All this time Mdlle. Le Grand had been watching the scene with her sharp eyes, and her acute little brain had been working out any advantage to herself. Now she saw her way and slipped forward with a smile.
"My dear Marmaduke," she said, as the two men stood glaring at each other, "live and let live is a valuable motto. You must remember that Margaret can also tell on us. Silence on both sides is the best way out of the difficulty. Don't you think so, Miss Muir?"
Margaret gave a frightened look at her brother.
"Ah, Duke," she cried, "you don't mean to say you----"
Fantine Le Grand interrupted her with perfect aplomb.
"That has nothing to do with it, my dear young lady; but you know as well as I do what would happen if your father got wind of this excursion of ours. So, as I said, silence is wise. Don't you agree with me, sir?"
The Reverend Patrick Bryce once more made the bow of a marquis.
"I reserve the right to speak if I choose----"
"And so do I," she retorted sweetly, "only we won't choose. Come, Marmaduke, it is time we were going back. Had we not better take your sister with us? It will look better--for both sides."
And here she gave a delightful tinkle of a laugh.
She kept up the rôle so well on the return journey that simple Margaret Muir was quite fascinated, and when, artfully, the suggestion was made that Marmaduke should see his sister home to the Dower House, the latter took the occasion to remark, as the former had hoped she would, on her surprise at finding Mdlle. Le Grand so agreeable and so well mannered.
"She is very charming," replied Marmaduke, a trifle gloomily, "and very clever."
He felt vaguely that he had been played with, and that he had had no more responsibility in the game than a pawn at chess. He felt also that the compact of silence with his sister brought imaginings nearer to reality.
And the idea of that six months on the Continent was a temptation; anyhow, he would have another go at the old man first.
If he still refused--well, on his head be it!
Days are long to a man and a woman when one of them passionately desires the other, for every instant counts, every moment spells success or failure. And Fantine Le Grand, with her almost lifelong experience of intrigue, was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. So when, two days later, Marmaduke ran over the quadrangle to beg a favour of Marrion Paul, most of his scruples had disappeared, and, for the time, at any rate, he was an admiring lover, eager to do anything and everything for the woman of the moment.