“And I hope,” said Evelyn, “that I am not considered likely to enjoy all this, listening to those mutual compliments. I, for my part, am fully alive to my own good fortune. James, I think we must go on. We have to be at Madeline’s.” “Madeline,” said Saumarez with a laugh, “is always Mrs. Rowland’s excuse. She is constantly going to Madeline’s if one tries to detain her for a moment. But you must wait till I tell you how kind she has been to my children. It cannot but do a young girl good to be in Mrs. Rowland’s society; and I am doubly grateful for my motherless Rose. I hear you’ve got Lord Clydesdale’s place at Rosmore.” Mr. Rowland did not like to hear it called Lord Clydesdale’s place. “Until the moment when we can get him to sell it to us,” he said. “Ah, will he sell? That’s a different matter. A rich tenant paying a good rent, that’s one thing--but Clydesdale won’t sell. I hope you are not calculating upon that.” “We shall see,” said Rowland, not well pleased. “Yes, we shall see. And must you really go--to Madeline? Lay me at her ladyship’s feet. I will go and give her ladyship my opinion of--things in general, one day very soon.” “My dear,” said Mr. Rowland to his wife, “I don’t think much of that--old friend of yours. Cripple or no cripple, he’s got a devil in his eye.” “You cannot think less of him than I do, James,” said Evelyn, holding fast by her husband’s arm. She knew very well what he had meant when he had said he would give Madeline his opinion on--things in general; and she knew what barbed arrow he had intended to place in her heart when he spoke of holding her in his arms as an infant. To think that she should have been in that man’s arms a happy girl, considering herself happy in his love! She shuddered as the thought passed through her mind. “Are you cold, Evelyn?” Rowland said with surprise. “Only with the moral cold that is in that man’s horrible atmosphere,” she said. CHAPTER XVIII. “Yes, he is rather a dreadful spectacle,” said Lady Leighton. “Now, one wonders he likes to exhibit himself about the world, where he once was so well known in another way. There’s nothing so strange as human vanity, Mr. Rowland. I think he rather likes to show as a sort of prize example of suffering and misery. It’s a distinction in its way. He had the distinction of being one of the handsomest men of his day, and of behaving more badly than almost anybody else, and now he’s the most deplorable sufferer--always the first, you know, whatever he’s at.” “You are a little hard upon him, Lady Leighton.” “Not a bit too hard. I know the man so well. We’ve always been very good friends----” “What! Though he behaved more badly than almost anybody else?” Rowland said, with a laugh. Evelyn, who, knowing what her friend meant, and still smarting as she was from the previous encounter, felt it almost as an added injury, looked on with the gravest face, feeling herself unable to speak.