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Nay," she said, as I was going to speak, "that soft smile is intended to be the preface of a very pretty compliment respecting the peculiar advantages which Die Vernon's friends and kinsmen enjoy, by her being born one of their Helots; but spare me the utterance, my good friend, and let us try whether we shall agree better on the second count of my indictment against fortune, as that quill-driving puppy would call it.
"I believe I told you," he wrote to one of his friends, "that Vernon's birthday passed quietly, but it was not designed to be pacific; for at twelve at night, eight gentlemen dressed like sailors, and masked, went round Covent Garden with a drum beating for a volunteer mob; but it did not take; and they retired to a great supper that was prepared for them at the Bedford Head, and ordered by Whitehead, the author of 'Manners." At a later date it was the meeting-place of a club to which John Wilkes belonged.
Her face seemed to float in front of his eyes, her voice came trembling and lulling and soft through the hellish sounds, piercing the savagery with gentle trustfulness, urging him to be brave, strong and true. Then Grace Vernon's dear face, dim and indistinct, lured him forward into the strife, her clear voice, mingling with the plaintive tones of the other, commanding him to come to her.
He means a bolt; and the money I've had to-day is the last I shall ever receive from that quarter." Almost immediately after Major Vernon's departure, Henry Dunbar rang the bell for the servant who acted as his valet whenever he required the services of one, which was not often. "I shall start for Paris to-night, Jeffreys," he said to this man.
Rashleigh, as it has been Miss Vernon's, to leave me in ignorance, I must necessarily submit; but, pray, do not withhold your information from me on the ground of imagining that I have already obtained any on the subject.
I have danced the first dance with Lady Margaret Midgecombe: I come, according to your promise, to dance the second with you." There was something in these words that stung one of the morbid remembrances in Miss Vernon's mind. Lady Margaret Midgecombe, in ordinary life, would have been thought a good-looking, vulgar girl: she was a Duke's daughter and she was termed a Hebe.
Vernon's faltering tones belied his words and the other laughed shortly. "All right. The money is earning no interest for me. I'll put through the check to-morrow." "Oh, I say !" "Then come along, you young puppy, and no more whining, or I'll " The steps moved away and the voices again sank to an indistinguishable murmur, but Willa had learned enough.
Preferring to consider Vernon a pragmatical moralist played upon by a sententious drone, he thought it politic to detach them, and vanquish Clara while she was in the beaten mood, as she had appeared before Vernon's vexatious arrival. "I'm afraid, my dear fellow, you are rather too dainty and fussy for a very successful wooer," he said. "It's beautiful on paper, and absurd in life.
Influence is to be counted for power, and her influence over Vernon was displayed in her persuading him to dance one evening at Lady Culmer's, after his melancholy exhibitions of himself in the art; and not only did she persuade him to stand up fronting her, she manoeuvred him through the dance like a clever boy cajoling a top to come to him without reeling, both to Vernon's contentment and to Sir Willoughby's; for he was the last man to object to a manifestation of power in his bride.
Vernon's next step was to ascertain the present abiding place of Maxwell, if, indeed, he was in the city; and for this purpose he had gone to his office. The open room did not verify the statements of the negress.
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