CHAPTER II

COLONEL OSBORNE

It has been already said that Colonel Osborne was a bachelor, a man of fortune, a member of Parliament, and one who carried his half century of years lightly on his shoulders.  It will only be necessary to say further of him that he was a man popular with those among whom he lived, as a politician, as a sportsman, and as a member of society.  He could speak well in the House, though he spoke but seldom, and it was generally thought of him that he might have been something considerable, had it not suited him better to be nothing at all.  He was supposed to be a Conservative, and generally voted with the conservative party; but he could boast that he was altogether independent, and on an occasion would take the trouble of proving himself to be so.  He was in possession of excellent health; had all that the world could give; was fond of books, pictures, architecture, and china; had various tastes, and the means of indulging them, and was one of those few men on whom it seems that every pleasant thing has been lavished.  There was that little slur on his good name to which allusion has been made; but those who knew Colonel Osborne best were generally willing to declare that no harm was intended, and that the evils which arose were always to be attributed to mistaken jealousy.  He had, his friends said, a free and pleasant way with women which women like, a pleasant way of free friendship; that there was no more, and that the harm which had come had always come from false suspicion.  But there were certain ladies about the town—­good, motherly, discreet women—­who hated the name of Colonel Osborne, who would not admit him within their doors, who would not bow to him in other people’s houses, who would always speak of him as a serpent, a hyena, a kite, or a shark.  Old Lady Milborough was one of these, a daughter of a friend of hers having once admitted the serpent to her intimacy.

‘Augustus Poole was wise enough to take his wife abroad,’ said old Lady Milborough, discussing about this time with a gossip of hers the danger of Mrs Trevelyan’s position, ’or there would have been a breakup there; and yet there never was a better girl in the world than Jane Marriott.’

The reader may be quite certain that Colonel Osborne had no premeditated evil intention when he allowed himself to become the intimate friend of his old friend’s daughter.  There was nothing fiendish in his nature.  He was not a man who boasted of his conquests.  He was not a ravening wolf going about seeking whom he might devour, and determined to devour whatever might come in his way; but he liked that which was pleasant; and of all pleasant things the company of a pretty clever woman was to him the pleasantest.  At this exact period of his life no woman was so pleasantly pretty to him, and so agreeably clever, as Mrs Trevelyan.