"Please," said Lady Caroline.
Lord Marshmoreton stopped, and resumed his silent communion with the
stuffed bird.
"You can't stop yourself being in love, Aunt Caroline," said Maud.
"You can be stopped if you've somebody with a level head looking
after you."
Lord Marshmoreton tore himself away from the bird.
"Why, when I was at Oxford in the year '87," he said chattily, "I
fancied myself in love with the female assistant at a tobacconist
shop. Desperately in love, dammit. Wanted to marry her. I recollect
my poor father took me away from Oxford and kept me here at Belpher
under lock and key. Lock and key, dammit. I was deucedly upset at
the time, I remember." His mind wandered off into the glorious
past. "I wonder what that girl's name was. Odd one can't remember
names. She had chestnut hair and a mole on the side of her chin. I
used to kiss it, I recollect--"
Lady Caroline, usually such an advocate of her brother's researches
into the family history, cut the reminiscences short.
"Never mind that now."
"I don't. I got over it. That's the moral."
"Well," said Lady Caroline, "at any rate poor father acted with
great good sense on that occasion. There seems nothing to do but to
treat Maud in just the same way. You shall not stir a step from the
castle till you have got over this dreadful infatuation. You will
be watched."
"I shall watch you," said Lord Belpher solemnly, "I shall watch
your every movement."
A dreamy look came into Maud's brown eyes.
"Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage," she said
softly.
"That wasn't your experience, Percy, my boy," said Lord
Marshmoreton.
"They make a very good imitation," said Lady Caroline coldly,
ignoring the interruption.
Maud faced her defiantly. She looked like a princess in captivity
facing her gaolers.
"I don't care. I love him, and I always shall love him, and nothing
is ever going to stop me loving him--because I love him," she
concluded a little lamely.
"Nonsense," said Lady Caroline. "In a year from now you will have
forgotten his name. Don't you agree with me, Percy?"
"Quite," said Lord Belpher.
"I shan't."
"Deuced hard things to remember, names," said Lord Marshmoreton.
"If I've tried once to remember that tobacconist girl's name, I've
tried a hundred times. I have an idea it began with an 'L.' Muriel
or Hilda or something."
"Within a year," said Lady Caroline, "you will be wondering how you
ever came to be so foolish. Don't you think so, Percy?"
"Quite," said Lord Belpher.
Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably.