“My mother must have had some reason.  I’m sure she must.  There isn’t a woman in London knows how such things should be done better than my mother.  I can write to Lord Rufford and ask him for an explanation; but I do not see what good it would do.”

“If you were in earnest about it he would be—­afraid of you.”

“I don’t think he would in the least.  If I were to make a noise about it, it would only do you harm.  You wouldn’t wish all the world to know that he had—­jilted me!  I don’t care what the world knows.  Am I to put up with such treatment as that and do nothing?  Do you like to see your cousin treated in that way?”

“I don’t like it at all.  Lord Rufford is a good sort of man in his way, and has a large property.  I wish with all my heart that it had come off all right; but in these days one can’t make a man marry.  There used to be the alternative of going out and being shot at; but that is over now.”

“And a man is to do just as he pleases?”

“I am afraid so.  If a man is known to have behaved badly to a girl, public opinion will condemn him.”

“Can anything be worse than this treatment of me?” Lord Mistletoe could not tell her that he had alluded to absolute knowledge and that at present he had no more than her version of the story;—­or that the world would require more than that before the general condemnation of which he had spoken would come.  So he sat in silence and shook his head.  “And you think that I should put up with it quietly!”

“I think that your father should see the man.”  Arabella shook her head contemptuously.  “If you wish it I will write to my mother.”

“I would rather trust to my uncle.”

“I don’t know what he could do;—­but I will write to him if you please.”

“And you won’t see Lord Rufford?”

He sat silent for a minute or two during which she pressed him over and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover, bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their former affection for each other, telling him that she had no brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless in such a matter.  A word or two she said of the nature of the prize to be gained, and many words as to her absolute right to regard that prize as her own.  But at last he refused.  “I am not the person to do it,” he said.  “Even if I were your brother I should not be so,—­unless with the view of punishing him for his conduct;—­in which place the punishment to you would be worse than any I could inflict on him.  It cannot be good that any young lady should have her name in the mouths of all the lovers of gossip in the country.”

She was going to burst out at him in her anger, but before the words were out of her mouth she remembered herself.  She could not afford to make enemies and certainly not an enemy of him.  “Perhaps, then,” she said, “you had better tell your mother all that I have told you.  I will write to the Duke myself.”