated.

“She knew that she had overdone it when she sent you away in that cavalier way,” replied Arabella, “and now she wants to show that she didn’t mean anything.”

CHAPTER XII

The Day at Peltry