The Hoyden | Page 2

Sir Maurice
of Breach of Contract

CHAPTER XIX.
How Rylton's Heart condemns him. And how, as he walks, a Serpent
stings him. And how he is recovered of his Wound. And how the little
Rift is mended--but with too fine Thread

CHAPTER XX.
How Tita takes high Ground, and how she brings her Husband, of all
People, to her Feet

CHAPTER XXI.
How everyone goes to Lady Warbeck's Dance, and helps to make it a
Success; and how many curious Things are said and done there

CHAPTER XXII.
How Rylton asks his Wife to tread a Measure with him, and how the
Fates weave a little Mesh for Tita's pretty Feet

CHAPTER XXIII.
How Marian fights for Mastery; and how the Battle goes; and how
Chance befriends the Enemy

CHAPTER XXIV.
How Rylton makes a most dishonourable Bet, and how he repents of it;
and how, though he would have withdrawn from it, he finds he cannot

CHAPTER XXV.
How Tita told a Secret to Tom Hescott in the Moonlight; and how he
sought to discover many Things, and how he was most innocently
baffled

CHAPTER XXVI.
How Tita looks at herself in the Glass, and wonders; and how she does
her Hair in quite a new Style, and goes to ask Sir Maurice what he
thinks of it; and how he answers her

CHAPTER XXVII.
How Sir Maurice feels uneasy; and how Tita, for once, shows herself
implacable, and refuses to accept the Overtures of Peace. And how a
little Gossip warms the Air

THE HOYDEN.

CHAPTER I.
HOW DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND, AND HOW THE SPARKS
FLEW.

The windows are all wide open, and through them the warm, lazy
summer wind is stealing languidly. The perfume of the seringas from
the shrubbery beyond, mingled with all the lesser but more delicate
delights of the garden beneath, comes with the wind, and fills the
drawing-room of The Place with a vague, almost drowsy sense of
sweetness.
Mrs. Bethune, with a face that smiles always, though now her very soul
is in revolt, leans back against the cushions of her lounging chair, her
fine red hair making a rich contrast with the pale-blue satin behind it.
"You think he will marry her, then?"
"Think, think!" says Lady Rylton pettishly. "I can't afford to think
about it. I tell you he must marry her. It has come to the very last ebb
with us now, and unless Maurice consents to this arrangement----"
She spreads her beautiful little hands abroad, as if in eloquent
description of an end to her sentence.
Mrs. Bethune bursts out laughing. She can always laugh at pleasure.
"It sounds like the old Bible story," says she; "you have an only son,
and you must sacrifice him!"
"Don't study to be absurd!" says Lady Rylton, with a click of her fan
that always means mischief.
She throws herself back in her chair, and a tiny frown settles upon her
brow. She is such a small creation of Nature's that only a frown of the
slightest dimensions could settle itself comfortably between her eyes.
Still, as a frown, it is worth a good deal! It has cowed a good many
people in its day, and had, indeed, helped to make her a widow at an
early age. Very few people stood up against Lady Rylton's tempers, and
those who did never came off quite unscathed.
"Absurd! Have I been absurd?" asks Mrs. Bethune. "My dear
Tessie"--she is Lady Rylton's niece, but Lady Rylton objects to being

called aunt--"such a sin has seldom been laid to my charge."
"Well, I lay it," says Lady Rylton with some emphasis.
She leans back in her chair, and, once again unfurling the huge black
fan she carries, waves it to and fro.
Marian Bethune leans back in her chair too, and regards her aunt with a
gaze that never wavers. The two poses are in their way perfect, but it
must be confessed that the palm goes to the younger woman.
It might well have been otherwise, as Lady Rylton is still, even at
forty-six, a very graceful woman. Small--very small--a sort of pocket
Venus as it were, but so carefully preserved that at forty-six she might
easily be called thirty-five. If it were not for her one child, the present
Sir Maurice Rylton, this fallacy might have been carried through. But,
unfortunately, Sir Maurice is now twenty-eight by the church register.
Lady Rylton hates church registers; they tell so much; and truth is
always so rude!
She is very fair. Her blue eyes have still retained their azure tint--a
strange thing at her age. Her little hands and feet are as tiny now as
when years ago they called all London town to look at them