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Page 30
"Then, when you have carefully sown these lies in her heart, and seen
her proud face darken and quiver with pain beneath your words"--oh, how
his own evil face glows with unholy satisfaction as he sees the picture
he has just drawn stand out clear before his eyes!--"you will affect to
be driven by compunction into granting Sir Adrian a supposed request,
you will don your hat and cloak, and go down to the lime-walk to
encounter--me. If I am any judge of character, that girl, so haughty to
all the world, will lower her pride for her crushed love's sake, and
will follow you, to madden herself with your meeting with the man she
loves. To her, I shall on this occasion represent Sir Adrian. Are you
listening?"
She is indeed--listening with all her might to the master mind that has
her in thrall.
"You will remember not to start when you meet me," he continues, issuing
his commands with insolent assumption of authority over the dainty Dora,
who, up to this, has been accustomed to rule it over others in her
particular sphere, and who now chafes and writhes beneath the sense of
slavery that is oppressing her. "You will meet me calmly, oblivious of
the fact that I shall be clad in my cousin's light overcoat, the one of
which Miss Delmaine was graciously pleased to say she approved yesterday
morning."
His eyes light again with a revengeful fire as he calls to mind the
slight praise Florence had bestowed in a very casual fashion on this
coat. Every smile, every kindly word addressed by this girl to his
cousin, is treasured up by him and dwelt upon in secret, to the terrible
strengthening of the purpose he has in view.
"But if you should be seen--be marked," hesitates Dora faintly.
"Pshaw--am I one to lay my plans so clumsily as to court discovery on
even the minutest point?" he interrupts impatiently. "When you meet me
you will--but enough of this; I shall be there to meet you in the
lime-walk, and after that you will take your cue from me."
"That is all you have to say?" asks Dora, anxious to quit his hated
presence.
"For the present--yes. Follow my instructions to the letter, or dread
the consequences. Any blunder in the performance of this arrangement I
shall lay to your charge."
"You threaten, sir!" she exclaims angrily, though she trembles.
"Let it be your care to see that I do not carry out my threats," he
retorts, with an insolent shrug.
The next day, directly after luncheon, as Florence is sitting in her
own room, touching up an unfinished water-color sketch of part of the
grounds round the castle--which have, alas, grown only too dear to
her!--Dora enters her room. It is an embarrassed and significantly
smiling Dora that trips up to her, and says with pretty hesitation in
her tone--
"Dearest Florence, I want your advice about something."
"Mine?" exclaims Florence, laying down her brush, and looking, as she
feels, astonished. As a rule, the gentle Dora does not seek for wisdom
from her friends.
"Yes, dear, if you can spare me the time. Just five minutes will do, and
then you can return to your charming sketch. Oh"--glancing at it--"how
exactly like it is--so perfect; what a sunset, and what firs! One could
imagine one's self in the Fairies' Glen by just looking at it."
"It is not the Fairies' Glen at all; it is that bit down by Gough's
farm," says Florence coldly. Of late she has not been so blind to Dora's
artificialness as she used to be.
"Ah, so it is!" agrees Dora airily, not in the least discomposed at her
mistake. "And so like it too. You are a genius, dearest, you are really,
and might make your fortune, only that you have one made already for
you, fortunate girl!"
"You want my advice," suggests Florence quietly.
"Ah, true; and about something important too!" She throws into her whole
air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence
knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and
she grows pale and miserable accordingly.
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