Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ us put together?" murmured the captain.

      "Oh, there is nothing on there," said Lord Chichester. "My wife – and she ought to know, don't you know – stoutly denies it."

      "I didn't say there was anything between them. If there was, that would be sufficient reason for all of us hating him – barring you, Charlie, who are out of the hunt now."

      "You don't hate Blair?" said Chichester, thoughtfully.

      "Well, there is nothing between him and her; now, at any rate; and if there were we shouldn't hate him."

      "Fancy hating old Blair!" exclaimed the marquis.

      There was a general smile of assent at the exclamation.

      "Best fellow alive!" said Chichester. "Poor old chappie; he's dreadfully down on his luck just at present."

      "Oh, he'll come up to time all right!" broke in the dragoon. "You never find Blair knocked under for long. He'll come up smiling presently. Always falls on his legs, thank goodness. By the way," he said, more thoughtfully than was his wont, "it's rather rum how he and that fellow Ambrose get on so well together."

      "Oh, Blair could get on with any one – Old Nick himself!" exclaimed Chichester, and amidst the general laugh the group melted and passed on with the crowd.

      Miss Violet Graham rode on in silence for a moment or two, then she said, in an undertone:

      "Have you seen him? Where is he?"

      Austin Ambrose cast a cold glance of warning toward the others, and with a little gesture of impatience Violet Graham answered it.

      "You are right. Come in to tea, will you?"

      "Thanks," he said aloud. "I will leave you now," he added, as they reached the gates; "I will be round as soon as I have put the horse in."

      Violet Graham nodded, and immediately joined in conversation with the people near her, and with her usual vivacity exchanged greetings and rapid exclamations with the people who rode or drove by. It seemed as if she knew and was known of everybody!

      But presently she pulled up.

      "Well, girls, I'm tired out. It really is too hot for any more of it. Any of you come home to tea with me?"

      They knew by the way the invitation was given that they were not wanted, and of course declined, and Miss Graham, turning her horse, rode pretty smartly, hot as it was, toward the gate.

      In a few minutes she was in her house in Park Lane.

      It was one of the largest houses in the lane, and the appointments were of a magnificence suitable to the richest lady in London.

      The hall she entered, though not so large as those in country mansions, was superbly decorated and lined with choice exotics. Statuary, white as the driven snow, gleamed against the mosaic walls. Plush had given place to Indian muslin for the summer months, and the white place looked like an Oriental or a Grecian dream.

      "I am out to everyone but Mr. Ambrose," she said to the footman who attended her, and passing by the drawing-room, she ascended the stairs and entered a really beautiful apartment, which, as she reserved it for herself, might be called her boudoir.

      She shut the door and dropped on a couch, flinging her hat on a table and feverishly tugging at her gauntlets. Then she rose and began pacing the room. And all the time she looked as anxious as a woman could look.

      Presently the door opened, and a servant announced Mr. Ambrose.

      "Bring some tea," she said, "and show Mr. Ambrose in."

      He came in, cool, self-possessed, bringing with him, as it seemed, a breath of cold air.

      Just glancing at her, he put down his hat and whip, and seating himself in one of the delightfully easy chairs, leant back and looked at her from under his lids.

      It was a peculiar look, critical, analytical; it was the look a surgeon bends on a patient who is a curious and, perhaps, difficult case.

      "Well?" she said, sinking into a chair and fidgeting with the handle of her whip.

      The footman entered with the tea-tray, and Austin Ambrose, instead of answering, said:

      "No sugar in mine, please."

      She poured him out a cup with not too carefully concealed impatience, and as he rose and fetched it, taking it leisurely back to his chair, she beat a tattoo on the ground with her small feet.

      "How tiresomely slow you can be when you like," she said. "I believe you do it to – to exasperate me."

      "Why should I exasperate you?" he responded calmly, coolly. "Are you angry with me because I would not speak before the women who were with us in the park, or before the servant here; it is a question which of them would chatter most."

      "Oh, you are right, of course. You always are," she said. "That makes it so annoying. But there are no women or servants here now, and you can speak freely, and – and at once. Did you see Blair?"

      "I had just left him when I met you," he answered.

      "Well?" she said, and her eyes sought his face eagerly, impatiently. "Where has he been?"

      "To Leyton Court," he replied.

      "To the earl's," she said. "I thought so."

      "Yes," he said slowly; "he has been to the earl."

      "Well, has he done anything for him?"

      "No; nothing."

      A look of relief shone in her eyes.

      "I am glad, glad!" she murmured.

      "He offered to lend him – or give him – the money he wanted, but Blair refused."

      "He refused? That was like him!" she said, with a touch of pride and satisfaction. "Yes, that was just like him. They quarreled, of course?"

      "Oh, yes, they quarreled!" assented Austin Ambrose quietly. "There were the materials for a quarrel. It seems that, finding the journey tedious, Blair enlivened it by fighting with one of the rustics."

      She smiled, and a strange look came into her eyes.

      "Yes, that is Blair all over! And the earl heard of it?"

      "Yes," he said, slowly, "he heard of it; and, as the combat took place just outside the Court gates, he was not altogether pleased. Blair's account is amusing."

      "He shall tell me! He shall tell me!" she said, looking into vacancy, her cheeks mantling, her eyes glowing. "I – I have never seen him fight – "

      "I dare say he would gratify any desire you may have in that direction. He is always ready to fight, and on the smallest provocation," remarked Austin Ambrose, with icy coldness.

      "No," she said, "he is not! He is not easily provoked, but when he is – but what does it matter? We don't want to waste time quarreling about him. I want to hear all – all that occurred!"

      "I came to tell you," he said, slowly. "The earl, notwithstanding his anger at the brawl outside the Court gates, offered to lend Blair the money СКАЧАТЬ