The worthy Marmaduke's gossip was indeed true, for as strange a thing
as that had really happened. Lady Barbara Gordon, in open company, had
announced that she knew positively that Lord Farquhart was no other
than the Black Highwayman who for a twelvemonth had been terrorizing
the roads round about London town. He had confessed it to her,
himself, she said. She had seen him guised as the highwayman. Mr.
Ashley, the Lady Barbara's escort at the moment, had corroborated her
statements, vouchsafing on his own account that he had been with the
Lady Barbara when Lord Farquhart's servants had returned her rings and
a rose that had been stolen from her by the Black Highwayman only the
night before.
Just a moment's consideration of the conditions and incidents, the
chances and mischances, that led up to this denouncement will show
that it was not so strange a thing, after all. To take the Lady
Barbara, first. Up to the time of her visit to London, Lord Farquhart
had been to her something of a figurehead. She had considered him
merely as a creature quite inanimate and impersonal, who was to be
forced upon her by her father's will just as she was to be forced upon
him. But Lord Farquhart in the flesh was a young man of most pleasing
appearance, if of most exasperating manners. When the Lady Barbara
compared him with the other gallants of the society she frequented she
found that he had few peers among them, and as she accepted his
punctilious courtesies and attentions she began to long to see them
infused with some personal warmth and interest. She saw no reason why
Lord Farquhart should be the one and only gentleman of her
acquaintance who discerned no charm in her. It piqued something more
than her vanity to see that she alone of all the ladies whom he met
could rouse in him no personal interest whatsoever. And, almost
unconsciously, she exerted herself to win from him some sign of
approbation.
Also, in addition to her awakened interest in Lord Farquhart--or
possibly because of it--the Lady Barbara thought she saw in Mr.
Ashley's devotion some new, some curious, some quite displeasing
quality. It was not that he was not as courteous as ever. It was not
that he was not as attentive as ever. It was not that he did not speak
his love as tenderly, as warmly, as ever. All this was quite as it had
been. But in his courtesies the Lady Barbara recognized a thinly
veiled--it was not contempt, of course, but there was the suggestion
of the manner one would offer to a goddess who had advanced a step
toward the extreme edge of her pedestal. And this Barbara resented. In
his attentions he was quite solicitous, but it was a solicitude of
custom--of custom to be, perhaps, as much as of custom that has been.
To this Barbara objected. Already, too, his love savored of
possession. Against this Barbara chafed. She would give her favors
when she was ready to give them. They would be gifts, though--not
things held by right.
Her resentments, her objections, her chafings, she tried to hold in
check. She endeavored to show no sign of them to Ashley, with the
result that in her manner to him he saw only the endeavor. So he, in
turn, was piqued by the change in his lady. He was angry and annoyed,
and asked himself occasionally what right the Lady Barbara had to
change toward him when she and her Lord Farquhart were so absolutely
in his power. All of which strained, somewhat, the relations between
the Lady Barbara and Mr. Ashley.
To come to Lord Farquhart: he loved or thought he loved--he had loved
or had thought he loved Sylvia--Sylvia, the light o' love, one of the
pretty creatures on whom love's hand falls anything but lightly. To
his prejudiced eyes, the Lady Barbara, cold and colorless in the gloom
of Gordon's Court, had seemed quite lacking in all charm. But when he
had sauntered from her presence to that of Sylvia on the afternoon
when the jest of the highway robbery had been discussed, he found that
his curiosity, nay, his interest, had been aroused by the Lady
Barbara. He found that his unsophisticated cousin was not altogether
lacking in color and spirit, and Sylvia, for the first time, seemed
somewhat over blown, somewhat over full of vulgar life and gayety.
Later, that same night, when he saw the future Lady Farquhart dimpling
and glowing, the central star in a galaxy of London beaux, he wondered
if the Lady Barbara might not be worth the winning; he wondered if the
_mariage de convenance_ might not be transformed into the culmination
of a quick, romantic courtship. To win the Lady Barbara before the
Lady Barbara was his without the winning! Might not that be well worth
while?
To give just a passing word to Sylvia; for it was to Sylvia that the
main mischance was due. Sylvia saw that her reign was over, that she
had lost all hold on Lord Farquhart, and, in her own way, which, after
all, was a very definite and distinct way, poor Sylvia loved Lord
Farquhart.
For six days these conditions had been changing, with all their
attendant incidents and chances, and the time was ripe for a
mischance. Lord Farquhart, lounging in the park, hoping to meet the
Lady Barbara, even if it was only to be snubbed by the Lady Barbara,
saw that young lady at the end of a long line of trees with Mr.
Ashley. For Barbara had consented to walk with Mr. Ashley, partly so
that she might have the freedom of open air and sunshine in which to
express a belated opinion to Mr. Ashley concerning his new manner and
tone, and partly in hopes that she would encounter Lord Farquhart and
pique his jealousy by appearing with his rival.
"I tell you I'll not stand it, not for an instant," she was saying,
the roses in her cheeks a deep, deep damask and the stars in her eyes
beaming with unwonted radiance. "To hear you speak the world would
think that we had been married a twelvemonth! That you demanded your
rights like a commonplace husband, rather than that you sought my
favor. I'll warn you to change your manner, Mr. Harry Ashley, or
you'll find that you have neither rights nor favors."
It was at this instant that the Lady Barbara caught sight of Lord
Farquhart at his own end of the lime-shaded walk. Instantly her manner
changed, though the damask roses still glowed and the stars still
shone.
"Nay, nay, Hal"--she laid a caressing hand on his arm--"forgive my
lack of manners. I'm--I'm--perchance I'm over weary. We country maids
are not used to so much pleasure as you've given me in London." She
leaned languorously toward Ashley and he, made presumptuous by her
change of tone, slipped his arm about her slender waist.
The Lady Barbara slid from his grasp with a pretty scream of amazement
and shocked propriety. Then there might have followed a bit of
swordplay; indeed, the Lady Barbara hoped there would--the affianced
lover should have fought to defend his rights, the other should have
fought for the privileges bestowed by the lady, and all the time the
lady would have stood wringing her hands, moaning perchance, and
praying for the discomfiture of the one or the other. But,
unfortunately, none of this came to pass because, just at the critical
moment, just when Lord Farquhart, watched slyly by Lady Barbara's
starry eyes, was starting forward to defend his rights, Sylvia slipped
from behind a tree and flung herself with utter abandon upon Lord
Farquhart.
Now, in reality, Lord Farquhart tried to force the woman away from
him, but the Lady Barbara saw only that his hands were on her arms,
that, in very truth, he spoke to the girl! Turning on her heel, she
sped from the lime walk, followed by Mr. Ashley.
What ensued between Lord Farquhart and his Sylvia concerns the story
little, for he had already told her that her reign was over, that a
new queen had been enthroned in his heart. What ensued between the
Lady Barbara and her escort cannot be written, for it was but a series
of gasps and sharp cries on the lady's part, interspersed with
imploring commands on the lover's part to tell him what ailed her. The
interview was brought to a summary conclusion when the Lady Barbara
reached her aunt's house, for she flung the door to in his face and
left him standing disconsolate on the outside.