“No,” she replied. “Not unless I am persuaded it would be better for them!”
He laughed and laughed, and was still laughing when they encountered Mr. and Miss Rivenhall, riding side by side toward them.
Sophy greeted her cousins with unaffected pleasure, altogether refraining from expressing her surprise at seeing Cecilia indulging in a form of exercise she was not much addicted to. She and Charlbury turned their horses to ride with the Rivenhalls, and she made no objection when, after a little way, Mr. Rivenhall obliged her to fall behind the . other two, and proceed at a sedate pace down the track. She said, “I like that bay of yours, Charles.”
“You may like him,” returned Mr. Rivenhall disagreeably, “but you are not going to ride him!”
She cast him a sidelong look, brimful of mischief. “No, dear Charles?”
“Sophy,” said Mr. Rivenhall, descending rapidly from the autocratic to the merely threatening, “if you dare to have your saddle put upon my Thunderer, I will strangle you, and throw your body into the Serpentine!”
She gave the gurgle of laughter that never failed to bring’ his twisted grin into being. “Oh, no, Charles, would you indeed? Well, I do not blame you! If ever I find you astride Salamanca, I shall certainly shoot you — and I can make allowance for a gun that throws a little left!”
“Yes?” said Mr. Rivenhall. “Well, my dear cousin, when we go down to Ombersley, I shall derive much satisfaction from watching your marksmanship! You shall show me what you can do with my dueling pistols. They do not throw left, or even right. I am rather nice in the choice of my weapons!”
“Dueling pistols!” said Sophy, much impressed. “I had not thought it of you, Charles! How many times have you been out? Do you always kill your man?”
“Rarely!” he retorted. “Dueling has gone sadly out of fashion, dear Sophy! I am so sorry to be obliged to disappoint you!”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I had no real expectation of hearing that you had done anything so dashing!”
That made him laugh. He flung up a hand, in the gesture of a swordsman acknowledging a hit. “Very well, Sophy! Touché!”
“Do you fence?”
“Indifferently. Why?”
“Oh, merely that it is something I have never learnt!”
“Good God, how is this? I had thought Sir Horace must have taught you how to handle a small sword!”
“No,” said Sophy, making her mouth prim. “And he has not taught me how to box either, so there are two things, Charles, which you must be able to do better than I can!”
“You quite outstrip me,” he agreed suavely. “Particularly in the art of dalliance!”
She instantly disconcerted him by making an attack direct. “Dalliance, Charles? You do not, I hope, accuse me of flirting?”
“Do I not?” he said grimly. “Enlighten me, I beg, on the nature of your dealings with Charlbury!”
She showed him an innocent face. “But, Charles, how is this? Surely I could not be mistaken! All is at an end between him and Cecilia! You cannot suppose it possible that I would encourage his advances if that were not so!”
The bay horse broke into a canter and was checked. Mr. Rivenhall said furiously, “Foolery! Don’t try to humbug me, Sophy! Charlbury and you! Why, what a gull you must think me!”
“Oh, no!” Sophy assured him soulfully. “But there is nothing I would not do to oblige Sir Horace, and I would far rather marry Charlbury than Bromford!”
“It sometimes seems to me,” said Mr. Rivenhall, “that delicacy is a virtue utterly unknown to you!”
“Yes, tell me about it!” she said, with immense cordiality.
He did not avail himself of this invitation, but said in a biting tone, “I should warn you, perhaps, that Charlbury’s determined pursuit is fast making you the talk of the town.
Whether you care a button for that I know not, but since my mother is responsible for you I must own that I should be grateful to you if you would behave with a little more discretion!”
“You told me once before of something else I could do if ever I should wish to please you,” remarked Sophy thoughtfully. “I must say, I hope I never shall wish to, for, try as I may, I cannot recall what it was!”
“You have been determined, have you not, to make me dislike you from the very day we met?” he shot at her.
“Not at all. You did so without the least encouragement!”
He rode beside her in silence for some moments, saying at last, in a stiff voice, “You are mistaken. I do not dislike you. That is to say, there have been many times when I have liked you very well. Nor need you imagine that I forget how much I stand in your debt.”
She interrupted him. “You do not! Let me hear no more of that, if you please! Tell me about Hubert! I heard you tell my aunt that you had received a letter from him. Is he well?”
“Perfectly, I imagine. He only wrote to desire me to send him a book he had left behind.” He grinned suddenly. “And to tell me of his determination to attend all his lectures! If I did not think that that resolution must fail, I would post up to Oxford immediately! Such virtue could only end in his seeking relief in the most shocking excesses. Let me say one thing to you, Sophy! I have never said it. We were interrupted before I could do so, and I have never found the opportunity since! I must always be grateful to you for showing me, as you did, how much at fault I had been in my dealings with Hubert.”
“That is nonsense, but I could show you, if you would permit me, how much at fault you are in your dealings with Cecilia!” she said.
His face hardened. “Thank you! On that subject we are not likely to agree!”
She said no more, but allowed Salamanca to break into a canter and to overtake Lord Charlbury and Cecilia.
She found them conversing comfortably, the constraint Cecilia had felt upon finding herself obliged to ride alone in his company having been speedily banished by the friendly ease of his manners. Neither by word nor by look did he remind her of what lay between them but began to talk to her at once on some unexceptionable subject that he knew would interest her. This made a pleasant change for her, Mr. Fawnhope’s conversation being, at present, almost wholly confined to the scope and structure of his great tragedy.
To listen to a poet arguing with himself — for she could scarcely have been said to have borne any part in the discussion — on the merits of blank verse as a dramatic medium was naturally a privilege of which any young lady must be proud, but there could be no denying that talk for half an hour to a man who listened with interest to anything she said was, if not precisely a relief, certainly a welcome variation in her life. Not for nothing had his lordship endured the world for ten more years than his youthful rival. Mr. Fawnhope’s handsome face, and engaging smile might dazzle the female eye, but Mr. Fawnhope had not yet learned the art of conveying to a lady the gratifying impression that he considered her a fragile creature, to be cherished and in every way considered. Lord Charlbury might be constitutionally incapable of addressing her as Nymph, or of comparing bluebells unfavorably with her eyes, but Lord Charlbury would infallibly provide a cloak for her if the weather were inclement, lift her over obstacles she could well climb without assistance, and in every way convince her that in his eyes she was a precious being whom it was impossible to guard too carefully.
It would have been too much to have said that Cecilia was regretting her rejection of his lordship’s suit, but when Sophy and Charles joined her she was certainly conscious of a faint feeling of dissatisfaction at having her tête-à-tête interrupted.
She tried to discuss the matter in a dispassionate way with Sophy, later, but found it curiously hard to utter any of the sentiments she had persuaded herself she felt. Finally, she bent her head over a piece of embroidery, and asked her cousin whether Lord Charlbury had yet offered for her.