第112章

Mr Dobbes was probably right in his opinion that hotels, tourists, and congregations of men are detrimental to shooting. Crummie-Toddie was in all respects suited for sport. Killancodlem, though it had the name of a shooting-place, certainly was not so. Men going there took their guns. Gamekeepers were provided with gillies,--and, in a moderate quantity, game. On certain grand days a deer or two might be shot,--and would be very much talked about afterwards. But a glance at the place would suffice to show that Killancodlem was not intended for sport. It was a fine castellated mansion, with beautiful though narrow grounds, standing in the valley of the Archay River, with a mountain behind and the river in front. Between the gates and the river there was a public road on which a stage-coach ran, with loud-blown horns and the noise of many tourists. A mile beyond the Castle was the famous Killancodlem hotel which made up a hundred and twenty beds, and at which half as many more guests would sleep on occasions under the tables. And there was the Killancodlem post-office halfway between the two. At Crummie-Toddie they had to send nine miles for their letters and newspapers. At Killancodlem there was lawn-tennis and a billiard-room and dancing every night. The costumes of the ladies were lovely, and those of the gentlemen, who were wonderful in knickerbockers, picturesque hats and variegated stockings, hardly less so. and then there were carriages and saddle-horses, and paths had been made hither and thither through the rocks and hills for the sake of the scenery. Scenery! To hear Mr Dobbes utter the single word was as good as a play. Was it for such cockney purposes as those that Scotland had been created, fit mother for grouse and deer?

Silverbridge arrived just before lunch, and was soon made to understand that it was impossible that he should go back that day.

Mrs Jones was very great on that occasion. 'You are afraid of Reginald Dobbes,' she said severely.

'I think I am rather.'

'Of course you are. How came it to pass that you of all men should submit yourself to such a tyrant?'

'Good shooting, you know,' said Silverbridge.

'But you dare not call an hour your own,--or your soul. Mr Dobbes and I are sworn enemies. We both like Scotland, and unfortunately we have fallen into the same neighbourhood. He looks upon me as the genius of sloth. I regard him as the incarnation of tyranny.

He once said there should be no women in Scotland,--just an old one here and there, who would know how to cook grouse. I offered to go and cook his grouse!

'Any friend of mine,' continued Mrs Jones, 'who comes down to Crummie-Toddie without staying a day or two with me,--will never be my friend any more. I do not hesitate to tell you, Lord Silverbridge, that I call for your surrender, in order that I may show my power over Reginald Dobbes. Are you a Dobbite?'

'Not thorough-going,' said Silverbridge.

'Then be a Montacute Jones-ite, or a Bocassen-ite, if, as possible, you prefer a young woman to an old one.' At this moment Isabel Boncassen was standing close to them.

'Killancodlem against Crummie-Toddie forever,' said Miss barbarian, waving her handkerchief. As a matter of course a messenger was sent back to Crummie-Toddie for the young lord's evening apparel.

The whole of that afternoon was spent playing lawn-tennis with Miss Boncassen. Lady Mabel was asked to join the party, but she refused, having promised to take a walk to a distant waterfall where the Codlem falls into the Archay. A gentleman in knickerbockers was to have gone with her, and two other young ladies, but when the time came she was weary, she said,--and she sat almost the entire afternoon looking at the game from a distance. Silverbridge played well, but so well as the pretty American. With them were joined two others, somewhat inferior, so that Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen were on different sides. They played game after game, and Miss Boncassen's side always won.

Very little was said between Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen which did not refer to the game. But Lady Mabel, looking on, told herself that they were making love to each other before her eyes.

And why shouldn't they? She asked herself that question in perfect good faith. Why should they not be lovers? Was ever anything prettier than the girl in her country dress, active as a fawn and as graceful? Or could anything be more handsome, more attractive to a girl, more good-humoured, or better bred in his playful emulation than Silverbridge?

'When youth and pleasure meet. To chase the glowing hours with flying feet!' she said to herself over and over again.

But why had he sent her the ring? She would certainly give him back the ring and bid him bestow it at once upon Miss Boncassen.

Inconstant boy! Then she would get up and wander away for a time and rebuke herself. What right had she even to think of inconstancy? Could she be so irrational, so unjust, as to be sick for his love, as to be angry with him because he seemed to prefer another? Was she not well aware that she herself did not love him,--but that she did love another man? She had made up her mind to marry him in order that she might be a duchess, and because she would give herself to him without any of that horror which would be her fate in submitting to matrimony with one or another of the young men around her. There might be disappointment. If he escaped her there would be bitter disappointment. But seeing how it was, had she any further ground for hope? She certainly had no ground for anger!

It was thus, within her own bosom, she put questions to herself.

And yet all this before her was simply a game of play in which the girl and the young man were as eager for victory as though they were children. They were thinking neither of love nor love-making.