Wylders Hand | Page 9

other side of the table. There is no privacy like it;
you may plot your wickedness, or make your confession, or pop the
question, and not a soul but your confidant be a bit the wiser--provided
only you command your countenance.
I don't know how it happened, but Wylder sat beside Miss Lake. I
fancied he ought to have been differently placed, but Miss Brandon did
not seem conscious of his absence, and it seemed to me that the
handsome blonde would have been as well pleased if he had been
anywhere but where he was. There was no look of liking, though some
faint glimmerings both of annoyance and embarrassment in her face.
But in Wylder's I saw a sort of conceited consciousness, and a certain
eagerness, too, while he talked; though a shrewd fellow in many ways,
he had a secret conviction that no woman could resist him.
'I suppose the world thinks me a very happy fellow, Miss Lake?' he said,
with a rather pensive glance of enquiry into that young lady's eyes, as
he set down his hock-glass.

'I'm afraid it's a selfish world, Mr. Wylder, and thinks very little of
what does not concern it.'
'Now, you, I dare say,' continued Wylder, not caring to perceive the
_soupçon_ of sarcasm that modulated her answer so musically, 'look
upon me as a very fortunate fellow?'
'You are a very fortunate person, Mr. Wylder; a gentleman of very
moderate abilities, with no prospects, and without fortune, who finds
himself, without any deservings of his own, on a sudden, possessed of
an estate, and about to be united to the most beautiful heiress in
England, is, I think, rather a fortunate person.'
'You did not always think me so stupid, Miss Lake,' said Mr. Wylder,
showing something of the hectic of vexation.
'Stupid! did I say? Well, you know, we learn by experience, Mr.
Wylder. One's judgment matures, and we are harder to please--don't
you think so?--as we grow older.'
'Aye, so we are, I dare say; at any rate, some things don't please us as
we calculated. I remember when this bit of luck would have made me a
devilish happy fellow--twice as happy; but, you see, if a fellow hasn't
his liberty, where's the good of money? I don't know how I got into it,
but I can't get away now; and the lawyer fellows, and trustees, and all
that sort of prudent people, get about one, and persuade, and exhort,
and they bully you, by Jove! into what they call a marriage of
convenience--I forget the French word--you know; and then, you see,
your feelings may be very different, and all that; and where's the good
of money, I say, if you can't enjoy it?'
And Mr. Wylder looked poetically unhappy, and trundled over a little
bit of fricandeau on his plate with his fork, desolately, as though earthly
things had lost their relish.
'Yes; I think I know the feeling,' said Miss Lake, quietly. 'That ballad,
you know, expresses it very prettily:--"Oh, thou hast been the cause of
this anguish, my mother?"'

It was not then as old a song as it is now.
Wylder looked sharply at her, but she did not smile, and seemed to
speak in good faith; and being somewhat thick in some matters, though
a cunning fellow, he said--
'Yes; that is the sort of thing, you know--of course, with a difference--a
girl is supposed to speak there; but men suffer that way, too--though, of
course, very likely it's more their own fault.'
'It is very sad,' said Miss Lake, who was busy with a _pâté_.
'She has no life in her; she's a mere figurehead; she's awfully slow; I
don't like black hair; I'm taken by conversation--and all that. There are
some men that can only really love once in their lives, and never forget
their first love, I assure you.'
Wylder murmured all this, and looked as plaintive as he could without
exciting the attention of the people over-the-way.
Mark Wylder had, as you perceive, rather vague notions of decency,
and not much experience of ladies; and thought he was making just the
interesting impression he meditated. He was a good deal surprised, then,
when Miss Lake said, and with quite a cheerful countenance, and very
quickly, but so that her words stung his ear like the prick of a bodkin.
'Your way of speaking of my cousin, Sir, is in the highest degree
discreditable to you and offensive to me, and should you venture to
repeat it, I will certainly mention it to Lady Chelford.'
And so she turned to old Major Jackson at her right, who had been
expounding a point of the battle of Vittoria to Lord Chelford; and she
led him again into action, and