Two or three days elapsed after this commencement of operations, and the Pimpernels had begun to be seriously affronted. Day by day Arden deserted them after luncheon without even taking the trouble to apologise. Now and then it happened that the croquet came absolutely to a stand-still, and once Mrs. Pimpernel drove into Liverpool without any captive knight to exhibit, which was very hard upon her. She was a hospitable woman, ready to invite any well-born, well-mannered individual of the (fashionable) houseless and homeless class; but then, on the other hand, she expected something in return. “Proper respect,” she called it; but it meant a good deal of social work—attendance upon her daughter and herself, a sort of combination of the amateur footman and the amusing companion. At this rate she would have given Arthur Arden board and lodging for as long a period as he might desire. So long as she could have it in her power to explain to any of her friends whom she met that he was “one of the Ardens of Arden—indeed, the next heir to the property,” she was able to feel that she had something for her money. But to give him the green room, which was one of the nicest in the house, and to feed him with truffles and champagne and all the delicacies of the season, in order that he might spend half the day—the really useful part of the day—with his cousin, was a thing she had not bargained for. She showed her displeasure to the culprit himself in a manner which would have been much more plain to him had he cared more about it; and she complained to her husband, stating her grievance in the plainest terms. “That Arthur Arden is an utter nuisance,” she said. “I consider it most impudent of him, Mr. Pimpernel. He comes and stays here, making a convenience of our house, but never thinks of paying proper respect, such as any man who was a gentleman would. He sees Alice and me drive out by ourselves, and actually has the assurance to wave his hand to us, and wish us a pleasant drive. Yesterday I said to him—I really could not help it—‘You don’t do much to make our drive pleasant, Mr. Arden,’ and he simply stared at me. Fancy, having to drive into Liverpool shopping, Alice and I, without a soul!—when everybody knows I like to have a gentleman to do little things for us—and that Arden actually staying in the house!”

“It was cool of him,” said her husband. “He is what I call a cool hand, is Arden. I’ll speak to him, if you like. I am not one of the men that beat about the bush. Make yourself understood, that’s my motto. There is just one thing to be said for him, however, and that is, that it may be business. He told me he was hunting through the Arden papers; confounded silly of that girl to let him; but that is no business of mine.”

“Oh, business indeed!” said Mrs. Pimpernel. “Business that takes him to Clare Arden’s side every afternoon! I don’t much believe in that kind of business. What he can see in her I am sure I cannot divine. A stuck-up thing! looking down upon them that are as good as she is any day! Just fancy a man leaving our Alice hitting the balls about all day by herself, poor child, on the lawn!—a man staying in the house!—and going off to the Hall to Clare Arden! Do you call that proper respect? As for good taste, I don’t speak of that, for it is clear he has not got any. And you take my word for it, business is nothing but a pretence.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Mr Pimpernel. “You see, if he really is doing anything, it’s his policy to make himself agreeable to that girl. She gives him access to the papers, you know. The papers are the great thing. Don’t you be too exacting for a day or two. If Alice mopes let me know; by Jove! I won’t have my little girl crossed. It’s odd if I can’t buy her anything she takes a fancy to. But all the same he’s an old fellow is Arden, and he hasn’t a penny to bless himself with. I can’t see much reason why she should set her heart on him.”

“Upon my word and honour, Mr. Pimpernel!” said the lady, “if that is all the opinion you have of your own child—— Set her heart on Arthur Arden, indeed! She would never have looked at him if it hadn’t been for that talk about the property. And if it turns out to be a mistake about the property, do you think I’d ever——? I hope I have more opinion of my girl than that. But when I ask a man to my house, I own I look for proper respect. I consider it’s his business to make himself agreeable to me, and not to strangers. My house ain’t an inn to be at the convenience of visitors to Arden. If he likes best being there, let him go and live there. I say Arden is Arden, and the Red House is the Red House, and the one don’t depend upon the other, nor has nothing to do with the other. If there’s one thing I hate it is pride and mean ways. Let her take him in and keep him if she wants him. But I won’t keep him, and feed him with the best of everything, and champagne like water, for Miss Clare Arden’s sake, or Miss anything that ever was born!”

Mrs. Pimpernel was tying on her nightcap as she spoke, and the act deafened her a little, for the nightcap strings were stiff and well starched—which was perhaps the reason why she delivered the concluding words in so loud a voice. Mr. Pimpernel was a courageous man enough, but when it came to this he was too prudent to do anything to increase the storm.

“I’ll speak to him if you like,” he said. “It’s always best to know exactly what one is about. I’ll put it in the plainest terms; but I think we might wait a day or two all the same. Arden’s a fine property, and Arthur Arden is a clever fellow. He knows what’s what as well as any man I know: and if he’s making a cat’s-paw of his cousin you can’t blame him. If I were you I’d give him a day or two’s grace.”

“I am sick of him and everything about him. He is no more use than that poker,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, seating herself in disgust in a chair which stood in her habitual corner, at the side of the vacant fireplace. The poker in question gleamed in brilliant steel incongruity from amid the papery convolutions of an ornamental structure which filled the grate. Nothing could well be more useless: it was a simile which went to her husband’s heart.

“To think that I was poking the fire with that identical poker not six weeks ago!” he said, “and now the heat’s enough to kill you. If you had felt it in the office at three o’clock to-day! I can tell you it was no joke.”

“Do you think I didn’t feel it?” said his wife; “driving into Liverpool under that broiling sun, without a soul to amuse you, or offer you his arm, or anything; and that Arden quite comfortable, enjoying himself in the big cool rooms at the Hall. Ah, fathers little know what one has to go through for one’s children. All this blessed afternoon was I choosing sleeves and collars and things for Alice, and summer frocks for the children. The way they grow, and the number of changes they want! And we had to allow half-an-inch more for Alice’s collars. She is certainly getting stout. I am stout myself, and of course at my age it don’t matter; but the more that child takes exercise the more she fills out. I don’t understand it. You might have drawn me through a good-sized ring when I was her age.”

“It must have been a very good-sized ring,” said Mr. Pimpernel. “And I don’t like your maypoles of girls. I like ’em nice and round and fat——”

“Good heavens, Mr. Pimpernel, you speak as if you were going to eat them!” said his wife.

“If they were all as nice, healthy, plump, red and white as my Alice,” said the indulgent father. And then there followed a few parental comments on both sides on the comparative growths of Jane, Eliza, and Maria-Anne. Thus the conversation dropped, and the danger which threatened Arthur Arden was for the moment over. But yet he felt next morning that something explosive was in the air. It was his interest to stay at the Red House as long as possible, to have his invitation renewed, if that was possible; and he felt instinctively that something must be done to mend matters. It was a great bore, for though he had discovered nothing as yet, he had been living in the closest intercourse with Clare, and had been making, he felt, satisfactory progress in that pursuit—indeed, he had made a great deal more progress than he himself was aware; for the fact was that his own feelings (such as they were) were too much engaged to make him quite so clear-sighted on the subject as he might have been. A bystander would probably have seen, which Arthur Arden did not, that everything was tending towards a very speedy crisis, and that it was perfectly apparent how that crisis would be decided. Had he himself been cool enough to note her looks—her tremulous withdrawals and sudden confidences—her mingled fear of him and dependence upon him, he would have spoken before now, and all would have been decided. But he was timid, as genuine feeling always is—afraid that after all he might be deceiving himself, and that all the evidences which he sometimes trusted in might mean nothing. Things were in this exciting state when his eyes were opened to see the cloudy countenance of Mrs. Pimpernel and the affronted looks of Alice. He was late at breakfast, as he always was—a thing which had been regarded as a very good joke when he first came to the Red House. “Papa has been gone for an hour,” Alice had been wont to say, looking at her watch; and Mrs. Pimpernel would shake her head at him. “Ah, Mr. Arden, it is just as well you have no house to keep in order,” she would say. “I can’t think whatever you do when you are married, you fashionable men.” But now the comments were of a very different character. “I am afraid the coffee is cold,” Mrs. Pimpernel said, looking hot enough herself to warm any amount of coffee. “It is so unfortunate that we cannot make our hours suit; and I must ask you to excuse me—I must give the housekeeper her orders before it is quite the middle of the day——”

“Am I so very late—I am dreadfully sorry,” said Arthur, appealing to Alice, who sat at the end of the table looking shyly spiteful, and who remained for a moment undecided whether to follow her mother or to put on an aspect of civility and stay.

“Oh no, Mr. Arden—I mean I can’t tell—mamma thinks we see so very little of you now——”

“Do you see little of me? Ah, yes, I remember, you were in Liverpool yesterday shopping, and I found the house all desolate when I came back. You can’t think how dreary it looks when you are away. This suggestion of your father’s gives me so much work in the afternoon——”

“Oh, Mr. Arden! a suggestion of papa’s?”

“Did you not know—did you think it was by my own inclination that I was at work all day long?” said Arthur. “How much higher an opinion you must have of me than I deserve! Does Mrs. Pimpernel think it is all my doing? No, I am not so good as that. I am going over the family papers on your papa’s suggestion—trying to find out something—— Most likely I shall write a book——”

“Oh, Mr. Arden!” cried Alice Pimpernel.

“Yes; most likely I shall write a book. You can’t think how many interesting stories there are in the family. Should you like me to tell you one this morning before the children are ready for their croquet? I don’t know if I can do it well, but if you like——”

“Oh, Mr. Arden, I should like it so much!”

“Then, come out on the lawn,” said Arthur. “I know a spot where it will be delicious this warm morning to lie on the grass and tell you about our Spanish lady. Did you ever hear of our Spanish lady? It was she who gave us our olive complexions and our black hair.”

“Oh, Mr. Arden!” Alice cried, dazzled by the prospect; “only wait, please, till I fetch my work;” and she hurried away into the drawing-room, leaving him to finish his breakfast. Alice ran across her mother in the hall, as she crossed from one room to the other. Her pretty complexion was heightened, and her eyes shining with pleasure and interest. “Oh, mamma! I am going out to the lawn to hear Mr. Arden tell a story,” she cried, “about the Spanish lady—a family story; and, oh! he says he does not go away for his own pleasure, but because of something papa put into his head. Fancy—papa!”

“That is all very well,” said Mrs. Pimpernel. “Your papa, indeed!—but I happen to know better. Your papa only told him, if he could find a flaw in the title—— Your papa is a great deal too liberal, Alice—offering to help people that have not a penny to bless themselves with—as if it could ever be anything to us!—or, as if there was such a thing as gratitude in the world.”

“Oh, mamma—hush!” whispered Alice, pointing to the open door of the dining-room, through which Arthur heard every word that was said; and then she added, plaintively, with ready tears gathering in her eyes, “Mayn’t I go?”

“I suppose he thinks we are all to be ready as soon as he holds up his little finger,” said the indignant mother. And then she paused, and calmed herself down. “I don’t want you to be uncivil, Alice,” she added, still much to Arthur’s edification, who heard every word. “As long as he is your father’s guest, of course you must be polite to him. Oh, yes, you can go. But mind you don’t stay too long, or expose yourself to the sun; and don’t forget that I expect my daughter to show a little proper pride.”

Poor Alice lingered for a long time in the hall before she had courage to rejoin the guest, who must have heard everything that was said. She made believe to return to the drawing-room to look for something else which she had forgotten. And it was not till Arthur himself—who was much more amused than angry—had leisurely ended his breakfast, and strolled out into the hall, that she ventured to join him. “Oh! Mr. Arden—I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she cried. “Never mind. I had nothing to do but wait,” he said, smiling, and took the basket with her work out of her hand. He took her to the very shadiest seat, brought her a footstool, arranged everything for her with an air of devotion which went to the heart of Alice, and then he threw himself on the grass at her feet, and prepared to tell his tale.