He had not been at all bored; nor had Julian found it difficult to persuade him to accept Mrs Underhill’s invitation. The Nonesuch, who had meant to spend no more time in Yorkshire than might be necessary for setting in train certain repairs and alterations to Broom Hall, was lingering on, and under conditions of some discomfort, since the builders were already at work in the house. He had his own reasons for remaining; but if he could have placed the slightest dependence on Julian’s going back with him to London he would have subordinated these (temporarily, at all events), for the sake of conveying that besotted young man out of danger. But when he had thrown out a feeler Julian had said, with studied airiness: “Do you know, I rather fancy I shall remove to Harrogate for a while, if you mean to go back to London? I like Yorkshire, and I’ve made certain engagements—and more than half promised to go with Edward Banningham to some races next month.”
So he remained at Broom Hall, steering an intricate course between his own interests and Julian’s. His trusting young cousin would have been astonished, and deeply shocked, had he known that Waldo’s lazy complaisance masked a grim determination to thrust a spoke into the wheel of his courtship. His allegiance to Waldo was too strong to be easily shaken; he did not for a moment wish him otherwhere; but he was often troubled by vague discomfort; and although Waldo had not uttered a word in her dispraise he could not rid himself of the suspicion that he regarded Tiffany a little contemptuously, and too often treated her as though she had been an importunate child, to be tolerated but given a few salutary set-downs. And then, having infuriated her, he would relent, charming her out of her sullens with his glinting smile, and a word or two spoken in a voice that held a tantalizing mixture of amusement and admiration. Even Julian could not decide whether he was sincere, or merely mocking; Julian only knew that Tiffany was never at her best when he was present. He thought that perhaps she too felt that Waldo did not like her, which made her nervous and self-conscious. And when you were very young, and shy, and anxious to make a good impression on someone of whom you stood in awe it was fatally easy to behave like a show-off character in your efforts to conceal your shyness. It did not occur to Julian that there was not a particle of shyness in Tiffany’s nature; still less that Waldo was deliberately provoking her to betray the least amiable side of her disposition.
But Sir Waldo, with fifteen years’ experience at his back, had taken Tiffany’s measure almost at a glance. It was not his custom to trifle with the affections of fledglings, but within a week of having made Tiffany’s acquaintance he set himself, without compunction, to the task of intriguing her to the point of pursuing him in preference to Julian. He had had too many lures cast out to him not to recognize the signs of a lady desirous of engaging his interest; and he knew that for some reason beyond his understanding he possessed the wholly unwanted gift of inspiring debutantes with romantic but misplaced tendres for him. He had been on his guard ever since he had been (as he had supposed) paternally kind to the niece of an old friend. She had tumbled into love with him; and from this embarrassing situation he had learnt also to recognize the signs of a maiden on the verge of losing her heart to him. Since he had nothing but contempt for the man of the world who amused himself at the expense of a pretty girl’s sensibility, it was his practice to discourage any such tendency. Had he detected in Tiffany the least indication of a romantic disposition he would have adhered to his rule; but he saw nothing in her but a determination to add his name to the roll of her conquests, and strongly doubted that she had a heart to lose. If he was wrong, he thought, cynically, that it would do her no harm to experience some of the pangs of unrequited love with which her numerous suitors were afflicted. He believed her to be as selfish as she was conceited; and, while it was possible that time might improve her, he was persuaded that neither her disposition nor her breeding made her an eligible wife for young Lord Lindeth.
He had told Miss Trent that he was not Lindeth’s keeper, and that, in the strictest sense, was true. Julian’s father had left him to the guardianship of his mother, and had appointed two middle-aged legal gentlemen as his trustees; but Sir Waldo’s shrewd Aunt Sophia had enlisted his aid in rearing the noble orphan at a very early stage in Julian’s career, and he had progressed, by imperceptible degrees, from the splendid cousin who initiated his protégé into every manly form of sport (besides sending him guineas under the seals of his occasional letters, and from time to time descending in a blaze of real dapper-dog magnificence on Eton, driving a team of sixteen-mile-an-hour tits, and treating half-a-dozen of his cousin’s cons to such sock as made them the envy of every Oppidan and Tug in the College) to the social mentor who introduced Julian into select circles, and steered himpast the shoals in which many a green navigator had wallowed and foundered. He had come to regard Julian as his especial charge; and although Julian’s years now numbered three-and-twenty he still so regarded him: Lady Lindeth could not blame him more than he would blame himself if he allowed Julian to be trapped into a disastrous marriage without raising a finger to prevent it.
To cut out a young cousin who reposed complete trust in him might go very much against the pluck with him, but it presented few difficulties to a man of his address and experience. Indulged almost from the hour of her birth; endowed not only with beauty but with a considerable independence as well; encouraged to think herself a matrimonial prize of the first stare, Tiffany had come to regard every unattached man’s homage as her due. Sir Waldo had watched her at the Staples ball, playing off her cajolery in an attempt to attach Humphrey Colebatch; and he had not the smallest doubt that she did it only because that scholarly but unprepossessing youth was patently impervious to her charms. He was well aware, too, that while she would look upon his own capture as a resounding triumph he ranked in her eyes amongst the graybeards who had outlived the age of gallantry. There had been speculation, and a hint of doubt, in the swift glance she had first thrown him. She had certainly set her cap at him, but he could have nipped her tentative advances in the bud with the utmost ease. He would have done it had he not seen the glow in Julian’s eyes as they rested on her ravishing countenance, and realized that that guileless young man was wholly dazzled.
Sir Waldo was neither dazzled by Tiffany’s beauty, nor so stupid as to suppose that any good purpose would be served by his pointing out to Julian those defects in the lovely creature which were perfectly plain to him, but to which Julian was obviously blind. But Julian, under his compliance, had a sensibility, and a delicacy of principle, to which virtues Sir Waldo judged Tiffany to be a stranger; and nothing could more effectually cool his ardour than the discovery that in their stead she had vanity, and a sublime disregard for the comfort or the susceptibilities of anyone but herself. Julian might ignore, and indignantly resent, warnings uttered by even so revered a mentor as his Top-of-the-Trees cousin, but he would not disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes. So the Nonesuch, instead of damping the beautiful Miss Wield’s pretensions, blew hot and cold on her, encouraging her one day to believe that she had awakened his interest, and the next devoting himself to some other lady. He paid her occasional compliments, but was just as likely to utter a lazy set-down; and when he engaged her in a little mild flirtation he did it so lightly that she could never be quite sure that he was not merely being playful, in the manner of a man amusing a child. She had not previously encountered his like, for her admirers were all much younger men, quite lacking in subtlety. Either they languished for love of her, or (like Humphrey Colebatch) paid no attention to her at all. But the Nonesuch, by turns fascinating and detestable, was maddeningly elusive, and so far from showing a disposition to languish he laughed at her suitors, and said that they were making great cakes of themselves. Tiffany took that as an insult, and determined to bring him to her feet. He saw the flash of anger in her eyes, and smiled. “No, no! You’d be gapped, you know.”