Maddy's voice was very steady in its tone. She evidently meant what
she said, but Guy, the bad man, did not feel as graciously as he ought
to have felt in knowing that Maddy Clyde was glad "Lucy loved him, and
was to be his wife," Guy was rather uncomfortable, and as Maddy was in some way associated
with his discomfort, he did not oppose her when she arose to leave
him.
Had Maddy been more a woman, or less a child, she would have seen that
it was well for her to know of Lucy Atherstone before her feelings for
Guy Remington had assumed a definite form. As it was, she never
dreamed how near she was to loving Aikenside's young heir; and while
talking with Jessie of the grand times they should have at school, she
marveled at that little round spot of pain which was burning at her
heart, or why she should wish that Guy would not speak of her in his
letter to Lucy Atherstone.
But Guy did speak of her, frankly confessing the interest he felt in
her, telling just how people were beginning to talk, and asking Lucy
if she cared, declaring that if she did, he would not see Maddy Clyde
any more than was necessary. In a little less than four weeks there
came an answer from Lucy, who, with health somewhat improved, had
returned to England, and wrote to Guy from Brighton, where she
expected to spend the summer, half hoping Guy might join her there,
though she could not urge it, as mamma still insisted that she was not
able to take upon herself the duties of a wife. Then she spoke of
Maddy Clyde, saying "She was not one bit jealous of her dear Guy, Of
course ignorant, meddling people, of whom she feared there were a
great many in America, would gossip, but he was not to mind them."
Then she said that if Maddy were willing, she would so much like her
picture, as she had a curiosity to know just how she looked, and if
Maddy pleased, "would she write a few lines, so as not to seem so much
a stranger?"
Lucy Atherstone had been educated to think a great deal of birth, and
blood, and family, and Guy never did a wiser thing than when he told
her that according to English views, Maddy was a lady. It went far
toward reconciling Lucy to his interest in one whom her haughtier and
more sanguine mother called a rival, advising her mother to ignore her
altogether. But Lucy's was a different nature, and though it cost her
pride a pang, she asked for a line from Maddy, partly to mortify that
pride, and partly to prove to Guy how free she was from jealousy.