But the matter in hand was graver than that. Lady Milborough’s mind was uneasy about Colonel Osborne.
“My dear,” said she, “was not your father very intimate with that Colonel Osborne?”
“He is very intimate with him, Lady Milborough.”
“Ah, yes; I thought I had heard so. That makes it of course natural that you should know him.”
“We have known him all our lives,” said Emily, forgetting probably that out of the twenty-three years and some months which she had hitherto lived, there had been a consecutive period of more than twenty years in which she had never seen this man whom she had known all her life.
“That makes a difference, of course; and I don’t mean to say anything against him.”
“I hope not, Lady Milborough, because we are all especially fond of him.” This was said with so much of purpose, that poor, dear old Lady Milborough was stopped in her good work. She knew well the terrible strait to which Augustus Poole had been brought with his wife, although nobody supposed that Poole’s wife had ever entertained a wrong thought in her pretty little heart. Nevertheless he had been compelled to break up his establishment, and take his wife to Naples, because this horrid Colonel would make himself at home in Mrs. Poole’s drawing-room in Knightsbridge. Augustus Poole, with courage enough to take any man by the beard, had taking by the beard been possible, had found it impossible to dislodge the Colonel. He could not do so without making a row which would have been disgraceful to himself and injurious to his wife; and therefore he had taken Mrs. Poole to Naples. Lady Milborough knew the whole story, and thought that she foresaw that the same thing was about to happen in the drawing-room in Curzon Street. When she attempted to say a word to the wife, she found herself stopped. She could not go on in that quarter after the reception with which the beginning of her word had been met. But perhaps she might succeed better with the husband. After all, her friendship was with the Trevelyan side, and not with the Rowleys.
“My dear Louis,” she said, “I want to speak a word to you. Come here.” And then she led him into a distant corner, Mrs. Trevelyan watching her all the while, and guessing why her husband was thus carried away. “I just want to give you a little hint, which I am sure I believe is quite unnecessary,” continued Lady Milborough. Then she paused, but Trevelyan would not speak. She looked into his face, and saw that it was black. But the man was the only child of her dearest friend, and she persevered. “Do you know I don’t quite like that Colonel Osborne coming so much to your house.” The face before her became still blacker, but still the man said nothing. “I dare say it is a prejudice on my part, but I have always disliked him. I think he is a dangerous friend;—what I call a snake in the grass. And though Emily’s high good sense, and love for you, and general feelings on such a subject, are just what a husband must desire—Indeed, I am quite sure that the possibility of anything wrong has never entered into her head. But it is the very purity of her innocence which makes the danger. He is a bad man, and I would just say a word to her, if I were you, to make her understand that his coming to her of a morning is not desirable. Upon my word, I believe there is nothing he likes so much as going about and making mischief between men and their wives.”
Thus she delivered herself; and Louis Trevelyan, though he was sore and angry, could not but feel that she had taken the part of a friend. All that she had said had been true; all that she had said to him he had said to himself more than once. He too hated the man. He believed him to be a snake in the grass. But it was intolerably bitter to him that he should be warned about his wife’s conduct by any living human being; that he, to whom the world had been so full of good fortune,—that he, who had in truth taught himself to think that he deserved so much good fortune, should be made the subject of care on behalf of his friend, because of danger between himself and his wife! On the spur of the moment he did not know what answer to make. “He is not a man whom I like myself,” he said.
“Just be careful, Louis, that is all,” said Lady Milborough, and then she was gone.
To be cautioned about his wife’s conduct cannot be pleasant to any man, and it was very unpleasant to Louis Trevelyan. He, too, had been asked a question about Sir Marmaduke’s expected visit to England after the ladies had left the room. All the town had heard of it except himself. He hardly spoke another word that evening till the brougham was announced; and his wife had observed his silence. When they were seated in the carriage, he together with his wife and Nora Rowley, he immediately asked a question about Sir Marmaduke. “Emily,” he said, “is there any truth in a report I hear that your father is coming home?” No answer was made, and for a moment or two there was silence. “You must have heard of it, then,” he said. “Perhaps you can tell me, Nora, as Emily will not reply. Have you heard anything of your father’s coming?”
“Yes; I have heard of it,” said Nora slowly.
“And why have I not been told?”
“It was to be kept a secret,” said Mrs. Trevelyan boldly.
“A secret from me; and everybody else knows it! And why was it to be a secret?”
“Colonel Osborne did not wish that it should be known,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.
“And what has Colonel Osborne to do between you and your father in any matter with which I may not be made acquainted? I will have nothing more between you and Colonel Osborne. You shall not see Colonel Osborne. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you, Louis.”
“And do you mean to obey me? By G——, you shall obey me. Remember this, that I lay my positive order upon you, that you shall not see Colonel Osborne again. You do not know it, perhaps, but you are already forfeiting your reputation as an honest woman, and bringing disgrace upon me by your familiarity with Colonel Osborne.”
“Oh, Louis, do not say that!” said Nora.
“You had better let him speak it all at once,” said Emily.
“I have said what I have got to say. It is now only necessary that you should give me your solemn assurance that you will obey me.”
“If you have said all that you have to say, perhaps you will listen to me,” said his wife.
“I will listen to nothing till you have given me your promise.”
“Then I certainly shall not give it you.”
“Dear Emily, pray, pray do what he tells you,” said Nora.
“She has yet to learn that it is her duty to do as I tell her,” said Trevelyan. “And because she is obstinate, and will not learn from those who know better than herself what a woman may do, and what she may not, she will ruin herself, and destroy my happiness.”
“I know that you have destroyed my happiness by your unreasonable jealousy,” said the wife. “Have you considered what I must feel in having such words addressed to me by my husband? If I am fit to be told that I must promise not to see any man living, I cannot be fit to be any man’s wife.” Then she burst out into an hysterical fit of tears, and in this condition she got out of the carriage, entered her house, and hurried up to her own room.
“Indeed, she has not been to blame,” said Nora to Trevelyan on the staircase.
“Why has there been a secret kept from me between her and this man; and that too, after I had cautioned her against being intimate with him? I am sorry that she should suffer; but it is better that she should suffer a little now, than that we
