The Path to Honour Part 20

"Try again, of course. It ain't likely to happen twice. The sentry will think we have got a wager on, so there won't be any fuss."

Charteris proved successful in the counting compet.i.tion, announcing his twenty while Gerrard had only reached seventeen. As he was dining with the Cinnamonds that night, the fates seemed to be propitious. But when Gerrard came back from supping with the James Antonys, he found his friend reclining on the verandah, in an att.i.tude suggestive of despondency.

"Sold again!" said a sepulchral voice from the recesses of the long chair.

"You don't mean that she has refused you, Bob?"

"Oh, don't I?" the voice suggested something more than sulkiness. "If I don't, I'm very much mistaken. She told me that I wasn't what she expected, in a way that implied I was a very poor creature indeed. If that was acceptance, all I can say is, I hope you may be accepted too!"

CHAPTER XV.

MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM.

"Onora, my dearest little one, have you anything to tell me?" Unable to bear the suspense any longer, Lady Cinnamond had pursued her daughter to her room.

"No, mamma; only that he is gone."

"But you have not sent him away?"

"I told him again that I could not marry him."

"But I thought you cared for him!" Lady Cinnamond's regret was not unmixed with indignation. "When you thought he was dead, you said----"

It was Honour's turn to be indignant. "I said I couldn't tell, mamma.

And I don't like him as much now as I did when I thought he was dead."

"These poor young men!" lamented her mother. "Then is the unfortunate Mr Gerrard to be made happy at last? Or is it some one else?"

"It isn't any one!" cried Honour hotly. "Is it my fault if they will want to marry me? I am sure I have made it clear to them over and over again that I don't want to marry anybody."

"My child, that is a thing that nothing will make clear to a man," said her mother solemnly--"especially when it is plain that you take pleasure in his society."

"But I don't. Mamma, I never told you, but long ago, more than a year, I lent _Sintram_ to Mr Charteris, without telling him how fond I was of it. He gave it back to me all smelling of smoke, and said that he couldn't make head or tail of it, but it struck him as uncommon silly."

"But, my dear, surely that ought to have warned you that your tastes were not congenial. What can have made you think your feelings had changed?"

"Oh, mamma, I don't know." Honour paused for a moment, then hurried on. "One doesn't remember that kind of thing when a person is dead, you know. And there seemed to be so many nice points about him that I had never guessed----"

"But which Mr Gerrard brought out? Well, your objection can't apply----" Lady Cinnamond broke off hastily. "I won't worry you any more to-night, dear."

"Good-night, mamma. I am sorry I was cross."

Lady Cinnamond left her reluctantly, for the rest of the family were on the tiptoe of expectation to hear what had happened, and she had earnestly hoped to be able to silence their jeers with the announcement that Honour was engaged like other people.

"Well, mamma, is he coming to see papa in the morning?" demanded Mrs Cowper eagerly, as soon as her mother appeared.

"No, dear; I am sorry to say she has refused him again."

"Fastidious little puss!" chuckled Sir Arthur. "Faith! it'll be the other that will come to-morrow."

"Isn't Honour a queer quizzical sort of girl?" inquired Mrs Cowper earnestly of her parents. "Do you think she will accept Mr Gerrard, mamma?"

"My dear, I am afraid to say, but I should fear not."

"Why should she, if she don't want him?" said Sir Arthur briskly.

"Rosita, I don't like to see this eagerness to get rid of your daughters. It reflects badly upon your bringing-up of them, ma'am."

"Oh no, papa; how can you say so? It speaks well for mamma's happiness in her married life."

"I see Charles hasn't cured you of your pertness yet, miss--ma'am, I should say. Poor fellow! I wonder if I ought to have told him what he was bringing upon himself?"

Justice demanded that Marian should immediately rise and pull her father's hair, but in the middle of the operation she paused tragically. "Something has just struck me," she said. "Why do we all take it for granted that Honour must end by marrying one of these two men? It may be some one we have never thought of that she really cares for."

"My dear, don't imagine fresh complications," said her mother in alarm.

"All the available young men have proposed, so that she could have had any one she liked."

"Perhaps she was afraid of her cruel father," suggested Mrs Cowper, deftly arranging Sir Arthur's hair into a curl in the middle of his forehead. "Don't touch that, papa, whatever you do. I want Charley to see it; it will give him a new view of your character. Of course it is the persistence of these two men that makes you feel that one of them is fated to succeed. Others come and others go, but they go on for ever."

"Perhaps it would be as well to forbid them both the house," suggested her victimised father.

"Not both at once, papa! Why, neither we nor Honour should ever know which was the right one, if they were both shut out together. You must do it in turn."

"And after making one welcome for a week or so, pick a quarrel with him and install the other? Precious undignified, my dear child, but a man must make sacrifices for the sake of his family."

"Ah, but that's just what you don't do!" cried Marian, roused to recollection of a grievance of her own. "How could you all but promise Charley that if a peaceful mission was sent to Agpur, he should command the escort?"

"But surely, my dear, I was sacrificing my own comfort in promising to spare him?"

"No, you were sacrificing me!" pouted his daughter. "I was making signs to you the whole time, not to let him go unless he would take me with him, and he won't. He has been horrid about it."

"My dear Marian, you could not possibly go, with the hot weather coming on!" cried her mother, aghast.

"Nor in any weather whatever," said Sir Arthur firmly. "Your signals were lost on me, Marian, but nothing would induce me to consent to your going to Agpur. The place is clearly in a most disturbed state, and the good faith of the new Rajah extremely doubtful."

"Then don't let Charley go," was the prompt rejoinder.

Sir Arthur raised his eyebrows. "You must settle that with your husband yourself, my dear. I have promised to allow him leave for the purpose if he wishes it."

"And he will say that you are depending on him to command the escort, and I must settle it with you!" complained Marian. "And n.o.body really thinks about me at all."

"My dear, it will be an excellent opportunity for Charles to bring himself into notice, whether the progress of the mission is peaceable or not. And if he goes, you and Honour shall have a run up to the hills, if Lady Antony will be so good as to look after you. But at present it is quite uncertain whether a mission will be despatched at all. We may have war instead."

"Well, I think you might send one of Honour's young men, papa," said Marian, half crying. "She doesn't care about either of them, and if anything happened to Charley I should die."