here to meet Dunborough,' he answered
bluntly. 'His mother seems to think that he is going to marry you.'

'And what do you think, sir?'

'I?' said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she
hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising
slowness. 'Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that
Mr. Dunborough's surplice--covers a parson.'

She sat still and silent for a full half-minute after he had spoken.
Then she rose without a word, and without looking at him; and, walking
away to the farther end of the bridge, sat down there with her shoulder
turned to him.

Soane felt himself rebuffed, and for a moment let his anger get the
better of him. 'D--n the girl, I only spoke for her own good!' he
muttered; then reflecting that if he followed her she might remove again
and make him ridiculous, he rose to go into the house. But apparently
that was not what she wished. He was scarcely on his legs before she
turned her head, saw that he was going, and imperiously beckoned to him.

He went to her, wondering as much at her audacity as her pettishness.
When he reached her, 'Sir George,' she said, retaining her seat and
looking gravely at him, while he stood before her like a boy undergoing
correction, 'you have twice insulted me--once in Oxford when, believing
Mr. Dunborough's hurt lay at my door, I was doing what I could to repair
it; and again to-day. If you wish to see more of me, you must refrain
from doing so a third time. You know, a third time--you know what a
third time does. And more--one moment, if you please. I must ask you to
treat me differently. I make no claim to be a gentlewoman, but my
condition is altered. A relation has left me a--a fortune, and when I
met you here last night I was on my way to Bath to claim it.'

Sir George passed from the surprise into which the first part of this
speech had thrown him, to surprise still greater. At last, 'I am vastly
glad to hear it,' he said. 'For most of us it is easier to drop a
fortune than to find one.'

'Is it?' she said, and laughed musically, Then, moving her skirt to show
him that he might sit down, 'Well, I suppose it is. You have no
experience of that, I hope, sir?'

He nodded.

'The gaming-table?' she said.

'Not this time,' he answered, wondering why he told her. 'I had a
grandfather, who made a will. He had a fancy to wrap up a bombshell in
the will. Now--the shell has burst.'

'I am sorry,' she sa