"What folly have you been listening to?" cried Vixen; "you, Roderick Vawdrey, my old play-fellow--almost an adopted brother--to know me so little."
"What could I know of you to prevent my believing what I was told? Was there anything strange in the idea that you should be engaged to Captain Winstanley? I heard that he was a universal favourite."
"And did you think that I should like a universal favourite?"
"Why should you not? It seemed credible enough, and my informant was positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked upon as a settled thing by all your friends."
"By Captain Winstanley's friends, you mean. They may have looked upon it as a settled thing that he should marry someone with plenty of money, and they may have thought that my money would be as useful as anyone else's."
"Violet, are you mystifying me? are you trying to drive me crazy? or is this the simple truth?"
"You are not engaged to this man?--you never have been?--you don't care for him, never have cared for him?"
"Never, never, never, never!" said Violet, with unmistakable emphasis.
"Then I have been the most consummate----"
He did not finish his sentence, and Violet did not ask him to finish it. The ejaculation seemed involuntary. He sat staring at the palms, and said nothing for the next minute and a half, while Vixen unfurled her great black and gold fan, and looked at it admiringly, as if she had never seen it before.
"Do you really think those palms will break through the roof again in the present Lord Southminster's time?" Roderick inquired presently, with intense interest.
Vixen did not feel herself called upon to reply to a question so purely speculative.
"I think I had better go and look for mamma and Mrs. Scobel," she said; "they must have come back from the supper-room by this time."
Roderick rose and offered her his arm. She was surprised to see how pale he looked when they came out of the dusk into the brilliant light of the gallery. But in a heated room, and between two and three o'clock in the morning, a man may naturally be a little paler than usual.
Roderick took Violet straight to the end of the room, where his quick eye had espied Mrs. Tempest in her striking black and scarlet costume. He said nothing more about the Duchess or Lady Mabel; and, indeed, took Violet past the elder lady, who was sitting in one of the deep-set windows with Lady Southminster, without attempting to bring about any interchange of civilities.