“She thinks I am fanciful,” he said.

He was sitting with Lady Markham in the room which was her special sanctuary. She did not call it her boudoir—she was not at all inclined to bouder; but it answered to that retirement in common parlance. Those who wanted to see her alone, to confide in her, as many people did, knocked at the door of this room. It opened with a large window upon the lawn, and looked down through a carefully kept opening upon the sea. Amid all the little luxuries appropriate to my lady’s chamber, you could see the biggest ships in the world pass across the gleaming foreground, shut in between two massifs of laurel, making a delightful confusion of the great and the small, which was specially pleasant to her. She sat, however,{v2-232} with her back to this pleasant prospect, holding up a screen, to shade her delicate cheek from the bright little fire, which, though April was far advanced, was still thought necessary so near the sea. Claude had thrown himself into another chair in front of the fireplace. No warmth was ever too much for him. There was the usual pathos in his tone, but a faint consciousness of something amusing was in his face.

“Did she?” said Lady Markham with a laugh. “The little impertinent! But you know, my dear boy, that is what I have always said.”

“Yes—it is quite true. You healthy people, you are always of opinion that one can get over it if one makes the effort; and there is no way of proving the contrary but by dying, which is a strong step.”

“A very strong step—one, I hope, that you will not think of taking. They are both very sincere, my girls, though in a different way. They mean what they say; and yet they do not mean it, Claude. That is, it is quite true; but does not affect their regard for you, which,{v2-233} I am sure, without implying any deeper feeling, is strong.”

He shook his head a little. “Dear Lady Markham,” he said, “you know if I am to marry, I want, above all things, to marry a daughter of yours.”

“Dear boy!” she said, with a look full of tender meaning.

“You have always been so good to me, since ever I can remember. But what am I to do if they—object? Constance—has run away from me, people say: run away—to escape me!” His voice took so tragically complaining a tone, that Lady Markham bit her lip and held her screen higher to conceal her smile. Next moment, however, she turned upon him with a perfectly grave and troubled face.

“Dear Claude!” she cried, “what an injustice to poor Con. I thought I had explained all that to you. You have known all along the painful position I am in with their father, and you know how impulsive she is. And then, Markham—— Alas!” she continued with a sigh, “my position is very complicated, Claude. Markham is the best son that ever{v2-234} was; but you know I have to pay a great deal for it.”

“Ah!” said Claude; “Nelly Winterbourn and all that,” with a good many sage nods of his head.

“Not only Nelly Winterbourn—there is no harm in her, that I know—but he has a great influence with the girls. It was he who put it into Constance’s head to go to her father. I am quite sure it was. He put it before her that it was her duty.”

“O—oh!” Claude made this very English comment with the doubtful tone which it expresses; and added, “Her duty!” with a very unconvinced air.

“He did so, I know. And she was so fond of adventure and change. I agreed with him partly afterwards that it was the best thing that could happen to her. She is finding out by experience what banishment from Society, and from all that makes life pleasant, is. I have no doubt she will come back—in a very different frame of mind.”

Claude did not respond, as perhaps Lady Markham expected him to do. He sat and{v2-235} dandled his leg before the fire, not looking at her. After some time, he said in a reflective way, “Whoever I marry, she will have to resign herself to banishment, as you call it—that has been always understood. A warm climate in winter—and to be ready to start at any moment.”

“That is always understood—till you get stronger,” said Lady Markham in the gentlest tone. “But you know I have always expected that you would get stronger. Remember, you have been kept at home all this year—and you are better; at all events you have not suffered.”

“Had I been sent away, Constance would have remained at home,” he said. “I am not speaking out of irritation, but only to understand it fully. It is not as if I were finding fault with Constance; but you see for yourself she could not stand me all the year round. A fellow who has always to be thinking about the thermometer is trying.”

“My dear boy,” said Lady Markham, “everything is trying. The thermometer is much less offensive than most things that men care for. Girls are brought up in that fastidious way:{v2-236} you all like them to be so, and to think they have refined tastes, and so forth; and then you are surprised when you find they have a little difficulty—— Constance was only fanciful, that was all—impatient.”

“Fanciful,” he repeated. “That was what the little one said. I wish she were fanciful, and not so horribly well and strong.”

“My dear Claude,” said Lady Markham quickly, “you would not like that at all! A delicate wife is the most dreadful thing—one that you would always have to be considering; who could not perhaps go to the places that suited you; who would not be able to go out with you when you wanted her. I don’t insist upon a daughter of mine: but not that, not that, for your own sake, my dear boy!”

“I believe you are right,” he said, with a look of conviction. “Then I suppose the only thing to be done is to wait for a little and see how things turn out. There is no hurry about it, you know.”

“Oh, no hurry!” she said, with uneasy assent. “That is, if you are not in a hurry,” she added after a pause.{v2-237}

“No, I don’t think so. I am rather enjoying myself, I think. It always does one good,” he said, getting up slowly, “to come and have it out with you.”

Lady Markham said “Dear boy!” once more, and gave him her hand, which he kissed; and then his audience was over. He went away; and she turned round to her writing-table to the inevitable correspondence. There was a little cloud upon her forehead so long as she was alone; but when another knock came at the door, it cleared by magic as she said “Come in.” This time it was Sir Thomas who appeared. He was a tall man, with grey hair, and had the air of being very carefully brushed and dressed. He came in, and seated himself where Claude had been, but pushed back the chair from the fire.

“Don’t you think,” he said, “that you keep your room a little too warm?”

“Claude complained that it was cold. It is difficult to please everybody.”

“Oh, Claude. I have come to speak to you, dear Lady Markham, on a very different subject. I was talking to Frances last night.{v2-238}”

“So I perceived. And what do you think of my little girl?”

“You know,” he said, with some solemnity, “the hopes I have always entertained that some time or other our dear Waring might be brought among us once more.”

“I have always told you,” said Lady Markham, “that no difficulties should be raised by me.”

“You were always everything that is good and kind,” said Sir Thomas. “I was talking to his dear little daughter last night. She reminds me very much of Waring, Lady Markham.”

“That is odd; for everybody tells me—and indeed I can see it myself—that she is like me.”

“She is very like you; still, she reminds me of her father more than I can say. I do think we have in her the instrument—the very instrument that is wanted. If he is ever to be brought back again——”

“Which I doubt,” she said, shaking her head.

“Don’t let us doubt. With perseverance, everything is to be hoped; and here we have in our very hands what I have always looked for{v2-239}—some one devoted to him and very fond of you.”

“Is she very fond of me?” said Lady Markham. Her face softened—a little moisture crept into her eyes. “Ah, Sir Thomas, I wonder if that is true. She was very much moved by the idea of her mother—a relation she had never known. She expected I don’t know what, but more, I am sure, than she has found in me. Oh, don’t say anything. I am scarcely surprised; I am not at all displeased. To come with your heart full of an ideal, and to find an ordinary woman—a woman in Society!” The moisture enlarged in Lady Markham’s eyes—not tears, but yet a liquid mist that gave them pathos. She shook her head, looking at him with a smile.

“We need not argue the question,” said Sir Thomas, “for I know she is very fond of you. You should have heard her stop me when she thought I was going to criticise you. Of course, had she known me better she would have known how impossible............