Chapter XVIII. Gentle Wooer - Page 2

her head leaning on her hand, most pensive and melancholy. Montague Nevitt's heart gave a sudden bound. In luck once more. It was Gwendoline Gildersleeve.

"Good morning!" he said briskly, coming up before Gwendoline had time to perceive him--and fly. "This is really most fortunate. I've run down from town today on purpose to see you, but hardly hoped I should have the good fortune to get a tete-a-tete with you--at least so easily. I'm so glad I'm in time. Now, don't look so cross. You must at any rate admit, you know, my persistence is flattering."

"I don't feel flattered by it, Mr. Nevitt," Gwendoline answered coldly, holding out her gloved hand to him with marked disinclination. "I thought last time I had said good-bye to you for good and for ever."

Nevitt took her hand, and held it in his own a trifle longer than was strictly necessary. "Now don't talk like that, Gwendoline," he said coaxingly. "Don't crush me quite flat. Remember at least that you once were kind to me. It isn't my fault, surely, if I still recollect it."

Gwendoline withdrew her hand from his with yet more evident coolness. "Circumstances alter cases," she said severely. "That was before I really knew you."

"That was before you knew Granville Kelmscott, you mean," Nevitt responded with an unpleasantly knowing air. "Oh yes, you needn't wince; I've heard all about that. It's my business to hear and find out everything. But circumstances alter cases, as you justly say, Gwendoline. And I've discovered some circumstances about Granville Kelmscott that may alter the case as regards your opinion of that rich young man, whose estate weighed down a poor fellow like me in what you've graciously pleased to call your affections."

Gwendoline rose, and looked down at the man contemptuously. "Mr. Nevitt," she said, in a chilling voice, "you've no right to call me Gwendoline any longer now. You've no right to speak to me of Mr. Granville Kelmscott. I refused your advances, not for any one else's sake, or any one else's estate, but simply and solely because I came to know you better than I knew you at first; and the more I knew of you the less I liked you. I am not engaged to Mr. Granville Kelmscott. I don't mean to see him again. I don't mean to marry him."

Nevitt took his cue at once, like a clever hand that he was, and followed it up remorselessly. "Well, I'm glad to hear that anyhow," he answered, assuming a careless air of utter unconcern, "for your sake as well as for his, Miss Gildersleeve; for Granville Kelmscott, as I happen to know in the course of business, is a ruined man--a ruined man this moment. He isn't, and never was, the heir of Tilgate. And I'm sure it was very honourable of him, the minute he found he was a penniless beggar, to release you from such an unequal