“I 'll do better, General,” said Mrs. Maxwell; “I 'll send over and ask him here to-morrow. Why do you shake your head, Bella? He 'll not come?” “No,” said she, calmly. “Not if you and Alice were to back my request?” “I fear not,” said Alice. “He has estranged himself of late from every one; he has not been even once to see us since he came back from England.” “Then Mark will go and fetch him for us,” said Mrs. Maxwell, the most unobservant of all old ladies. “Not I, madam; nor would that be the way to secure him.” “Well, have him we must,” said Mrs. Maxwell; while she added in a whisper to Mrs. Trafford, “It would never do to lose the poor boy such a chance.” “Beck says, if some one will drive her over to the Causeway,” cried the Commodore, “she'll vouch for success, and bring young Tony back with her.” “Mr. Maitland offers himself,” said Alice, whose eyes sparkled with fun, while her lips showed no trace of a smile. “Take the phaeton, then,” said Mrs. Maxwell; “only there will be no place for young Butler; but take a britscha, and order post-horses at Greme's Mill.” And now a sharp discussion ensued which road was the shorter, and whether the long hill or the “new cut” was the more severe on the cattle. “This was most unfair of you,” said Maitland to Mrs. Trafford, as they rose from the table; “but it shall not succeed.” “How will you prevent it?” said she, laughing. “What can you do?” “Rather than go I 'd say anything.” “As how, for instance?” He leaned forward and whispered a few words in her ear, and suddenly her face became scarlet, her eyes flashed passionately, as she said, “This passes the limit of jest, Mr. Maitland.” “Not more than the other would pass the limit of patience,” said he; and now, instead of entering the drawing-room, he turned short round and sought his own room. CHAPTER XXIII. THE FIRST NIGHT AT TILNEY Mattland was not in the best of tempers when he retired to his room. Whatever the words he had whispered in Alice's ear,--and this history will not record them,--they were a failure. They were even worse than a failure, for they produced an effect directly the opposite to that intended. “Have I gone too fast?” muttered he; “have I deceived myself? She certainly understood me well in what I said yesterday. She, if anything, gave me a sort of encouragement to speak. She drew away her hand, it is true, but without any show of resentment or anger; a sort of protest, rather, that implied, 'We have not yet come to this.' These home-bred women are hard riddles to read. Had she been French, Spanish, or Italian,--ay, or even one of our own, long conversant with the world of Europe,--I never should have blundered.” Such thoughts as these be now threw on paper, in a letter to his friend Caffarelli.