'Bella--oh, permit me to call you so, as of old? What has come to you--what has offended you?' 'Nothing has come to me--nothing has offended me; but I should not have come here to-night, and you have no right to call me Bella now!' 'I beg your pardon--the name came naturally to my lips--we were such good friends of old.' 'Your mother does not view us as such. _Her_ friendship consists of loftily patronising me, while looking down upon me and my father too. You know this as well as I do, Captain Wilmot.' Jerry was silent, and thought. 'I came here to talk, perhaps of love, and now, by Jove, it seems we are quarrelling!' His face expressed this and the pain her words gave him; and Bella, ever a creature of impulse, felt that she was froward, petulant, and foolishly irritable; but his mother's haughty manner had stung her keenly more than once that night. Jerry sighed and rose from his seat. 'Pardon me,' said she, in her sweet, low voice, and with an upward glance of her light brown eyes that was irresistible; 'I know that I am very cross with you, and--and I don't know why.' 'Miss Chevenix----' 'Call me Bella!' said she, impetuously, as she bit the feathers of her fan. 'Oh, Bella, you know not how I am situated with regard to you!' he began, as he thought of the mortgages. 'Oh, I understand it precisely,' said she, flushing deeply. 'You are very fond of me, perhaps--admire me very much, of course; but it is an affair of proud relations--high position in the county on the one hand, and the granddaughter of the farmer of Langley Park on the other--that is it? So let us drop our acting; you your mock love-making----' 'Mock love-making!' he exclaimed, sorrowfully and reproachfully. 'Yes; and I shall drop my flirty way. And now let us go back to the dancers; I want papa, and wish to go home.' 'Oh, Bella, you know not--may never, never know--what my mind is struggling with!' he began, in a low and hurried voice, and then paused; for it was strange that jolly Jerry, usually cool, calm, self-reliant in the tumult of the betting-ring, in the business transactions of life, in the hurly-burly of a field-day in the Long Valley, with a dozen of aides-de-camp all bellowing contrary orders to him at once, should be wanting in confidence when alone with Bella Chevenix; and yet perhaps it was not strange, when those infernal mortgages, which made her an heiress and him a half ruined man, are remembered. Young Twesildown's profound admiration for Bella--notwithstanding her snub--admiration openly expressed to himself, and that of more than one other man, had made Jerry feel uncomfortable and savage--all the more that he had begun to assume or feel a right of proprietary in her that in itself was very delightful; but it is said that 'a man head over ears in love would feel jealous of his charmer's uncle, not knowing him to be such;' and certainly Jerry Wilmot was in that submerged condition.