For once, Joan was dumfounded. The tables had been turned upon her with a vengeance. She gasped, and could not answer.
"You see, it is my turn to dictate terms now," said Lord Northmuir.
Joan's breath had come back. "You are right," she returned, in a meek voice. "I have given you the reins. But--well, it would be something to be Countess of Northmuir."
"Don't hope to be a widowed Countess," chuckled the old man. "I am only sixty-nine, and for the last ten years I have taken good care of myself."
"I count on nothing after this," said Joan.
Lord Northmuir laughed out in his triumph over her. "The notice of the engagement will go to the _Morning Post_ immediately," he said. "To-morrow, some of our friends will be surprised."
But it was he who was surprised; for, when to-morrow came, Joan had run away.
It is like stating that the world is round to say that London is the best of hiding-places. It is the best, because there are many Londons, and one London knows practically nothing about any of the other Londons. When, therefore, Mercy Milton disappeared from Northmuir House, Belgrave Square, Joan Carthew promptly appeared at her old camping-ground, the boarding-house in Woburn Place.
Joan was no longer penniless, and as far as Lord Northmuir was concerned, she was easy in her mind. A man of his stamp was unlikely to risk the much-prized "honour of his name" to seek her with detectives; while, unassisted, he would have to shrug his weary old shoulders and resign himself to loss and loneliness.
But ambition kindled restlessness. She grudged wasting a moment when her fortune had to be made, her permanent place in life fixed. Besides, she was dissatisfied with her adventure in the house of Lord Northmuir. She had not come off badly, yet it galled her to remember that in self-defence she had been driven to confess her scheme to its victim, and that--this expedient not proving efficacious--she had eventually been forced to run away like the coward she was not. On the whole, she had to admit that if Lord Northmuir had not in the end got the better of her, he had come near to doing so. The sharp taste of failure was in her mouth, and the only way to be rid of it was to get the better of somebody else--somebody disagreeable, so that the sweets of success might be unmixed with bitterness.