Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/54

Rh always behave as a gentleman towards her. If she didn't expect too much, they might "get along" pretty well.

Such reasoning as this prompted Wybrowe to take the initiatory steps we have recorded in his quest for money—with the drawback of a wife attached thereto. It cannot be said that these steps were vigorous or decisive; still they were steps, not too sudden or violent to be out of character with his poco-curante manner and demeanour. Elizabeth was slow to believe whither those steps tended. But she thought a great deal about her sitter during the next three weeks. His face too often obtruded itself between herself and her work. It irritated her. She wondered why it was that his rare smile and certain tones of his voice haunted her with a pertinacity which nothing else had ever yet done. Was she to be dominated by a man's looks and manner, of whom she knew so little, and that little by no means to his advantage? She had always said she despised men who did not work—who treated life as a playground, and wasted their energies on football, so to speak. Here was one who had done nothing but play football, and an expensive game it had been. She could not honour such a man; to be consistent, she should reprobate him. And whenever she said this, the noble head, pale and reproachful as Banquo's ghost, rose up before her.

Colonel Wybrowe had daily interviews with either lawyers, money-lenders, or creditors, during the weeks that he passed in London, before returning to Farley. For this purpose he had gone up—to temporize; to explain that if matters were not forced to a crisis, if a little patience were exercised, he had good hope, at no