CHAPTER III

“And custom lies upon thee with a weight: heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.”

“YOU are quite right in thinking I care for her, Mrs. Huntly, and have done ever since I knew her,” said Jack Hurstly, looking hard at an inoffensive poker. “But there’s no doing anything with her. I am not earnest enough, it seems. She objects to my club, my sport, and all my set. I believe she even objects to my regiment. At any rate she thinks I am wasting my time here in England, and ought to be sweating in some beastly tropics—Heaven knows why!”

“So you ought, Jack, so you ought,” said Mrs. Huntly soothingly. “Muriel is quite right. It’s positively shameful the lives our society young men lead. A horse, a gun, a club and a dress-suit, what a catalogue of occupations! Can you increase it?”

“Oh, well,” said her companion rather sheepishly, “I’m no worse than the other fellows, am I, Mrs. Huntly?”

“My dear Jack, she’s not going to marry the ‘other fellows,’ is she? You had better leave them out of the question; and if your ambition is to be no worse than they are you had better dispense with Muriel. Go off and hunt somewhere, and then come back and marry a girl of your own sort.”

The door opened. “Miss Dallerton” the butler announced. Muriel came forward into the middle of the room. There was such a warm, gracious dignity about her that people who had little to recommend them but the external felt thin in her presence. Mrs. Huntly greeted her warmly. Jack said very little, but as his eyes rested on her Mrs. Huntly thought that the hunting expedition, if it ever came off, must be a long one.

“I’m so glad, so glad to see you both,” cried Muriel joyously, “particularly as you are neither of you going to ask me for soup tickets! Dearest Mary, are you really well? And what a comfort it is to see a pretty dress! And won’t you please both tell me all about everybody, and who has married who, though they ought to have done better? I feel so ignorant.” She sat down by Mary Huntly, caressing her hand, and looking with glad eyes from one to the other like a child out for a holiday.

“Oh, my dear girl,” cried Mrs. Huntly mournfully, “to think that you are out of it all! It almost breaks my heart!”

“Mary, how dare you! I came to be pacified, and if I’m reproached I shall simply turn tail and run away! You don’t reproach me, do you, Captain Hurstly?”

“Perhaps I should like to, if you gave me time,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, but I won’t, not for any such purpose—you shan’t have a moment of it. But who is this?” A young girl had entered the room; she was dangerously pretty (it is the only adjective one can use), and she was perfectly self-possessed. Mrs. Huntly introduced her to them. She was a young cousin of hers, Gladys Travers.

Imperceptibly the atmosphere changed. Mrs. Huntly and Muriel drew apart from the other two, and Muriel could not help noticing how perfectly satisfied Captain Hurstly seemed with his companion, and how well they got on together.

When she rose to go Gladys crossed over to her. “May I come to see you, Miss Dallerton?” she asked. “I want so much to know about your work, and I—I like you so much! Don’t think me frightful. I have lived in the States, you know, and people say all Americans are forgiven everything! I do really want so much to know you.” She spoke in quick, low tones, the expression changing as the shadows on a pool change under a light wind. She was very appealing.

“Oh, but it’s dear of you to like me,” said Muriel, smiling. “Please come _really_, will you? You will always find me somewhere about the club—Mary has the address.”

She turned to Captain Hurstly.

“I am coming with you, if I may,” he said. The two descended to the street in silence.

“You’re looking awfully dragged and thin, Miss Muriel,” he said at last.

“You always were so hopelessly rude,” she laughed.

“You know what I think about the whole thing?” he said gravely.

“Ah, it’s _that_ which makes me tired!” she sighed. “All my friends say just the same. They won’t think how—how hard they make it for me—no—not even you.”

“Even me?” he asked quietly. She bit her lips; she was losing her head it seemed; she must not do that.

“I take the ’bus at this corner,” she said.

“I think we’ll go by hansom,” said her escort. She smiled.

“You always _will_ contradict me, Captain Hurstly.”

“You will not contradict _me_ if I remind you that you used to call me—Jack?” he ventured.

The hansom drove up, and Muriel put out her hand to him. She unmistakably intended to go alone, even though she had let him choose her vehicle.

“I may come and see you?” he asked. She frowned a little.

“I’m very busy, you know,” she said.

“Does that mean I’m not to come?”

“You might come,” she suggested suddenly, “and bring Mary’s little cousin; she can’t come alone.”

“I can though,” he persisted. She shook her head and laughed merrily.

“Mary’s little cousin,” she said as she drove off, “or not at all!” And he never went.