Hesitating between her two lovers, she had decided at first in favour of Cyril: he had youth on his side, he was handsome, he was modest and amiable. If he had happened to appear on the terrace, at that moment, he would have been the man preferred. But he was indoors, in attendance on his friend; and he left Mabel time to remember that there was a weak side to his character. In Cyril's place would Sir John have consulted another man, and have brought him to visit her, without once suspecting that he might be a rival in disguise? Mabel was already leaning to the side of Sir John, when she heard footsteps on the walk -- and, looking up, saw the man himself approaching her, alone.
In the present state of her inclinations, she was disposed, as an accomplished flirt, to begin by trifling with him. He saw her intention in the bright malice of her eyes, and put an obstacle in her way. Taking the book off her lap, he assumed to be interested in her reading.
'Tired of poetry, Miss Mabel?'
'Never tired of it, Sir John.'
'You read a great deal of poetry.'
'I believe I have read all the English poets.'
'Including the major. Do you find him equal to the others?'
'My uncle reminds me of the others -- always pleasantly.'
Sir John opened the book, at that part of it in which a mark had been left, and read the title of the poem: The Rival Minstrels: a Contest in Verse.
'Is it very interesting?'
His tone irritated Mabel. 'It is perfectly charming,' she answered -- 'and reminds me of Walter Scott. Two minstrels are in love with the same fair lady; she challenges them to an exhibition of their art; they are each to address her in verse; and she offers her hand to the poet whose lines she most admires. Ah, what a position women occupied in those days!'
'You would like to have been that fair lady, I suppose?'
'I should indeed! Especially,' she added with a saucy smile, 'if you were a minstrel.'
'I never wrote anything in my life -- except letters. A proprietor of a newspaper, Miss Mabel, leaves prose and verse to his editor and his contributors. Are you looking for anything?'
'I am looking for Mr Corydon. Where is he?' Mabel asked, with an appearance of deepest interest.
Sir John determined to stop the coming flirtation in another way.
'Staying in the house,' he answered gravely, 'by my advice.'
'And why does he want your advice?'
'Because he is under my protection. I feel the truest regard for him, and the sincerest sympathy with him in his present trying situation.'
Sir John knew his young lady well. His object was to puzzle her by presenting himself in an angry and jealous character entirely new to her experience -- to keep her flighty mind by this means employed in trying to understand him, when he was obliged to leave her -- to return the next day, and, by means of humble excuses and ardent entreaties for a reconciliation, to place poor Cyril's mild and modest fidelity in a light of comparison which it would be little likely to endure.
Thus far he had succeeded. Mabel listened, and looked at him, and said, 'I don't understand you.'
'I will make myself understood,' Sir John rejoined. 'Have you forgotten the offer of marriage which I ventured to address to you in London? You didn't say No; you told me you wished for time to consider. I called again, to hear what your decision might be; and I found that you had not only gone away into the country, without a word of apology, but had left strict instructions that the place of your retreat was not to be mentioned to anybody. If this was not a deliberate insult, it was something extremely like it. When I told you just now that Mr Corydon was under my protection, I meant that I would not allow that excellent young man to be treated as you have treated me.'
Mabel's indignation was equal to the one possible reply to this.
'Make your mind easy,' she said; 'Mr Corydon is in no danger of being treated as I have treated you.'
'I sincerely hope for my young friend's sake,' Sir John answered, 'that you really mean what you say.'
Mabel got more and more angry. 'Mr Corydon is charming!' she burst out. 'Mr Corydon is a young man whom I esteem and admire!'
'Allow me to thank you, Miss Mabel, for your candour. You relieve me from the anxiety that I have been feeling on my friend's account. If you will only say to him what you have just said to me I shall retire, happy in the conviction that my intercession in Mr Corydon's favour has been crowned with success. Good morning.'
V Left by herself, Mabel felt the composing influence of solitude. Little by little, her cheeks recovered their every-day delicacy of colour; her eyebrows took their proper places on her forehead; and her pulse returned to the customary moderation of its beat. She was able to listen to the gentle promptings of her own vanity; and, as a matter of course, she began to look at Sir John's insolence from a new point of view. He, the self-possessed man of the world, had completely forgotten himself, and there could be but one reason for it. 'Mad with jealousy,' she concluded complacently.