"The beginning of what?" asked Gaunt. "Of acquaintanceship," she answered. "Pardon me. I know you through and through. You have not a taste, a habit, nor an idea that I am not intimately acquainted with. Gives me an unfair advantage, does it not?" "If it's true, it does indeed; but I don't think it is true," was her frank answer. He gave something between a grunt and a laugh. "You are not competent to form an opinion," he replied, looking at his watch. "It is now five minutes to two," he went on, "and our train leaves St. Pancras at four. What will you do? I am going to have a smoke. Perhaps you would like to lie down and rest a while--eh?" It was so exactly what she craved that she thought his sympathy wonderful. That he was dismissing her to solitude on her wedding day, while he smoked, did not occur to her. She thanked him quite eagerly, a maid was summoned, and she was shown into a room with a deliciously downy bed. The maid removed her hat, took off her shoes, drew the blinds, and left, promising to call her in plenty of time. She could not sleep, but the silence and the recumbent posture helped her. She went down to the entrance hall after her rest, feeling much more able to endure the remainder of her journey than she had dared to hope. CHAPTER IX IN THE TRAP "_'Sit fast--dost fear?--The moon shines clear-- Fleet goes my barb--keep hold! Fearst thou?'--'Oh, no!' she faintly said; 'But why so stern and cold?'_"--Scott. Virgie awoke, so to speak, from her numbness in the train, somewhere between London and Derby. She was sitting, with her pile of light literature and fashion papers, opposite the man who had married her, and who was to all appearance immersed in the folios of blue foolscap, which he was marking here and there with red pencil. The documents, so far as she could judge, were leases. The motion of the train had lulled her into a short nap, and it seemed as if quite suddenly she was wide awake, and pinching herself to make sure that it was not all a dream. Here was a man who had, as it were, leaped at a girl, and married her in such hot haste that there was no time for reflection. One argued, one assumed, the strong feeling which made such behaviour credible. Yet now he sat, as a man twenty years married might sit, marking passages in a lease with red pencil, while his few hours' bride, in all her delicate loveliness, faced him, neglected, ignored. Surely this was puzzling! Had she but known, her own demeanour was much more surprising to him than his could be to her. He was wondering when an outburst of wounded vanity would come, how much longer she could refrain from comment upon his behaviour. Surely she must be piqued beyond endurance, she who imagined herself to have captured his heart at a glance, and was doubtless pondering the question of exactly what her conquest represented, in money, luxury, and pleasure.