A Terrible Temptation. Charles Reade Reade

      “And who has disinherited the fellow?”

      “I forget; but you disinherited him among you. Never mind; it can't be helped now. When did you come back to town? I didn't see you at Lady d'Arcy's ball, did I?”

      “You did not, unfortunately for me; but you would if I had known you were to be there. But about Richard: he may tell you what he likes, but he was not disinherited; he was bought out. The fact is, his father was uncommonly fast. My grandfather paid his debts again and again; but at last the old gentleman found he was dealing with the Jews for his reversion. Then there was an awful row. It ended in my grandfather outbidding the Jews. He bought the reversion of his estate from his own son for a large sum of money (he had to raise it by mortgages); then they cut off the entail between them, and he entailed the mortgaged estate on his other son, and his grandson (that was me), and on my heir-at-law. Richard's father squandered his thirty thousand pounds before he died; my father husbanded the estates, got into Parliament, and they put a tail to his name.”

      Sir Charles delivered this version of the facts with a languid composure that contrasted deliciously with Richard's heat in telling the story his way (to be sure, Sir Charles had got Huntercombe and Bassett, and it is easier to be philosophical on the right side of the boundary hedge), and wound up with a sort of corollary: “Dick Bassett suffers by his father's vices, and I profit by mine's virtues. Where's the injustice?”

      “Nowhere, and the sooner you are reconciled the better.”

      Sir Charles demurred. “Oh, I don't want to quarrel with the fellow: but he is a regular thorn in my side, with his little trumpery estate, all in broken patches. He shoots my pheasants in the unfairest way.” Here the landed proprietor showed real irritation, but only for a moment. He concluded calmly, “The fact is, he is not quite a gentleman. Fancy his coming and whining to you about our family affairs, and then telling you a falsehood!”

      “No, no; he did not mean. It was his way of looking at things. You can afford to forgive him.”

      “Yes, but not if he sets you against me.”

      “But he cannot do that. The more any one was to speak against you, the more I—of course.”

      This admission fired Sir Charles; he drew nearer, and, thanks to his cousin's interference, spoke the language of love more warmly and directly than he had ever done before.

      The lady blushed, and defended herself feebly. Sir Charles grew warmer, and at last elicited from her a timid but tender avowal, that made him supremely happy.

      When he left her this brief ecstasy was succeeded by regrets on account of the years he had wasted in follies and intrigues.

      He smoked five cigars, and pondered the difference between the pure creature who now honored him with her virgin affections and beauties of a different character who had played their parts in his luxurious life.

      After profound deliberation he sent for his solicitor. They lighted the inevitable cigars, and the following observations struggled feebly out along with the smoke.

      “Mr. Oldfield, I'm going to be married.”

      “Glad to hear it, Sir Charles.” (Vision of settlements.) “It is a high time you were.” (Puff-puff.)

      “Want your advice and assistance first.”

      “Certainly.”

      “Must put down my pony-carriage now, you know.”

      “A very proper retrenchment; but you can do that without my assistance.”

      “There would be sure to be a row if I did. I dare say there will be as it is. At any rate, I want to do the thing like a gentleman.”

      “Send 'em to Tattersall's.” (Puff.)

      “And the girl that drives them in the park, and draws all the duchesses and countesses at her tail—am I to send her to Tattersall's?” (Puff.)

      “Oh, it is her you want to put down, then?”

      “Why, of course.”

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      SIR CHARLES and Mr. Oldfield settled that lady's retiring pension, and Mr. Oldfield took the memoranda home, with instructions to prepare a draft deed for Miss Somerset's approval.

      Meantime Sir Charles visited Miss Bruce every day. Her affections for him grew visibly, for being engaged gave her the courage to love.

      Mr. Bassett called pretty often; but one day he met Sir Charles on the stairs, and scowled.

      That scowl cost him dear, for Sir Charles thereupon represented to Bella that a man with a grievance is a bore to the very eye, and asked her to receive no more visits from his scowling cousin. The lady smiled, and said, with soft complacency, “I obey.”

      Sir Charles's gallantry was shocked.

      “No, don't say 'obey.' It is a little favor I ventured to ask.”

      “It is like you to ask what you have a right to command. I shall be out to him in future, and to every one who is disagreeable to you. What! does 'obey' frighten you from my lips? To me it is the sweetest in the language. Oh, please let me 'obey' you! May I?”

      Upon this, as vanity is seldom out of call, Sir Charles swelled like a turkey-cock, and loftily consented to indulge Bella Bruce's strange propensity. From that hour she was never at home to Mr. Bassett.

      He began to suspect; and one day, after he had been kept out with the loud, stolid “Not at home” of practiced mendacity, he watched, and saw Sir Charles admitted.

      He divined it all in a moment, and turned to wormwood. What! was he to be robbed of the lady he loved—and her fifteen thousand pounds—by the very man who had robbed him of his ancestral fields? He dwelt on the double grievance till it nearly frenzied him. But he could do nothing: it was his fate. His only hope was that Sir Charles, the arrant flirt, would desert this beauty after a time, as he had the others.

      But one afternoon, in the smoking-room of his club, a gentleman said to him, “So your cousin Charles is engaged to the Yorkshire beauty, Bell Bruce?”

      “He is flirting with her, I believe,” said Richard.

      “No, no,” said the other; “they are engaged. I know it for a fact. They are to be married next month.”

      Mr. Richard Bassett digested this fresh pill in moody silence, while the gentlemen of the club discussed the engagement with easy levity. They soon passed to a topic of wider interest, viz., who was to succeed Sir Charles with La Somerset. Bassett began to listen attentively, and learned for the first time Sir Charles Bassett's connection with that lady, and also that she was a woman of a daring nature and furious temper. At first he was merely surprised; but soon hatred and jealousy whispered in his ear that with these materials it must be possible to wound those who had wounded him.

      Mr. Marsh, a young gentleman with a receding chin, and a mustache between hay and straw, had taken great care to let them all know he was acquainted with Miss Somerset. So Richard got Marsh alone, and sounded him. Could he call upon the lady without ceremony?

      “You won't get in. Her street door is jolly well guarded, I can tell you.”

      “I am very curious to see her in her own house.”

      “So are a good many fellows.”

      “Could you not give me an introduction?”

      Marsh shook his head sapiently for a considerable time, and with all this shaking, as it appeared, out fell words of wisdom. “Don't see it. I'm awfully spooney on her myself; and, you know, when a fellow introduces another