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"I have done something you don't like," she said. "I knew I had." Mr. Francis Barold retired within himself at once. In his present mood it really appeared that she was assuming that he was very much interested indeed. "I should scarcely take the liberty upon a limited acquaintance," he began. She looked at him steadily, fanning herself with slow, regular movements. "Yes," she remarked.
Barold has not been to Oldclough for several days." "Then, he will tell you when he comes; for I suppose he has as much to do with it as Mr. Burmistone." "I have heard before," announced my lady, "of men of Mr.
The Rathburns' place, Broadoaks, is about ten miles farther on; not far, you see." "Then," said Lady Theobald, "I am to understand that your visit is accidental." Capt. Barold was not embarrassed. He did not attempt to avoid her ladyship's rather stern eye, as he made his cool reply. "Well, yes," he said. "I beg pardon, but it is accidental, rather."
"It is certain," put in Miss Pilcher, "that the union would be a desirable one; and we have reason to remark that a deep interest in Mr. Francis Barold has been shown by Lady Theobald. He has been invited to make her house his home during his stay in Slowbridge; and, though he has not done so, the fact that he has not is due only to some inexplicable reluctance upon his own part.
"He is probably disgusted by a freedom of manner to which he is not accustomed," replied Mrs. Burnham. "The only wonder is that he has not been disgusted by it before." The game over, Octavia deserted her partner. She walked lightly, and with the air of a victor, to where Barold was standing.
"She has not spoken a word to me about it, but she has accepted them," said Lucia. "I don't quite understand her lately, Octavia. She must be very fond of Francis Barold. He never gives way to her in the least, and she always seems to submit to him. I know she would not have let me go, if he had not insisted on it, in that taking-it-for-granted way of his." Naturally Mr.
Barold inquired, speaking with a languid air, but at the same time glancing at her with some slight interest from under his eyelids. "Lucia says I am," she returned, with the calmness of a young person who wished to regard the matter from an unembarrassed point of view. "Lucia says I am affectionate." "Ah!" deliberately. "Are you?" She turned, and looked at him serenely.
Francis Barold, if he will take me," she said, with a bitter little smile, "Mr. Francis Barold, who is so much in love with me, as you know. His mother approves of the match, and sent him here to make love to me, which he has done, as you have seen.
Then she turned to Barold. "I had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday, not long after she arrived," she said. "She had diamonds in her ears as big as peas, and rings to match. Her manner is just what one might expect from a young woman brought up among gold-diggers and silver-miners." "It struck me as being a very unique and interesting manner," said Capt. Barold.
She was only troubled when Lady Theobald scolded her, which was by no means infrequently. Perhaps the straits to which, at times, her ladyship was put to maintain her dignity imbittered her somewhat. "Lucia is neither a Theobald nor a Barold," she had been heard to say once, and she had said it with much rigor. A subject of much conversation in private circles had been Lucia's future.
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