As the elder lady was slowly undressing that night, Cecil, still with the same provoking brightness on her face, peeped in.
There was something in her manner that brought Mrs. Rolleston's annoyance to the culminating point. She thought the faithless damsel had come to announce her engagement, and demand sympathy and congratulations. So, with a view to arrest any aggressive gush, she said, with some asperity,--"I am glad you have come, for I wanted to tell you, Cecil, how bad it looked your walking off in that way with Major Fane."
"I suppose it was rather strong," said the girl coolly; "but I like him so much. I had no idea he was so nice."
Mrs. Rolleston took refuge in the ill-assumed dignity of rising anger.
"I suppose, mamma, he is very well off? Papa often wonders that he goes soldiering on."
"Really, Cecil, whatever your speculations may be, it was not a delicate act, sitting apart with him for half-an-hour in a dark arbour."
"I thought he might propose,"--Mrs. Rolleston's face expressed, "Are you mad?"--"or give me a chance somehow of saying what I wanted to. And what's more," she continued, "I am not certain whether he meant to, or not. To be sure, I didn't give him much time."
"Did _you_, propose, then? Cecil, if you don't wish me to disbelieve my own senses, tell me at once what you were about in the summer-house."
"Refusing eight thousand a year," was the short reply.
A puzzled, not unpleased expression, was dawning. "I thought you said he did not propose?"
"Well, no; honestly, he didn't. We had a little conversation, and the upshot was, he has promised to go to England for six months."
Mrs. Rolleston was not a proud woman, and the relief was so great, that she folded Cecil in a silent embrace.
"Perhaps, mamma," continued the girl, demurely, "you won't think it necessary to mention this to papa. It wouldn't be fair to betray Major Fane!"
Mrs. Rolleston was only too convinced, and replied, "that she should consider it Cecil's secret, and say nothing about it." Whereupon the damsel ran merrily off, humming the air, "I told them they needn't come wooing to me." But, arrived in her own room, her evanescent high spirits vanished, and a bitter and clear-sighted mood succeeded. "Bertie," she thought, "your evil influence is over us all. Mamma, till now the truest of step-mothers, is only thinking of ensuring you my fortune. I disoblige papa, send away a true love, hate Bluebell for her too attractive soft eyes, am harassed by doubts even of you--is it worth it? I might yet recall Lucian Fane; he is very calm, and would not expect too much. What folly! No, if I am to be miserable, it must be my own way, with the only man who interests me heart and soul. I suppose, if we marry, I may reckon on one year of happiness, though hardly any one who knew Bertie would expect him to be constant even for that time. But by then I should have got immense influence, for, though I am not clever and attractive like him, I have far more will, and, in the long run, it is character more than talent that shapes our life. If Bluebell would only go to England!"