It was much easier for Neil to form this plan than to be satisfied with it, and during the few days which elapsed before he started for Stoneleigh he was cross and irritable and even rude at times both to his mother and Blanche, the latter of whom finally treated him with a cold indifference which made him fear a little for the ten thousand.
"What if she should take the bits in her teeth and throw me overboard?" he thought, and at the very last, he changed his tactics and devoted himself to the heiress with an assiduity which left her little doubt of his intentions. Still, to her he did not speak, though to his mother he said, half irritably, as if it were something wrung from him against his will: "Don't trouble yourself. I intend to marry Blanche in my own good time; but I will not be hurried, and am going to Stoneleigh first."
And he went to Stoneleigh and tried all the way there to think of Bessie as she looked in the park, in the old faded gown with the disfiguring puffs; tried to make himself believe that she had no manner, no style, and would not pass for a great lady among people city bred; that she was better suited to some quiet home such as Grey Jerrold might give her, were he happy enough to win her. Neil had no doubt that Grey would try to win her when once he had seen her, and he began at last to feel sorry that he had invited his friend to Stoneleigh, and to have doubts as to his ability to give Bessie up even to him. He was sure of it when he reached Stoneleigh and saw her with the brightness on her face and the sparkle in her eye as she welcomed him. She might not be as elegant or as stylish as Blanche, who had lived in the city all her life, but she was inexpressibly sweet and womanly, and there was in every movement a grace and quiet dignity which stamped her as a lady. And Neil recognized it as he never had before, and fought the battle over again all through the silent night, and was still fighting it in the morning when he went down to breakfast and looked at Bessie as she poured his coffee, in her gray dress and pretty white muslin apron, with the daintily frilled pockets, and just the corner of a blue-bordered handkerchief showing in one of them. Neil liked the dress and the effect of the blue handkerchief but he did not like the apron, it made her look so like a housemaid, and he told her so when breakfast was over and they stood a moment alone by the fire.