She might perhaps object to cigars and soda water after eleven o’clock, but then what assurance had he that Arabella would not have objected still more loudly.  She had sworn that she would never be opposed to his little pleasures; but he knew what such oaths were worth.  Marriage altogether was a bore; but having a name and a large fortune, it was incumbent on him to transmit them to an immediate descendant.  And perhaps it was a worse bore to grow old without having specially bound any other human being to his interests.  “How well I recollect that spot,” said Miss Penge.  “It was there that Major Caneback took the fence.”

“That was not where he fell”

“Oh no;—­I did not see that.  It would have haunted me for ever had I done so.—­But it was there that I thought he must kill himself.  That was a terrible time, Lord Rufford.”

“Terrible to poor Caneback certainly.”

“Yes, and to all of us.  Do you remember that fearful ball?  We were all so unhappy,—­because you suffered so much.”

“It was bad.”

“And that woman who persecuted you!  We all knew that you felt it”

“I felt that poor man’s death.”

“Yes;—­and you felt the other nuisance too.”

“I remember that you told me that you would cling on to my legs.”

“Eleanor said so;—­and when it was explained to me, what clinging on to your legs meant, I remember saying that I wished to be understood as being one to help.  I love your sister so well that anything which would break her heart would make me unhappy.”

“You did not care for my own welfare in the matter?”

“What ought I say, Lord Rufford, in answer to that?  Of course I did care.  But I knew that it was impossible that you should really set your affections on such a person as Miss Trefoil.  I told Eleanor that it would come to nothing.  I was sure of it.”

“Why should it have to come to nothing,—­as you call it?”

“Because you are a gentleman and because she—­is not a lady.  I don’t know that we women can quite understand how it is that you men amuse yourselves with such persons.”

“I didn’t amuse myself.”

“I never thought you did very much.  There was something I suppose in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her vivacity;—­but through it all I did not think that you were enjoying yourself.  You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when a woman is not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to be specially liked by any man.  I have never heard that Miss Trefoil had a female friend.”

From day to day there were little meetings and conversations of this kind till Lord Rufford found himself accustomed to Miss Penge’s solicitude for his welfare.  In all that passed between them the lady affected a status that was altogether removed from that of making or receiving love.  There had come to be a peculiar friendship,—­because of Eleanor.  A week of this kind of thing had not gone by before Miss Penge found herself able to talk of and absolutely to describe this peculiar feeling, and could almost say how pleasant was such friendship, divested of the burden of all amatory possibilities.  But through it all Lord Rufford knew that he would have to marry Miss Penge.