He had found out all this during his first two Sundays, and upon the third he had ventured to ask permission to be her escort. Randolph was quite aware that he had lost ground with Monica of late; that the barrier, partially broken down during the week of anxiety about Arthur, had risen up again as impenetrably as ever. How far Sir Conrad Fitzgerald’s appearance upon the scene was to blame for this he could not tell, nor could Monica herself have explained; but there was no mistaking the added coldness on her part, and the sense of restraint experienced in his presence. [86] [86] And yet he was conscious that his love for her increased every day, and that no coldness on her part checked or dwarfed its growth. He sometimes wondered at himself for the depth and intensity of his passion, for he was a man who had passed almost unscathed heretofore from the shafts of the blind god, nor was he by nature impulsive or susceptible. But then Monica was like no woman he had ever met before, and from the very first she had exercised a curious fascination over him. Also their relative positions were peculiar; she the daughter and he the heir of the old earl, whose life was evidently so very frail. Randolph had a shrewd idea that his kinsman had little to leave apart from the entail, and in the event of his death what would become of the fair girl his daughter? [87]Would it be her fate to be placed in the keeping of that worldly spinster, the Lady Diana? Randolph’s whole soul revolted from such an idea. [87] So, altogether, his interest in Monica was hardly more than natural, and his sense of protecting championship not entirely uncalled for. One thing he had resolutely determined upon—that she should never suffer directly or indirectly on his account. He had made no definite plans as regarded the future, but on that point his mind was made up. To-day, for the first time, he ventured to allude to a subject hitherto never touched upon between them. “You have a very beautiful home, Lady Monica,” he said. “It is no wonder that you love it.” [88] [88]
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