The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-10-17
CHAPTER VII.


When he met Lady Sunbury in the
small Queen Anne drawing-room before
supper, she was infinitely too proud and
too offended to ask him any question,
though inquisitiveness and anxiety were
never so strained, well-nigh TO bursting, in
the breast OF woman. Guilderoy, how
ever, did not keep her very long in sus-
pense.
"You will be very glad for me to pass
the winter here instead of in Italy," he
said, as he took his cup of tea. 'That is
what l am going to do
Lady Sunbury was rot glad. Human
nature is full of contradictions.
you will never pass the winter here,
she said, with some violence. "Never.
For you will never keep in the same
mood or the same mind for two weeks !"
81 shall keep in this" he answered.
"And you will oblige me very much if
you will drive over to Christslea to-mor-
row. John Vernon is quite respectable
person, though he has lost all his money;
indeed, more respectable perhaps than if
he had multiplied it,"
"And why should 1 call on Mr.. Yer
non ?" said Lady Sunbury, holding
screen between her and the wood fire,
with an unamiable and ominous look
upon her high, straight, delicate features.
"0nly because it is usual in the conven-
tional state of the world to do that sort of
thing" said Guilderoy, carelessl ly; ''and |
shall marry his daughter in February; l
told YOU last night that | should do So"
His sister was silent for few moments.
Her lips turned pale with rage.
And | do not even know herW she
said in a suffocated voice.
"Really that is no ones fault but yours"
said Guilderoy. 81 asked you to drive
there this morning and you refused. l do
not know her very much myself"
"You must be mad!
$50 Mr.. Vernon said, but believe not;
of course, one can never be quite sure.
There are insidious lessons in the brain
which do not declare themselves. Many
statesmen's actions which appear unac-
countable are really caused by unsus-
pected protOgnosis -"
Lady Sunbury interrupted him pas
sionately.
"Do YOU mean to tell me, with all this
fooling, that you are about TO enter on the
most serious act of your life with less con-
sideration than you would show in bury
ing dog?"
at is not so very serious" murmured
Guilderoy. 1T used to be thought so in
old-fashioned days, but not now"
'Do you mean that you marry only to
abandon your wife in a week?"
Mr. Vernon said three days. Nobody
abandcns their wife nowadays, | think,
except workingmen who empty the saw
ings out of the tea-caddy and go off to
Australia"
"If Mr.. Vernon, whatever else he be, is
a man of the slightest sense, he will forbid
so abnormal, SO unnatural, so insensate a
folly"
"Mr. Vernon has all the will in the
world TO forbid it, but his power is not
equal to his will"
"Whatl Does he feel no gratitude, no
sense of honor received, no consciousness
OF the immense complimentyou pay him ?"
"You are exacting. You desire him at
once to be servile and furious. He was
neither. He had an admirable manner,
for which l respect him, and a very slight
opinion of himself, with which do not
quarrel. My dear Hilda, do not force me
to quarrel with you. 1t would be so
much to be regretted. / abhOr dissen-
sions, and if they are forced on me do
not very soon forget them. If n man,
well-born and well-bred, has a charming
child, who is both lovely and innocent, he
would surely not be guilty of the intoler-
able Vulgdflly OF InlnklIlS neT TIE luItTlOT
OF any suitor who could present himself
What desire to do may be, as you say,
an insensate folly. Very possibly it is,
and that l shall tell you so one day,
when you will have the only mortal hap
piness which never palls-the pleasure of
being in the right. But at present leave
me to my illusions. You may be quite
sure they will not last long. You have
never approved of my ways of life. You
probably never will approve of them
whether take the paths of virtue or the
paths of vice."
Lady Sunbury sat silent, pale and stern.
She would at all times with any other per-
son pour out in pitiless crescendo the most
bitter and violent reproaches, and bear off
the triumph of the last word at any cost.
But with Guilderoy she was conscious
there were limits which she could not
pass and retain his affection; that a quar-
rel, if forced upon him, would have no
reconciliation possible summoned IN Its