Only a girl's love
eyes watching every graceful turn of Stella's arm, and glancing now and
again at the beautiful face.
It was very good small talk, and amusing. Mr. Adelstone was one of
those men who had seen everything. He talked of the London season that
was just coming on, to Stella, who sat and listened, half amused, half
puzzled, for London was an unknown land to her, and the string of
names, noble and fashionable, which fell from his ready tongue, was
entirely strange to her.
Then he talked of the coming Academy to Mr. Etheridge, and seemed to
know all about the pictures that were going to be exhibited, and which
ones would make a stir, and which would fail. Then he addressed himself
to Stella again.
"You must pay London a visit, Miss Etheridge; there is no place like it
the whole world through--not even Paris or Rome."
Stella smiled.
"It is not very likely that I shall see London for a long time. My
uncle does not often go, although it is so near, do you?"
"No, no," he assented, "not often."
"Perhaps you are to be congratulated," said Mr. Adelstone. "With all
its charms, I am glad to get away from it."
"You live there?" said Stella.
"Yes," he said, quietly, welcoming the faint look of interest in her
eyes. "Yes; I live in chambers, as it is called, in one of the old law
inns. I am a lawyer!"
Stella nodded.
"I know. You wear a long black gown and a wig."
He smiled.
"And address a jury; and do you say 'm'lud' instead of 'my lord,' as
people in novels always make barristers say?"
"I don't know; perhaps I do," he answered, with a smile; "but I don't
address a jury, or have an opportunity of calling a judge 'my lud,' or
'my lord,' often. Most of my work is done at my chambers. I am very
glad to get down into the country for a holiday."
"Are you going to stay long?" asked Mr. Etheridge, with polite interest.
Mr. Adelstone paused a moment, and glanced at Stella before answering.
"I don't know," he said. "I meant going back to-day, but--I think I
have changed my mind."
Stella was only half listening, but the words caused her to start. They
were the same as those which Lord Leycester had uttered three nights
ago.
Mr. Adelstone's keen eyes saw the start, and he made a mental note of
it.
"Ah! it is beautiful weather," said Mr. Etheridge. "It would be a pity
to leave Wyndward for London now."
"Yes: I shall be more than ever sorry to go now," said Mr. Adelstone,
and his glance rested for a moment on Stella's face, but it was quite
lost, for Stella's eyes were fixed on the scene beyond the window
dreamily.
With almost a start she turned to him.
"Let me give you some more coffee!"
"No, thanks," he said; then, as Stella rose and rang the bell, he
walked to the easel. "That will be a beautiful picture, Mr. Etheridge,"
he said, viewing it with a critical air.
"I don't know," said the artist, simply.
"You will exhibit it?"
"I never exhibit anything," was the quiet reply.
"No! I am surprised!" exclaimed the young man, but there was something
in the quiet manner of the old man that stopped any further questions.
"No," said Mr. Etheridge; "why should I? I have"--and he smiled--"no
ambition. Besides I am an old man, I have had my chance; let the young
ones take theirs, I leave them room. You are fond of art?"
"Very," said Mr. Adelstone. "May I look round?"
The old man waved his hand, and took up his brush.
Jasper Adelstone wandered round the room, taking up the canvases and
examining them; Stella stood at the window humming softly.
Suddenly she heard him utter an involuntary exclamation, and turning
round saw that he had the portrait of Lord Leycester in his hand.
His face was turned toward her, and as she turned quickly, he was in
time to catch a sinister frown of dislike, which rested for a moment on
his face, but vanished as he raised his eyes and met hers.
"Lord Leycester," he said, with a smile and an uprising of the
eyebrows. "A remarkable instance of an artist's power."
"What do you mean?" asked Stella, quietly, but with lowered eyes.
"I mean that it is a fair example of ideality. Mr. Etheridge has
painted a likeness of Lord Leycester, and added an ideal poetry of his
own."
"You mean that it is not like him?" she said.
Mr. Etheridge painted on, deaf to both of them.
"No," he said, looking at the picture with a cold smile. "It is like
him, but it--honors him. It endows him with a poetry which he does not
possess."
"You know him?" said Stella.
"Who does not?" he answered, and his thin lips curled with a smiling
sneer.
A faint color came into Stella's face, and she raised her eyes for a
moment.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Lord Leycester has made himself too famous--I was going to
say infamous--"
A vivid crimson rushed to her face, and left it pale again the next
instant.
"Do not," she said, then added quickly, "I mean do not forget that he
is not here to defend himself."
He looked at her with a sinister scrutiny.
"I beg your pardon. I did not know he was a friend of yours," he said.
She raised her eyes and looked at him steadily.
"Lord Leycester is no friend of mine," she said, quietly.
"I am glad of it," he responded.
Stella's eyes darkened and deepened in a way peculiar to her, and her
color came. It was true that Lord Leycester was no friend of hers, she
had but seen and spoken with him by chance, and for a few moments; but
who was this Mr. Adelstone that he should presume to be glad or sorry
on her account?
He was quick to see that he had made a slip, and quick to recover
himself.
"Pray forgive me if I have presumed too far upon our slight
acquaintance, but I was only thinking at that moment that you had been
so short a time in England as to be ignorant of people who are well
known to us with whom they have lived, and that you would not know Lord
Leycester's real character."
Stella inclined her head gravely. Something within her stirred her to
take up arms in the absent man's defense; the one word "infamous,"
stuck and rankled in her mind.
"You said that Lord Leycester was 'infamous,'" she said, with a grave
smile. "Surely that is too strong a word."
He thought a moment, his eyes resting on her face keenly.
"Perhaps, but I am not sure. I certainly used it as a play upon the
word 'famous,' but I don't think even then that I did him an injustice.
A man whose name is known all over the country--whose name is familiar
as a household word--must be notorious either for good or evil, for
wisdom or folly. Lord Leycester is not famous for virtue or wisdom. I
cannot say any more."
Stella turned aside, a faint crimson dyeing her face, a strange thrill
of pity, ay, and of impatience, at her heart. Why should he be so
wicked, so mad and reckless--so notorious that even this self-satisfied
young gentleman could safely moralize about him and warn her against
making his acquaintance! "Oh, the pity of it--the pity of it!" as
Shakespeare has it--that one with such a beautiful, god-look face,
should be so bad.
There was a few moments' silence. Jasper Adelstone still stood with
the picture in his hand, but glancing at Stella's face with covert
watchfulness. For all his outward calmness, his heart was beating
quickly. Stella's was the sort of beauty to make a man's heart beat
quickly, or not at all; those who came to offer at her shrine would
offer no half-measured oblations. As he watched her his heart beat
wildly, and his small, bright eyes glittered. He had thought her
beautiful at the party last night, where she had outshone all the other
girls of the village as a star outshines a rushlight; but this morning
her loveliness revealed itself in all its fresh purity, and he--Jasper
Adelstone, the critical man of the world, the man whose opinion about
women was looked upon by his companions in Lincoln's-inn and the
bachelors' haunts at the West-end as worth having--felt his heart
slipping from him. He put the picture down and approached her.
"You have no idea how beautiful and fresh the meadows are. Will you
stroll down to the river with me?" he said, resolving to take her by
surprise and capture her.
But he did not know Stella. She was only a school-girl--innocent and
ignorant of the ways of men and the world; but, perhaps, because
of that--because she had not learnt the usual hackneyed words of
evasion--the ordinary elementary tactics of flirtation, she was not to
be taken by surprise.
With a smile she turned her eyes upon him and shook her head.
"Thank you; no, that is impossible. I have all my household duties
to perform, and that"--pointing to the sun with her white slim
hand--"reminds me that it is time I set about them."
He took up his hat instantly, turning to hide the frown that knitted
his brow and spoiled his face, and went up to the painter to say
"good-morning."
Mr. Etheridge started and stared at him; he had quite forgotten his
presence.
"Good-morning, good-morning--going? I beg your pardon. Won't you stop
and take some tea with us?"
"Mr. Adelstone would like some dinner first, uncle," said Stella.
Then she gave him her hand.
"Good-morning," she said, "and thank you very much for the flowers."
He held her hand as long as he dared, then passed out.
Stella, perhaps unconsciously, gave a sigh of relief.
"Very nice young fellow, my dear," said Mr. Etheridge, without taking
his eyes from the canvas. "Very clever, too. I remember him quite a
little boy, and always said he would make his way. They say that he has
done so. I am not surprised. Jasper----"
"Jasper!" said Stella. "What a horrible name."
"Eh? Horrible? I don't know--I don't know."
"But I do," said Stella, laughing. "Well, what were you going to say?"
"That Jasper Adelstone is the sort of man to insist upon having
anything he sets his heart upon."
"I am glad to hear it," said Stella, as she opened the door, "for his
sake; and I hope, also for his sake, that he won't set his mind upon
the sun or the moon!" and with a laugh she ran away.
In the kitchen Mrs. Penford was awaiting her with unconcealed
impatience. Upon the white scrubbed table stood the preparations for
the making of pastry, an art which Stella, who had insisted upon making
herself useful, had coaxed Mrs. Penfold into teaching her. At first
that good woman had insisted that Stella should do nothing in the
little household. She had announced with terrible gravity that such
things weren't becoming to a young lady like Miss Stella, and that she
had always done for Mr. Etheridge, and she always would; but before
the second day had passed Stella had won the battle. As Mrs. Penfold
said, there was no resisting the girl, who mingled willfulness with
bewitching firmness and persuasion, and Mrs. Penfold had given in.
"You'll cover yourself with flour, Miss Stella, and give your uncle the
indigestion, miss, that you will," she remonstrated.
"But the flour will brush off, and uncle needn't eat pies and puddings
for a little while; I'll eat them, I don't mind indigestion," Stella
declared, and she made a delightfully piquant little apron, which
completed Mrs. Penfold's conquest.
With a song upon her lips she burst into the kitchen and caught up the
rolling pin.
"Am I not awfully late?" she exclaimed. "I was afraid you would have
done it all before I came, but you wouldn't be so mean as to take an
advantage, would you?"
Mrs. Penfold grunted.
"It's all nonsense, Miss Stella, there's no occasion for it."
Stella, with her hand in the flour, elevated the rolling-pin in heroic
style.
"Mrs. Penfold!" she exclaimed, with the air of a princess, "the woman,
be her station what it may, who cannot make a jam roley-poley or an
apple tart is unworthy the name of an Englishwoman. Give me the jam;