XXI

THAT evening before joining her guests at the usual eight o'clock repast, Maryllia told Cicely Bourne of the disagreeable 'surprise' which had been treacherously contrived for her at Sir Morton Pippitt's tea-party by the unexpected presence of the loathed wooer whom she sought to avoid.

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Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must certainly have known he was to be there," she said-" And I think, from her look, Eva Beaulyon knew also. But neither of them gave me a hint. And now if I were to say anything they would only laugh and declare that they thought it would be fun.' There's no getting any help or sympathy out of such people. I'm sorry!-but-as usual-I must stand alone."

"I daresay every one of them was in the plot-men and all, if the truth were told!"-burst out Cicely, indignantly"And Mrs. Fred is at the bottom of the mischief. It's a shame! Your aunt is a brute, Maryllia! I would say so to her face if she were here! She's a calculating, selfish, titlegrubbing brute! There! What are you going to do?"

"Nothing!"-and Maryllia looked thoughtfully out of the window at the flaming after-glow of the sunset, bathing all the landscape in a flood of coppery crimson-"I shall just go on as usual. When I go down to dinner presently, I shall not speak of to-day's incident at all. Eva Beaulyon and Margaret Courtenay will expect me to speak of it-and they will be disappointed. If they allude to it, I shall change the subject. And I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius Longford, to dinner next week, as guests of Sir Morton Pippitt.-that's all."

Cicely opened her big dark eyes.

"You will actually invite Roxmouth?"

"Of course I will of course I must. I want everyone here to see and understand how absolutely indifferent I am to him."

"They will never see-they will never understand!" said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively-" My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to 'ce cher Roxmouth' the more the world will talk! They will say you are merely acting a

part. No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions of a prospective Duke."

"They may say what they like,-they may report me out of my senses if they choose!" declared Maryllia, hotly-"I am not a citizeness of the great American Republic that I should sell myself for a title! I have suffered quite enough at the hands of this society sneak, Roxmouth-and I don't intend to suffer any more. His methods are intolerable. There is not a city on the Continent where he has not paid the press to put paragraphs announcing my engagement to him and he has done the same thing with every payable paper in London. Aunt Emily has assisted him in this,-she has even written some of the announcements herself, sending them to the papers with my portrait and his, for publication! And because this constantly rumoured and expected marriage does not come off, and because people ask why it doesn't come off, the pair of conspirators are reduced to telling lies about me! I almost wish I could get small-pox or some other hideous ailment and become disfigured, then Roxmouth might leave me alone! Perhaps Providence will arrange it in that way."

Cicely uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Oh, don't say such a thing, Maryllia! It's too dreadful! You are the prettiest, sweetest creature I ever saw, and I wouldn't have a scar or a blemish on your dear face for a million Roxmouths! Have patience! We'll get rid of him!" Maryllia gave a hopeless gesture.

"How?"

"Well, I don't quite know!" and Cicely knitted her black brows perplexedly" But don't worry, Maryllia! I believe it will all come right. Something will happen to make short work of him,-I'm sure of it!"

"You are an optimist," said Maryllia, kissing her-" and you're very young! I have learned that in this best of all possible worlds, human nature is often the worst part of all creation, and that when you want to avoid a particularly objectionable human being, that being is always round the corner. However, if I cannot get rid of Roxmouth, I shall do something desperate! I shall disappear!"

"Where to?" asked Cicely, startled.

“I don't know. Nowhere that you cannot find me!"

She laughed,-she had recovered her natural buoyancy and light-heartedness, and when she joined her party at dinner that evening, she showed no traces of annoyance or fatigue.

She made no allusion to Lord Roxmouth's appearance at Sir Morton Pippitt's, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, glancing at her somewhat timorously, judged it best to avoid the subject. For she knew she had played a mean trick on the friend whose guest she was, she knew she had in her pocket a private letter from Mrs. Fred Vancourt, telling her of Lord Roxmouth's arrival at Badsworth Hall, and urging her to persuade Maryllia to go there, and to bring about meetings between the two as frequently as possible, and as she now and then met the straight flash of her hostess's honest blue eyes, she felt the hot colour rising to her face underneath all her rouge, and for once in her placid daily life of body-massage and self-admiration, she felt discomposed and embarrassed. The men talked the incident of the day over among themselves when they were left to their coffee and cigars, and discussed the probabilities and non-probabilities of Miss Vancourt becoming the Duchess of Ormistoune, with considerable zest.

"She'll never have him-she hates him like poison! declared Lord Charlemont.

"Not surprised at that," said another man- if she knows anything about him!”

"He has gone the pace!" murmured Mr. Bludlip Courtenay thoughtfully, dropping his monocle out of his eye and hastily putting it back, as though he feared his eye itself might escape from its socket unless thus fenced in-" But then, after allwild oats! Once sown and reaped, they seldom spring again after marriage."

"I think you're wrong there!" said Charlemont-" Wild oats are a singularly perpetual crop. In many cases marriage seems to give them a fresh start."

"Will there be a good harvest when you marry, Charly?" asked one of the company, with a laugh.

"Oh, I shouldn't wonder!" he returned, good-naturedly"I'm just as big a fool as any other man. But I always do my best not to play down on a woman."

"Woman" said Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, sententiously"is a riddle. Sometimes she wants a vote in elections,then, if it's offered to her, she won't have it. Buy her a pearl, and she says she would rather have had a ruby. Give her a park phaeton, and she declares she has been dying for a closed brougham. Offer her a five-hundred-guinea pair of cobs, and she will burst into tears and say she would have liked a 'little pug-dog-a dear, darling, little Japanese pug-dog'-she has

no use for cobs. And to carry the simile further, give her a husband, and she straightway wants a lover."

"That implies that a husband ceases to be a lover," said Charlemont.

"Well, I guess a husband can't be doing Romeo and 'oh moon'-ing till he's senile," observed a cadaverous looking man, opposite, who originally hailed from the States, but who, having purchased an estate in England, now patriotically sought to forget that he was ever an American.

They laughed.

"Oh moon'-ing is a good expression," said Lord Charlemont-"very good!"

"It's mine, sir-but you're welcome to it,"-rejoined the Anglicised renegade of the Stars and Stripes,-"To 'oh moon' is a verb every woman likes to have conjugated by a male fool once at least in her life."

"Yes-and if you don't 'oh m-moon' with her,"lisped a young fellow at the other end of the table-"She considers you a b-b-brute!"

Again the laugh went round.

"Well, I don't think Roxmouth will have a chance to go 'oh moon'-ing with our hostess," said Charlemont-" The whole idea of her marriage with him has been faked up by Mrs. Fred. The girl herself,-Miss Vancourt,-doesn't want him, and won't have him."

"Will you take a bet on it?" asked Mr. Bludlip Courtenay. "Yes, if you like!" and Charlemont laughed "I don't bet much, but I'll bet anything you choose to name on that. Maryllia Vancourt will never, unless she is bound, gagged and drugged into it, become Duchess of Ormistoune."

"Shall we say a tenner?" suggested Courtenay, writing the bet down in his notebook.

"Certainly."

"Good! I take the other side. I know something of Roxmouth, he's seldom baffled. Miss Vancourt will be the Duchess before next year!"

"Not a bit of it! Next year Miss Vancourt will still be Miss Vancourt!" said Charlemont, emphatically-" She's a woman of character, and if she doesn't intend to marry Roxmouth, nothing will make her. She's got a mind of her own, -most women's minds are the minds of their favourite men." "He-he-te-he-te-he-he!" giggled the young man who had before spoken,-"I know a girl"

"Shut up, old chappie! You know a bank whereon the

wild thyme grows '-that's what you know!" said Charlemont. "Come and have a look at the motor."

Whereupon they rose from the table and dispersed.

From that day, however, a certain additional interest was given to the house-party entertainment at Abbot's Manor. Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon fell so neatly into the web which Maryllia carefully prepared for them, that she soon found out what a watch they kept upon her, and knew, without further trouble, that she must from henceforth regard them as spies in her aunt and Lord Roxmouth's service. The men took no part in this detective business, but nevertheless were keenly inquisitive in their own line, more bets being given and taken freely on what was likely to be the upshot of affairs. Meanwhile, Lord Roxmouth and Mr. Longford, sometimes accompanied by Sir Morton Pippitt, and sometimes without him, called often, but Maryllia was always out. She had two watch-dogs besides her canine friend, Plato,-and these were Cicely and Julian Adderley. Cicely had pressed the moon calf' into her service, and had told him just as much as she thought proper concerning Roxmouth and his persecution of her friend and patroness.

"Go as often as you can to Badsworth Hall," she commanded him-" and find out all their movements there. Then tell me, and whenever Roxmouth comes here to call, Maryllia will be out! Be vigilant and faithful!"

And she had shaken her finger at him and rolled her dark eyes with such tragic intensity, that he had entered zealously into the spirit of the little social drama, and had become as it were special reporter of the Roxmouth policy to the opposing party.

But this was behind the scenes. The visible action of the piece appeared just now to be entirely with Maryllia and her lordly wooer, she as heroine, he as hero,-while the 'supers,' useful in their way as spies, messengers and general attendants, took their parts in the various scenes with considerable vivacity, wondering how much they might possibly get out of it for themselves. If, while they were guests at Abbot's Manor, an engagement between Lord Roxmouth and Maryllia Vancourt could be finally settled, they felt they could all claim a share in having urged the matter on, and worked' it. And it was likely that in such a case, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, with millions at her disposal, would be helpful to them in their turn, should they ever desire it. Altogether, it seemed a game worth playing. None of them felt any regret that Maryllia should be made the pivot round which to work their