“FROGGY WOULD A WOOING GO.”
“Gold, gold, gold, gold,
Bright and yellow, hard and cold;
Molten, graven, hammered and roll’d,
Heavy to get, and light to hold,
Price of many a crime untold.”
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” sneers Gabrielle.
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” says Zai.
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” laughs Baby.
And with very good reason.
It is his eighth visit.
Trixy has deserted her downy nest among her cerulean cushions, and sits
bolt upright on a tall-backed chair. To-day is devoted by her to the
personification of “Mary Anderson.”
Her attire is of virgin white, not flowing in undulating waves of Indian
muslin, or ornamented by tucks _à l’enfant_, but falling in severe
satin-like folds round her beautifully moulded figure; her wealth of
yellow hair is gathered at the back of her dainty head in a classical
knot, traversed by a long gold arrow. She wears no bracelets or rings to
mar the perfect whiteness of her arm and fingers, and while one hand
toys lazily with a mother o’ pearl paper-knife, the other rests on a
well-thumbed copy of “The Lady of Lyons.”
Opposite her, but at a discreet distance, her Claude perches nervously
on the edge of his chair; his face has acquired more flesh and blood
with his increased importance as the _fiancé_ of the beautiful Miss
Beranger, and his puffy cheeks glow like holly-berries under her glance.
Not that her glance by any means shows the odalisque softness, of which
mention has been made; on the contrary, there is an incipient loathing
in it, that she tries to conceal under the shelter of her long golden
lashes.
But everything nearly has two sides, and the white drooping lids find
favour in her adorer’s sight, for he attributes them to the delicate
shyness peculiar to the _china_ beings of the Upper Ten, and unknown to
the coarse delf of his own class.
Once, and once only, has he ventured to lift the lissom white fingers to
his hungry lips very respectfully, _bien entendu_.
It was the day when, Lady Beranger standing by, Trixy agreed to barter
her youth and beauty for:
“Gold, gold, gold, gold,
Bright and yellow, hard and cold;
Molten, graven, hammered and roll’d,
Heavy to get, and light to hold,
Price of many a crime untold.”
But she had drawn back her fingers before they arrived at his desired
goal, with a sudden hauteur that almost petrified him into a stone.
It was the first time he had been thrown in such close contact with
“high life,” and when it bristled up in aggrieved delicacy it appalled
him; but the next moment, he awoke to a profound admiration for the
maidenly reserve that was, of course, part and parcel of a refined
nature.
Poor Mr. Stubbs! well may the Beranger girls pity him. He little dreams
of the melting glances Trixy’s sweet blue eyes have given to Carlton
Conway, or how eagerly the hand like a snowdrift has gone out to nestle
in Carlton Conway’s clasp, and how the faint blush rose on her cheek has
deepened into damask bloom when in the old days Carlton Conway whispered
in her ear, nor how, tell it not in Gath! her pretty mouth had even
pouted for Carlton Conway’s caress.
But we all know that where ignorance is bliss, etc., etc. Ever since Mr.
Stubbs has been duly installed in the dignified position of “future,” to
Lady Beranger’s eldest daughter, he makes periodical visits to Belgrave
Square.
As it has been told, to day is his eighth visit, but he approaches no
whit nearer to his divinity as regards heart--in fact he has decidedly
made a retrograde movement in her opinion.
Trixy fully realises the truth of the old saw, “distance lends
enchantment to the view,” and the nearer she sees him the more difficult
it seems to her to swallow this big bitter pill, although it is heavily
gilded. Still, she is determined to marry him somehow, for as regards
more substantial things their hearts and such obsolete absurdities--she
has fully realised the advantages and benefits this horrible sacrifice
of herself, as she styles it, is likely to bestow.
What daughter of Belgravia hesitates long between love and ambition?
That is, if she has been properly brought up? and how often are the
marriages solemnised at St. George’s or St. Peter’s--marriages _du
cœur_? A popular author writes of modern love--
“Though Cupid may seek for sweet faces,
From ugliness fly as a curse,
May sacrifice much for the Graces,
He’ll sacrifice more for the--_purse_.
The priest, if inclined for truth’s rigour,
Might write on each conjugal docket,
‘When a lover’s in love with the figure,
The figure must be in--the _pocket_!’”
And he is very nearly right.
Trixy has on a table that stands beside her two open morocco cases. In
one, a magnificent necklet of diamonds sparkles and scintillates in the
daylight, flashing back glances at a set of pigeon-blood hued rubies
that repose alongside.
When her eyes rest on these the odalisque softness steals back to her
limpid glance.
“Do you approve of the ornaments?” the millionaire asks nervously of his
“liege ladye.” He would not have ventured to say “Do you like me?” for
all the world.
He is brimming over with gratification at his sumptuous gift being
accepted, although Trixy has not had the grace to say even “thank you.”
But then she is so sure of him that she does not trouble about common
politeness.
“I have not yet learnt your exact taste, you know,” he mumbles a little
sheepishly, reddening to the roots of his more than auburn hair,
possibly with the pleasurable vision of the time when he _will_ know
Trixy’s taste better.
_Poor_ Mr. Stubbs!
At present she is still “doing” Mary Anderson, and may be a statue of
Galatea for aught he can find in her of warmth, or learn of her tastes
and feelings.
“The ornaments are very well,” answers this often-to-be-met-with type of
Belgravian daughters, with an insolent indifference which is quite
assumed, for such costly baubles are her heart’s delight. “I should
certainly have preferred sapphires to rubies. They suit blondes so very
much better.”
Poor Mr. Stubbs feels and looks extremely disappointed, and crestfallen.
He has paid such a very large sum for the rubies. He has ransacked all
the leading jewellers’ shops that the stones may be large, and flawless,
and the exact colour of pigeon’s blood, and here is his reward.
For a moment it seems to him that there is something a little
disheartening and depressing in aristocratic coldness and ingratitude,
and that some of the gushing thanks of little Imogene of the Vivacity,
or pretty Vi Decameron of the Can-Can Theatre would not be amiss, but
only for one moment does his tuft-hunting soul turn traitor to the high
life it adores, and he quickly brightens up.
“If you will allow me, I will take back the rubies, and desire sapphires
to be sent instead.”
“Oh, no, no! it would scarcely be worth the trouble of changing them,
these will do very well,” she answers in a tone of languor, but she
remembers the vulgar old adage of “a bird in hand is worth two in the
bush,” and to put a bar on any chance of losing the disparaged rubies,
she quietly clasps the morocco cases, and locks them into an ivory and
ebony Indian box.
The big drawing-room in Belgrave Square is very dull. From outside comes
the rush of vehicles, and the June sunshine tries to peer through the
closed jalousies that fine ladies love. The clock ticks rather
obtrusively, but Trixy likes to hear it, for it tells of the flight of
time; a prospect she has at heart at this moment, and a short silence
falls upon as ill-assorted a pair as ever a longing for the world’s
vanities has brought together. Looking at them, the story of Beauty and
the Beast presents itself, excepting that the Beast is not likely to
turn out anything else, save as far as riches are concerned. From the
day Mr. Stubbs popped the question, as Baby has it, and Trixy accepted
him, Lady Beranger has thankfully thrown off the onus of chaperonage,
which a rigid adherence to her beloved _convenances_ insisted on before,
and long _tête-à-têtes_ are vouchsafed to the “happy young couple,” as
she calls them (Extract from the Stubbs’ family bible--Peter Robinson
Stubbs, born July 12th, 1820, rather upsets the word young), but her
ladyship cannot stand the man in spite of his youth and happiness, and
slips out of the way whenever his loud knock resounds through the
mansion. She has no fear that Trixy will prove refractory now that the
die is cast, and the match has been announced formally in the columns
of the Court Journal and other Society papers. Besides, a dissolution of
the contract would involve a return of very expensive presents,
including the despised rubies, and Lady Beranger’s insight into human
nature, or rather into her eldest daughter’s nature, leads her to think
rightly. Trixy is her mother’s child to the backbone.
In spite of her utter loathing for the man to whom she is going to swear
glibly love and eternal fealty, she has received too heavy substantial
tokens of his regard to allow her golden calf to drift away. She has
thoroughly made up her mind--such as it is--to cast away all romantic
nonsense, _i.e._, her adoration of Carlton Conway, for the sake of
worldly benefits, and now it is ten to one, that if the all-conquering
C. C. came in his noble person to woo her, she would deliberately weigh
against his undeniable fascination the prospect of being a leader of
Society, with magnificent diggings in Park Lane, and the very
comfortable sensation of a heavy balance at Coutts’.
“You think you really would prefer Park Lane to Carlton Gardens?” Mr.
Stubbs inquires deferentially.
Under the powerful glamour of Trixy’s beauty he feels as if he could buy
up the Fiji Isles, or even that very uncomfortable residence, Bulgaria,
if she wills it. Of course, she likes the big house in Park Lane. What
woman, especially a daughter of Belgravia, would not? with its superb
array of balconies, and galleries, and conservatories, and its vast
reception rooms, where Trixy fully intends to queen it over other
leaders of Society, but she just bends her pretty little yellow-crowned
head in assent.
One may have a dancing bear, but one is not forced to converse with him,
she thinks, and she gives him a long, level look, wondering what animal
he is really like. Gabrielle had likened him to a frog, but he is too
bulky for that; a bear or a buffalo, she decides, and while she does so,
he has come to the decision that no cage can be too gorgeous for his
radiant Bird of Paradise, and he glances, but covertly, at her in a sort
of maze at the curious freak of fortune that is going to bestow on him
such a _rara avis_.
He looks sideways at her sweet scarlet lips, and marvels what he has
ever done in his prosy money-making life to make him worthy of their
being yielded to him--not yet, no, _certainly_--not yet, he is aware of
that, but perhaps, some day! He gloats with an elderly gentleman’s
gloating on the supple young form and perfect face, and quite a
delightful awe creeps over him at the very idea of the future presence
of this flesh and blood divinity at his hearth and board.
Nature has not been munificent to him in the way of looks. He has a
broad, florid, rather flaccid physiognomy, and his proportions are not
symmetrical, but taking him all round, he is not a bad sort, and he has
a good heart.
True it beats beneath a huge mountain of flesh, but, never mind, it
beats all the same with a good deal of honest warmth. His feelings
towards his fair autocrat are a mixture of profound admiration and
profound gratitude--the last sentiment being born of the first.
Gratitude is in fact an intensely tame word to express what he feels for
Trixy’s munificent gift to him of herself. With all these feelings rife
in his very broad breast, feelings that would gush forth eloquently in
most men, Mr. Stubbs remains strictly practical and common-place, and
fortunately his wife elect is better able to sympathise with him as he
is than if Cupid spoke from his lips in flowers of rhetoric.
“And the furniture? From Jackson and Graham’s, I suppose?” he asks
deprecatingly, as if it was _her_ money and not his that was to pay for
it.
“From Jackson and Graham’s of course! You surely are not thinking of
going to Tottenham Court Road, Mr. Stubbs?” Trixy says raspily, with a
little sniff of her Greek nose.
“No, no! _of course_ not!” he murmurs alarmed.
“Remember, I cannot have any hangings but _blue_--blue suits my
complexion, you know; not _dark_ blue, mind, but _bleu de ciel_!”
“Blue, certainly,” he answers humbly, much more humbly probably than
Jackson and Graham’s foreman would.
“And Mr. Stubbs, pray don’t forget that I hate anything modern. I like
everything _old_, in _furniture_ I mean!” she says, warming up with her
subject. “Chippendale and all that sort of thing.”
“Florid carving you would like of course?”
“Florid! Horrid! Plain chairs, with shields at the back for the----”
She stops suddenly, while a look of disappointment and dismay creeps
over her face.
“But you haven’t a crest, have you?” she adds, with as much solemnity as
if she were asking “Have you hopes of salvation?”
“A crest?--of course I have!” he replies jauntily, not a bit offended at
her doubt on the subject. “A sweet little crest. It has a little
turretted house on the top, with what they call in heraldry a martinet
perched on it. I don’t understand much about birds, but in plain
English, I expect it’s a swallow, or maybe a tom-tit. And the motto is a
very nice one, and very applicable too--_Fortes fortuna juvat_,” and he
smiles complacently.
Trixy has a horrible suspicion that he also winks.
“I don’t understand Latin,” she says scornfully. “You see, they don’t
teach it at fashionable schools. It is a language that does very well
for prescriptions and things, and is only fit for doctors.”
“I know a little Latin, and my motto in English is ‘Fortune favours the
brave!’” he explains pleasantly, with another affable smile and meaning
look, which are quite lost on Trixy, whose worst enemies cannot accuse
her of any undue ’cuteness, as the Yankees have it. She has no more idea
that the man is alluding to himself and herself than if he was speaking
Greek, which is another of the languages she knows nothing of.
The only thing that strikes her is how funny he would look if his
bravery was called into account, and how slowly his short stout legs
would carry him, if he ever wanted to run away from an enemy.
“You say the crest has a castle with a bird on it. That will do I fancy
on the furniture. People don’t trouble much about the subject, so long
as there _is_ a crest to make the things look more aristocratic. Can’t
the Beranger motto be added to yours? It is French, and everybody knows
French.”
“May I ask what it is?” he asks wondering how he can have overlooked it
in his diligent researches into “Lodge” and “Burke “ and “De Brett,”
works that, bound in velvet and gold, have prominent positions in his
library.
“It is ‘_Noblesse oblige_,’ ‘Nobility forces,’ you know.”
Mr. Stubbs reddens as he thinks the addition she suggests will very
likely provoke a smile from ill-natured people, who _might_ fancy that
the Hon. Trixy Beranger’s finances forced her to become the Hon. Mrs.
Stubbs.
“I don’t see how it can be done,” he remarks. “It would be going
against the rules of heraldry I am afraid.”
“What does _that_ matter?” she cries captiously. “It would be very hard
if I really set my heart on anything, to be done out of it just because
some stupid sign-painter’s ideas did not coincide with mine.”
“Heraldry is not exactly sign-painting, it is a science,” he ventures to
remonstrate, anxious to smooth down her ruffled feathers.
“Really, Mr. Stubbs, you seem to think my education has been dreadfully
neglected! I was five years at Mrs. Washington de Montmorency’s _élite_
establishment for daughters of the nobility only! Then I was at Madame
Thalia de Lydekerke Beaudesert’s finishing academy for _la crême de la
crême_ only, and Lord and Lady Beranger have spared no expense in
educating me! Signor il Conte Almaviva taught me Italian, Rubenstein
considers me his show pupil, Patti was heard to say that she envied me
my voice, and--and--of course I know that heraldry is a science, but
science or no science, I cannot see why I should not have exactly what I
want carved on the backs of my own chairs and sofas. However, it really
isn’t worth the trouble of discussing,” and Trixy half-closes her eyes
and falls into languor, a manner beneath which he invariably feels the
social gulf widen between them.
He cannot, even if he tries, affect this supreme indifference, this
delightful repose that sits so easily on Lady Beranger and her
belongings.
Leaning back against the _Prie Dieu_ chair, with half-closed eyes, Trixy
looks like a marble effigy of Resignation, but she does not show the
gentleness and patience with which the virtue of resignation is
generally invested. She is rather a cold, hard martyr to untoward
circumstances, with a big wall of ice raised up around her that seems to
freeze up her companion.
Surreptitiously he glances at a monster watch, like a bed-warmer, with
half-a-dozen gaudy seals and charms attached to it. He really is anxious
to find that the three-quarters of an hour, which Lady Beranger had
hinted to him was the proper term of a courtship, are up; but time has
not flown on the wings of love, there are yet ten minutes wanting, so he
settles himself in his seat, and just escapes the sight of Trixy’s
pretty mouth elongated in a long yawn.
He commences a sort of auctioneer’s catalogue of the worldly goods and
chattels she will possess directly she is mistress of Park Lane,
divining that this is a subject which really interests her, and hoping
to make her forget about the crests and mottoes.
Thoroughly mercenary himself, he quite understands how pleasant it must
be for her to know all she will gain as his wife. Exchange and barter
are household words to him. Ever since he was in knickerbockers and
short pants he has been buying and selling, and he sees nothing at all
extraordinary or revolting in this young person giving him her youth and
beauty in exchange for his money.
Love! Well, love to his fancy is an excellent thing for boys and girls,
but Mr. Stubbs has reached an age when passion _ought_ to lose most of
its fierceness and glamour, and a placid liking sound more comfortable.
He has given up business now, so he knows he will be usually at hand to
guard his beautiful wife from the impudent swells--idle,
good-for-nothing specimens of the _genus homo_--to whom morality is an
unknown word, and whom he dislikes thoroughly, though he is deferential
to their faces.
So that on the whole his matrimonial scheme bears a remarkably smooth
aspect.
“There are one or two other little things on which I should like your
opinion before I write my directions.”
Hearing which she brightens up at once into an attitude of interest.
“Did’nt you say the other day that you preferred a brougham to a
clarence?”
“A brougham by all means, and it _must_ be by Peters.”
“Have you a particular fancy for Peters?”
“Yes, yes. He is the only maker who is _chic_. Most of the others turn
out heavy lumbering vehicles, with not the style about them that would
suit _me_; but then you see, we have always been considered to be so
very _difficile_ in our tastes, and the brougham _must_ be green.”
“With scarlet under carriage, and body well picked out with broad
scarlet lines?”
“No, no! Picked out with black,” she says very decidedly, wondering at
the awful taste of the man. And there is not a doubt but that his taste
_is_ showy, he wears at this identical moment a miniature yacht in full
sail, in gold and enamel, as a scarf pin, and a tie of violet satin,
with orange stripes; orange is in fact his pet colour, from rhubarb
down to the primrose of his gloves.
“Yes,” she says, as if reflecting deeply, “the brougham must be green, a
_very_ dark green, and picked out with black, and brass mountings.”
“A little sombre, don’t you think?” he suggests timidly.
“Good heavens, Mr. Stubbs! Do you want me to drive out only on the ninth
of November and look as if I was a part of the Lord Mayor’s show?” she
asks excitedly, raising her voice and causing him to give a little jump
on his chair.
It is the first time she has displayed any variation of feeling, and the
spice of devilry in her eyes, though it does away with Mary Anderson,
heightens her beauty. Usually Trixy Beranger resembles a large waxen
doll, with yellow hair and pink and white cheeks.
But she recovers her temper directly. It strikes her that this
glittering fish may prove a slippery one if she allows the stormy side
of her character to burst out before the matrimonial noose is tied.
“But, of course, I know you were only joking about the colours for the
brougham. I am _sure_ your taste is similar to my own, and that you
think nothing can be too quiet to be aristocratic. Mamma rather wants me
at four o’clock, have you any idea what the time is?”
He glances once more at the leviathan timekeeper he carries, and
discovers that he has outstayed his limit fifteen minutes, and that his
regular constitutional before feeding time will have to be curtailed.
“I, too, have numerous letters to write, so I think I’ll say _au
revoir_.”
Trixy sticks out five fingers carelessly, and he takes them in silence,
but he is not bold enough to squeeze them ever so little, and he
breathes more freely directly he is outside the big drawing-room door.
His broad back turned, Trixy steals out on tip-toe upon the landing, and
when he is fairly out of the house, she opens the ivory and ebony box,
takes out the two morocco cases, and walking up to the large mirror
opposite, she leisurely puts the chain of brilliants and the band of
rubies round her snowy throat. Rubies flash in her ears, and a huge
bracelet of the same gems gleams blood-red on her rounded arm.
For a minute or two she gazes enraptured at herself, then she rushes up
the stairs, two steps at a time, like a tomboy, and bursts like a
whirlwind into what is called Baby’s school-room.
Baby has for some time given up instructive books for more refreshing
waters of literature in the shape of French romances; but she still
clings, with the small amount of tenacity there is in her nature, to the
old ink-stained table and hard chairs, in whose company she tottled up
four and four, and invariably made them nine, and wept bitter tears over
the dry food provided for her mind by Miss Jenkinson, a staid
sanctimonious old spinster that Lady Beranger had picked up out of the
_Guardian_, and who, for twenty pounds a year and her laundress, agreed
to the herculean task of bringing up the youngest Miss Beranger in the
way she should go, so that when she was old she would not depart from
it.
Alas! Miss Jenkinson’s counsels have fallen on stony ground, for Baby is
the biggest young reprobate that ever danced through life in kittenish
glee and kittenish mischief.
The school-room, now that Miss Jenkinson is gone, probably through
worry, to a premature grave, is used as a sort of _omnium gatherum_ for
all the Miss Berangers, and here they gather usually when not _en
toilette_ and _en evidence_.
“Look at me,” cries Trixy in a shrill voice, “and admire me.”
And jumping on to the centre of the table she stands with a
half-conscious, half-comical expression on her face that elicits a burst
of laughter from the other three.
“How _can_ old Stubbs make such a fool of himself? He _must_ know you
are only marrying him for those things!” Gabrielle says contemptuously.
Trixy takes no notice. Gabrielle is not a pet or a pal of hers, and
Gabrielle’s wits are too sharp for her.
“I say, Zai, what _wouldn’t_ you give for such beauties as these?”
“Nothing! I don’t care a bit for jewels, and I wouldn’t accept such
costly gifts from a man I did not care about for anything,” Zai answers
quietly, going on with her drawing.
“Grapes are sour, my lass. The man you _did_ care for might not be able
to give you them,” Trixy says spitefully.
“_I_ would accept them fast enough if I had the chance,” Baby confesses
ruefully, climbing on to the table as well, and enviously examining the
brilliants and rubies. “Just fancy, that old Hamilton has never offered
a thing but that!” and she sticks out her third finger, on which reposes
an old-fashioned ring, with a bit of Archibald Hamilton’s sandy hair
shining through the crystal. “Scotch are such screws, I hate them. Do
you know, girls, that I have nearly made up my mind to give the old
gentleman the slip, and to elope with Gladstone Beaconsfield
Hargreaves.”
“Heavens! what a name for a common village Veterinary,” Gabrielle says,
with a curl of her scarlet lip. “And to think of his awful people having
the audacity to mention Beaconsfield in the same breath with
_Gladstone_!”
“Rather mentioning Gladstone in the same breath as _Beaconsfield_!”
cries Zai, horror-struck. She is a thorough little Conservative to the
back-bone, and even goes to sleep in her dainty white-curtained bed
with a badge of the Primrose League upon her bosom.
“A very good name it is!” flashes Baby, taking up the cudgels in defence
of her rustic admirer. “I think his godfather and godmother were
sensible people, and had no narrow-minded party-feeling and that sort of
rubbish in their heads. Real Liberal-Conservatives they were, of course.
I can’t stand politics, Trixy, can you?”
“Can’t abide them,” Trixy murmurs lazily. “I hate everything it gives
one trouble to understand.”
“Politics make me quite ill,” Baby goes on, as she jumps off the table
and flings herself full-length on the hearth-rug. “When the governor and
Lord Delaval begin at them, I always feel inclined to roar. The governor
shuts up one eye, and tries to look so awfully clever, you know.
“‘Dolly Churchill, my dear fellow, is the man--_the man_! Our _only_
hope in these days of misguided, dangerous democrats. Our _only_ stay!
The Liberal Government have been the very devil--they have played ducks
and drakes with everybody and everything, and if they had lasted one day
longer--_one day longer! mark my words!_--we should have been
at--at--well, _not where we are now_!’
“And Delaval, who is a red-hot Republican at heart, just smiles that
beautiful cynical smile of his, and thinks the governor a regular
jackass, and so _do I_.”
“You shouldn’t speak so of Papa, you irreverent monkey,” Zai says
gravely.
“Shouldn’t I _really_!” Baby replies, mimicking her voice. “Well, then,
I _will_. I love my Papsey. He is a dear old boy, but all the same, I
don’t think he will ever set the Thames on fire with his brilliancy.
Why, ever since he has been in the House he has never said anything but
‘hear, hear!’ or joined in the ironical cheers.”
“Lord Salisbury thinks a lot of the governor. I heard him say to Count
Karoly the other night that Beranger was one of the most reliable men in
the House, and so very cautious,” Zai says quietly.
“No wonder, as he never opens his mouth,” Baby laughs. “What do they
have a lot of dummies for in Parliament?”
“Oh, just to make the whole thing look more imposing than it is, I
suppose,” Trixy drawls languidly. “Very likely they prefer most of the
members not speaking, as the stupid ones might let out the secrets to
the Opposition.”
“_Gladstone speaks!_” Gabrielle announces solemnly, as if it is not a
remarkably well-known fact. “He has been known to speak for three days
and three nights without pausing to take breath even, and his eloquence
has so overwhelmed the House----”
“With sleep, that no one ever got at the real meaning of his speeches,”
interrupts incorrigible Baby. “Any way, the Irish didn’t. My Hargreaves
is an Irishman (that is why he was christened Gladstone Beaconsfield I
dare say. The Irish muddle up politics so, you know), and he told me
that in Paddy land _Gladstone_ is the new name for _Blarney-stone_.”
“I wish you would not regale us with the imbecile witticisms of your
Vet, Mirabelle,” Gabrielle mutters crossly, for she worships the G.O.M.,
and feels a slash at him acutely. And Baby knows she is wroth, for it is
in ire only that she calls her Mirabelle, but Baby cares for nothing or
nobody.
“My Hargreaves is _not_ a vet, now. He is assistant riding-master to the
great Challen.”
“Baby, is this why you coaxed the governor into letting you have
riding-lessons?” Zai questions anxiously.
Baby springs up from the hearth-rug, and turning a pirouette, pauses
beside her pet sister.
Leaning over she whispers in her ear:
“It is, but if you promise not to peach, Zai, I’ll tell you something
about----”
“Who?” Zai whispers back, colouring vividly.
“C. C., but not before Gabrielle and Trixy.”
Zai blushes more deeply still as she bends over her drawing, and wonders
if the letters C. C. will always send the blood surging over her face
and set her pulses throbbing.
In spite of his heartless conduct at Elm Lodge she loves him dearly
still, and lives from day to day in the hope that the clouds will clear
away, and give her back the sunshine of life--Carl’s love and presence.
And as she sits and drops off into a sweet waking dream, Gabrielle’s
voice startles her, and drags her back into everyday existence.
“Seven o’clock! We must be off and dress for dinner. There goes the
first bell. Zai, there’s a treat in store for you to-night.”
Zai looks up, the dreamy expression still lingering in her eyes. A
treat! For one moment she really fancies “he” is going to appear
somewhere or somehow, but the next instant she fully awakens to her
folly.
“Lord Delaval dines with us to-night, and afterwards we are all going to
the theatre.”
“_What_ theatre?” Zai asks quickly.
“The Bagatelle, to see ‘Hearts _versus_ Diamonds.’”
“And ‘_him_!’” Zai thinks to herself, waxing white as a lily at such an
ordeal with Lord Delaval’s mocking smile before her, and Lord Delaval’s
cold, keen gaze watching her face.
“Who sent the box for to-night?” she asks, for she knows Lady Beranger
never spends her money on such things.
“Lord Delaval.”
Zai colours again, and stoops down on pretence of picking up her pencil.
She _feels_ that Gabrielle is looking at her.
“That man has sent it on purpose to vex me,” she thinks. “I detest
him.”