Bluebell forced a wintry smile and escaped, for a lump was rising in her throat, and she could not but remember that she must expect no sympathy or support from Mrs. Rolleston, who had once said, “It would be a most unsuitable connection.”  She passed the day in reviewing the situation.  This was the first time she had ever been called on to think seriously and painfully, and act for herself without a friendly word to support her.  Perhaps Du Meresq’s behaviour the day before had not a little braced her to the energetic course she had determined on.  It was, indeed, no easy task to extort from a man who professed so much the simple question in black and white which could alone give value to his addresses.  With no witnesses present, she had little doubt that he would be as ardent a lover as ever; but that would no longer satisfy her.  She had arranged her plan, and relied on two feelers to settle the matter one way or the other.

The first was to repeat to Bertie what Lilla had said about himself and Cecil, and then judge of the effect of her words.  If unsatisfactory, she might tell him she was going to take a situation in England, “and if he makes no effort to stop that, it will, indeed, be over, and I will go,” was the necessary conclusion.

Du Meresq and his friend, Captain Lascelles, came to dinner.  Were either to die, exchange, or marry, the other would doubtless feel much inconvenienced, not to say injured.  In England, their hunters, rooms at Newmarket, stall at the Opera, or whatever would bear division, were all joint-stock affairs; and either would, with perfect cordiality, have lent the other money, which a long unpaid tradesman would have found exceedingly hard to extract from him.

Both were unquiet spirits in the regiment, abhorring the monotony of drill and stables, and insatiable for leave.  Yet on field-days, even their most pipe clay of colonels admitted that there was no smarter turned out troop than Lascelles’, and no better squadron leader than Du Meresq.

The party was so small at dinner that conversation became pretty general.  Captain Lascelles at first tried to be au mieux with the only young lady present; but he didn’t make much way, and began to think her rather stupid, and to wish that those lively girls his friend Bertie had told him of would swim or paddle themselves across.  To Bluebell the evening was little short of purgatory.  Never had she known Du Meresq so altered.  Scarcely a sentence had passed between them, and his manner was conventional and guarded.  Formerly he had been equally cautious in public, yet they were always en rapport, and some slight glance was certain to be exchanged in assurance of it.

This night she knew from internal consciousness that they were not, and that a palpable change had taken place.  Her heroic resolutions of the morning passed away in inconsistent and impotent longing for one word or gesture to break down this impenetrable wall that seemed to have arisen between them, and to recall the old happy love-making days.  Mrs. Rolleston asked her to sing.  A bird robbed of its nest could not have felt more disinclined, yet she would try, though her voice sounded strange to herself, and was harsh and wiry.