"How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat.
To the dry grass, and the drier grain,
How welcome is the rain!"--LONGFELLOW.
Miss Chesney, who, had she been born a man and a gardener, could have
commanded any wages, is on her knees beside some green plants, busily
hunting for slugs. These ravishers of baby flowers and innocent
seedlings are Miss Chesney's especial abhorrence. It is in vain to tell
her that they must be fed,--that they, as well as the leviathan, must
have their daily food; she declines to look upon their frequent
depredations in any other light than as wanton mischief.
Upon their destruction she wastes so much of her valuable time that,
could there be a thought in their small, slimy, gelatinous bodies, they
must look upon her as the fell destroyer of their race,--a sort of
natural enemy.
She is guiltless of gloves, and, being heated in the chase, has flung
her hat upon the velvet sward beside her. Whereupon the ardent sun,
availing of the chance, is making desperate love to her, and is kissing
with all his might her priceless complexion. It is a sight to make a
town-bred damsel weep aloud!
Miss Beauchamp, sailing majestically toward this foolish maiden, with
her diaphanous skirts trailing behind her, a huge hat upon her carefully
arranged braids, and an enormous garden umbrella over all, looks with
surprise, largely mingled with contempt, upon the kneeling figure. She
marks the soft beauty of the skin, the exquisite penciling of the
eyebrows, the rich color on the laughing lips, and, marking, feels some
faint anger at the reckless extravagance of the owner of these
unpurchasable charms.
To one long aware of the many advantages to be derived from such
precious unguents as creme d'Ispahan, velvetine, and Chinese rouge, is
known also all the fear of detection arising from the daily use of them.
And to see another richly and freely endowed by Nature with all the most
coveted tints, making light of the gift, seems to such a one a gross
impertinence, a miserable want of gratitude, too deep for comprehension.
Pausing near Lilian, with the over-fed Maltese panting and puffing
beside her, Miss Beauchamp looks down upon her curiously, upon the
rose-leaf face, the little soiled hands, the ruffled golden head, and
calculates to a fraction the exact amount of mischief that may be done
by the possession of so much youth and beauty.
The girl is far too pretty. There is really no knowing what irremediable
harm she may not have done already.
"What a mess you are making of yourself!" says Florence, in a tone
replete with lady-like disgust.
"I am, rather," says Lilian, holding aloft the small hand, on which five
dusty fingers disport themselves, while she regards them
contemplatively; "but I love it, gardening I mean. I would have made a
small fortune at flower-shows, had I given my mind to it earlier: not a
prize would have escaped me."
"Every one with an acre of garden thinks that," says Miss Beauchamp.
"Do they?" smiling up at the white goddess beside her. "Well, perhaps
so. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,' and a good thing, too."
"Don't you think you will be likely to get a sunstroke?" remarks
Florence, with indifferent concern.
"No; I am accustomed to go about without my hat," answers Lilian: "of
course, as a rule, I wear it, but it always gives me a feeling of
suffocation; and as for a veil, I simply couldn't bear one."
Miss Beauchamp, glancing curiously at the peach-like complexion beneath
her, wonders enviously how she does it, and then reflects with a certain
sense of satisfaction that a very little more of this mad tampering with
Nature's gifts will create such havoc as must call for the immediate aid
of the inestimable Rimmel and his fellows.
The small terrier, awaking from the tuneful snooze that always
accompanies her moments of inactivity, whether she be standing or lying,
now rolls over to Lilian and makes a fat effort to lick her dear little
Grecian nose. At which let no one wonder, as a prettier little nose was
never seen. But Lilian is so far unsympathetic that she strongly objects
to the caress.
"Poor Fanchette!" she says, kindly, recoiling a little, "you must
forgive me, but the fact is I can't bear having my face licked. It is
bad taste on my part, I know, and I hope you will grant me pardon. No, I
cannot pet you either, because I think my earthy fingers would not
improve your snowy coat."
"Come away, Fanchette; come away, _petite_, directly; do you hear?"
cries Miss Beauchamp, in an agony lest the scented fleece of her "curled
darling" should be defiled. "Come to its own mistress, then. Don't you
see you are disturbing Lilian?" this last as a mild apology for the
unaffected horror of her former tone.
So saying, she gathers up Fanchette, and retires into the shaded
shrubberies beyond.
Almost as she disappears from view, Guy comes upon the scene.
"Why, what are you doing?" he calls out while yet a few yards from her.
"I have been shocking your cousin," returns Lilian, laughing. "I doubt
she thinks me a horrible unlady-like young woman. But I can't help that.
See how I have soiled my hands!" holding up for his inspection her ten
little grimy fingers.
"And done your utmost to ruin your complexion, all for the sake of a few
poor slugs. What a blood-thirsty little thing you are!"
"I don't believe there is any blood in them," says Lilian.
"Do come away. One would think there wasn't a gardener about the place.
You will make yourself ill, kneeling there in the sun; and look how warm
you are; it is a positive shame."
"But I have preserved the lives, and the beauty of all these little
plants."
"Never mind the plants. Think of your own beauty. I came here to ask you
if you will come for a walk in the woods. I have just been there, and it
is absolutely cool."
"I should like to immensely," springing to her feet; "but my
hands,"--hesitating,--"what am I to do with them? Shall I run in and
wash them? I shan't be one minute."
"Oh, no!"--hastily, having a wholesome horror of women's minutes, "come
down to the stream, and we will wash them there."
This suggestion, savoring of unconventionality, finds favor in Miss
Chesney's eyes, and they start, going through the lawn, for the tiny
rivulet that runs between it and the longed-for woods.
Kneeling beside it, Lilian lets the fresh gurgling water trail through
her fingers, until all the dust falls from them and floats away on its
bosom; then reluctantly she withdraws her hands and, rising, looks at
them somewhat ruefully.
"Now, how shall I dry them?" asks she, glancing at the drops of water
that fall from her fingers and glint and glisten like diamonds in the
sun's rays.
"In your handkerchief," suggests Guy.
"But then it would be wet, and I should hate that. Give me yours," says
Miss Chesney, with calm selfishness.
Guy laughs, and produces an unopened handkerchief in which he carefully,
and, it must be confessed, very tardily dries her fingers, one by one.
"Do you always take as long as that to dry your own hands?" asks Lilian,
gravely, when he has arrived at the third finger of the second hand.
"Always!" without a blush.
"Your dressing, altogether, must take a long time?"
"Not so long as you imagine. It is only on my hands I expend so much
care."
"And on mine," suggestively.
"Exactly so. Do you never wear rings?"
"Never. And for the very best reason."
"And that?"
"Is because I haven't any to wear. I have a few of my mother's, but they
are old-fashioned and heavy, and look very silly on my hands. I must get
them reset."
"I like rings on pretty hands, such as yours."
"And Florence's. Yes, she has pretty hands, and pretty rings also."
"Has she?"
"What! Would you have me believe you never noticed them? Oh, Sir Guy,
how deceitful you can be!"
"Now, that is just the very one vice of which I am entirely innocent.
You wrong me. I couldn't be deceitful to save my life. I always think it
must be so fatiguing. Most young ladies have pretty hands, I suppose;
but I never noticed those of Miss Beauchamp, or her rings either, in
particular. Are you fond of rings?"
"Passionately fond," laughing. "I should like to have every finger and
both of my thumbs covered with them up to the first knuckle."
"And nobody ever gave you one?"
"Nobody," shaking her head emphatically. "Wasn't it unkind of them?"
With this remark Sir Guy does not coincide: so he keeps silence, and
they walk on some yards without speaking. Presently Lilian, whose
thoughts are rapid, finding the stillness irksome, breaks it.
"Sir Guy----"
"Miss Chesney."
As they all call her "Lilian," she glances up at him in some surprise at
the strangeness of his address.
"Well, and why not," says he, answering the unmistakable question in her
eyes, "when you call me 'Sir Guy' I wish you would not."
"Why? Is it not your name?"
"Yes, but it is so formal. You call Cyril by his name, and even with my
mother you have dropped all formality. Why are you so different with me?
Can you not call me 'Guy'?"
"Guy! Oh, I _couldn't_. Every time the name passed my lips I should
faint with horror at my own temerity. What! call my guardian by his
Christian name? How can you even suggest the idea? Consider your age and
bearing."
"One would think I was ninety," says he, rather piqued.
"Well, you are not far from it," teasingly. "However, I don't object to
a compromise. I will call you Uncle Guy, if you wish it."
"Nonsense!" indignantly. "I don't want to be your uncle."
"No? Then Brother Guy."
"That would be equally foolish."
"You won't, then, claim relationship with me?" in a surprised tone. "I
fear you look upon me as a _mauvais sujet_. Well, then,"--with sudden
inspiration,--"I know what I shall do. Like Esther Summerson, in 'Bleak
House,' I shall call you 'Guardian.' There!" clapping her hands, "is not
that the very thing? Guardian you shall be, and it will remind me of my
duty to you every time I mention your name. Or, perhaps,"--hesitating--
"'Guardy' will be prettier."
"I wish I wasn't your guardian," Guy says, somewhat sadly.
"Don't be unkinder than you can help," reproachfully. "You won't be my
uncle, or my brother, or my guardian? What is it, then, that you would
be?"
To this question he could give a very concise answer, but does not dare
do so. He therefore maintains a discreet silence, and relieves his
feelings by taking the heads off three dandelions that chance to come in
his path.
"Does it give you so very much trouble, the guardianship of poor little
me," she asks, with a mischievous though charming smile, "that you so
much regret it?"
"It isn't that," he answers, slowly, "but I fear you look coldly on me
in consequence of it. You do not make me your friend, and that is
unjust, because it was not my fault. I did not ask to be your guardian;
it was your father's wish entirely. You should not blame me for what he
insisted on."
"I don't,"--gayly,--"and I forgive you for having acceded to poor papa's
proposal: so don't fret about it. After all,"--naughtily,--"I dare say I
might have got worse; you aren't half bad so far, which is wise of you,
because I warn you I am an _enfant gate_; and should you dare to thwart
me I should lead you such a life as would make you rue the day you were
born."
"You speak as though it were my desire to thwart you."
"Well, perhaps it is. At all events," with a relieved sigh,--"I have
warned you, and now it is off my mind. By the bye, I was going to say
something to you a few minutes ago when you interrupted me."
"What was it?"
"I want you"--coaxingly--"to take me round by The Cottage, so that I may
get a glimpse at this wonderful widow."
"It would be no use; you would not see her."
"But I might."
"And if so, what would you gain by it? She is very much like other
women: she has only one nose, and not more than two eyes."
"Nevertheless she rouses my curiosity. Why have you such a dislike to
the poor woman?"
"Oh, no dislike," says Guy, the more hastily in that he feels there is
some truth in the accusation. "I don't quite trust her: that is all."
"Still, take me near The Cottage; _do_, now, Guardy," says Miss Chesney,
softly, turning two exquisite appealing blue eyes upon him, which of
course settles the question. They instantly turn and take the direction
that leads to The Cottage.
But their effort to see the mysterious widow is not crowned with
success. To Miss Chesney's sorrow and Sir Guy's secret joy, the house
appears as silent and devoid of life as though, indeed, it had never
been inhabited. With many a backward glance and many a wistful look,
Lilian goes by, while Guy carefully suppresses all expressions of
satisfaction and trudges on silently beside her.
"She must be out," says Lilian, after a lengthened pause.
"She must be always out," says Guy, "because she is never to be seen."
"You must have come here a great many times to find that out," says Miss
Chesney, captiously, which remark puts a stop to all conversation for
some time.
And indeed luck is dead against Lilian, for no sooner has she passed out
of sight than Mrs. Arlington steps from her door, and, armed with a book
and a parasol, makes for the small and shady arbor situated at the end
of the garden.
But if Lilian's luck has deserted her, Cyril's has not. He has walked
down here this evening in a rather desponding mood, having made the same
journey vainly for the last three days, and now--just as he has reached
despair--finds himself in Mrs. Arlington's presence.
"Good-evening," he says, gayly, feeling rather elated at his good
fortune, raising his hat.
"Good-evening," returns she, with a faint blush born of a vivid
recollection of all that passed at their last meeting.
"I had no idea I should see you to-day," says Cyril; which is the exact
truth,--for a wonder.
"Why? You always see me when you come round here, don't you?" says Mrs.
Arlington; which is not the truth, she having been the secret witness of
his coming many times, when she has purposely abstained from being seen.
"I hope," says Cyril, gently, "you have forgiven me for having
inadvertently offended you last--month."
"Last week, you mean!" in a surprised tone.
"Is it really only a week? How long it seems!" says Cyril. "Are you sure
it was only last week?"
"Quite sure," with a slight smile. "Yes, you are forgiven. Although I do
not quite know that I have anything to forgive."
"Well, I had my own doubts about it at the time," says Cyril; "but I
have been carefully tutoring myself ever since into the belief that I
was wrong. I think my principal fault lay in my expressing a hope that
the air here was doing you good; and that--to say the least of it--was
mild. By the bye, _is_ it doing you good?"
"Yes, thank you."
"I am glad of it, as it may persuade you to stay with us. What lovely
roses you have! Is that one over there a 'Gloire de Dijon'? I can
scarcely see it from this, and I'm so fond of roses."
"This, do you mean?" plucking one. "No, it is a Marshal Neil."
"Ah, so it is. How stupid of me to make the mistake!" says Cyril, who in
reality knows as much about roses as about the man in the Iron Mask.
As he speaks, two or three drops of rain fall heavily upon his
face,--one upon his nose, two into his earnest eyes, a large one finds
its way cleverly between his parted lips. This latter has more effect
upon him than the other three combined.
"It is raining," he says, naturally but superfluously, glancing at his
coat-sleeve for confirmation of his words.
Heavier and heavier fall the drops. A regular shower comes pattering
from the heavens right upon their devoted heads. The skies grow black
with rain.
"You will get awfully wet. Do go into the house," Cyril says, anxiously
glancing at her bare head.
"So will you," with hesitation, gazing with longing upon the distant
arbor, toward which she is evidently bent on rushing.
"I dare say,"--laughing,--"but I don't much mind even if I do catch it
before I get home."
"Perhaps"--unwillingly, and somewhat coldly--"you would like to stand in
the arbor until the shower is over?"
"I should," replies Mr. Chetwoode, with alacrity, "if you think there
will be room for two."
There _is_ room for two, but undoubtedly not for three.
The little green bower is pretty but small, and there is only one seat.
"It is extremely kind of you to give me standing-room," says Cyril,
politely.
"I am very sorry I cannot give you sitting-room," replies Mrs.
Arlington, quite as politely, after which conversation languishes.
Cyril looks at Mrs. Arlington; Mrs. Arlington looks at Marshal Neil, and
apparently finds something singularly attractive in his appearance. She
even raises him to her lips once or twice in a fit of abstraction:
whereupon Cyril thinks that, were he a marshal ten times over, too much
honor has been done him.
Presently Mrs. Arlington breaks the silence.
"A little while ago," she says, "I saw your brother and a young lady
pass my gate. She seemed very pretty."
"She is very pretty," says Cyril, with a singular want of judgment in so
wise a young man. "It must have been Lilian Chesney, my brother's ward."
"He is rather young to have a ward."
"He is, rather."
"He is older than you?"
"Unfortunately, yes, a little."
"You, then, are very young?"
"Well, I'm not exactly an infant,"--rather piqued at the cool
superiority of her tone: "I am twenty-six."
"So I should have thought," says Mrs. Arlington, quietly, which
assertion is as balm to his wounded spirit.
"Are your brother and his ward much attached to each other?" asks she,
idly, with a very palpable endeavor to make conversation.
"Not very much,"--laughing, as he remembers certain warlike passages
that have occurred between Guy and Lilian, in which the former has
always had the worst of it.
"No? She prefers you, perhaps?"
"I really don't know: we are very good friends, and she is a dear little
thing."
"No doubt. Fair women are always to be admired. You admire her very
much?"
"I think her pretty; but"--with an indescribable glance at the
"nut-brown locks" before him, that says all manner of charming
things--"her hair, to please me, is far too golden."
"Oh, do you think so?" says Mrs. Arlington, surprised. "I saw her
distinctly from my window, and I thought her hair very lovely, and she
herself one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen."
"That is strong praise. I confess I have seen others I thought better
worthy of admiration."
"You have been lucky, then,"--indifferently. "When one travels, one of
course sees a great deal, and becomes a judge on such matters."
"I didn't travel far to find that out."
"To find what out?"
"A prettier woman than Miss Chesney."
"No?" with cold unconcern and an evident want of interest on the
subject. "How lovely the flowers look with those little drops of rain in
their hearts!--like a touch of sorrow in the very centre of their joy."
"You like the country?"
"Yes, I love it. There is a rest, a calm about it that to some seems
monotony, but to me is peace."
A rather troubled shade falls across her face. An intense pity for her
fills Cyril's breast together with a growing conviction (which is not a
pleasing one) that the dead and gone Arlington must have been a king
among his fellows.
"I like the country well enough myself," he says, "but I hardly hold it
in such esteem as you do. It is slow,--at times unbearable. Indeed, a
careful study of my feelings has convinced me that I prefer the strains
of Albani or Nilsson to those of the sweetest nightingale that ever
'warbled at eve,' and the sound of the noisiest cab to the bleating of
the melancholy lamb; while the most exquisite sunrise that could be
worked into poetry could not tempt me from my bed. Have I disgusted
you?"
"I wonder you are not ashamed to give way to such sentiments,"--with a
short but lovely smile.
"One should never be ashamed of telling the truth, no matter how
unpleasant it may be."
"True!" with another smile, more prolonged, and therefore lovelier,
that lights up all her face and restores to it the sweetness and
freshness of a child's.
Cyril, looking at her, forgets the thread of his discourse, and says
impulsively, as though speaking to himself, "It seems impossible."
"What does?" somewhat startled.
"Forgive me; I was again going to say something that would undoubtedly
have brought down your heaviest displeasure on my head."
"Then don't say it," says Mrs. Arlington, coloring deeply.
"I won't. To return to our subject: the country is just now new to you,
perhaps. After a while you will again pine for society."
"I do not think so. I have seen a good deal of the world in my time, but
never gained anything from it except--sorrow."
She sighs heavily; again the shadow darkens her face and dims the beauty
of her eyes.
"It must have caused you great grief losing your husband so young," says
Cyril, gently, hardly knowing what to say.
"No, his death had nothing to do with the trouble of which I am
thinking," replies Mrs. Arlington, with curious haste, a quick frown
overshadowing her brow. Her fingers meet and clasp each other closely.
Cyril is silent, being oppressed with another growing conviction which
completely routs the first and leads him to believe the dead and gone
Arlington a miserable brute, deserving of hanging at the very least.
This conviction, unlike the first, carries consolation with it. "I am
sorry you would not let my mother call on you," he says, presently.
"Did Sir Guy say I would not see her?" asks she, with some anxiety. "I
hope he did not represent me as having received her kind message with
ingratitude."
"No, he merely said you wished to see no one."
"He said the truth. But then there are ways of saying things, and I
should not like to appear rude. I certainly do not wish to see any one,
but for all that I should not like to offend your mother."
There is not the very smallest emphasis on the word "your," yet somehow
Cyril feels flattered.
"She is not offended," he says, against his conscience, and is glad to
see his words please her. After a slight pause he goes on: "Although I
am only a stranger to you, I cannot help feeling how bad it is for you
to be so much alone. You are too young to be so isolated."
"I am happier so."
"What! you would care to see no one?"
"I would care to see no one," emphatically, but with a sigh.
"How dreadfully in the way you must have found me!" says Cyril,
straightening himself preparatory to departure. "The rain, I see, is
over." (It has been for the last ten minutes.) "I shall therefore
restore you to happiness by taking myself away."
Mrs. Arlington smiles faintly.
"I don't seem to mind you much," she says, kindly, but with a certain
amount of coldness. "Pray do not think I have wished you away."
"This is the first kind thing you have ever said to me," says Cyril,
earnestly.
"Is it? I think I have forgotten how to make pretty speeches," replies
she, calmly. "See, the sun is coming out again. I do not think, Mr.
Chetwoode, you need be afraid any longer of getting wet."
"I'm afraid--I mean--I am sure not," says Cyril, absently. "Thank you
very much for the shelter you have afforded me. Would you think me very
_exigeant_ if I asked you to give me that rose you have been
ill-treating for the last half hour?"
"Certainly not," says Mrs. Arlington, hospitably; "you shall have it if
you care for it; but this one is damaged; let me get you a few others,
fresher and sweeter."
"No, thank you. I do not think you _could_ give me one either fresher or
sweeter. Good-evening."
"Good-bye," returns she, extending her hand; and, with the gallant
Marshal firmly clasped in his hand, Cyril makes a triumphant exit.
He has hardly gone three yards beyond the gate that guards the widow's
bower when he finds himself face to face with Florence Beauchamp, rather
wet, and decidedly out of temper. She glances at him curiously, but
makes no remark, so that Cyril hopes devoutly she may not have noticed
where he has just come from.
"What a shower we have had!" he says, with a great assumption of
geniality and much politeness.
"You do not seem to have got much of it," replies she, with lady-like
irritability, looking with open disfavor upon the astonishing dryness of
his clothes.
"No,"--amiably,--"I have escaped pretty well. I never knew any cloth to
resist rain like this,--doesn't even show a mark of it. I am sorry I
cannot say the same for you. Your gown has lost a good deal of its
pristine freshness; while as for your feather, it is, to say the least
of it, dejected."
No one likes to feel one's self looking a guy. Cyril's tender solicitude
for her clothes has the effect of rendering Miss Beauchamp angrier than
she was before.
"Oh, pray don't try to make me more uncomfortable than I am," she says,
sharply. "I can imagine how unlovely I am looking. I detest the country:
it means simply destruction to one's clothes and manners," pointedly.
"It has been raining ever since I came back from Shropshire."
"What a pity you did come back just yet!" says Cyril, with quite
sufficient pause to throw an unpleasant meaning into his words. "As to
the country, I entirely agree with you; give me the town: it never rains
in the town."
"If it does, one has a carriage at hand. How did you manage to keep
yourself so dry, Cyril?"
"There is plenty of good shelter round here, if one chooses to look for
it."
"Evidently; very good shelter, I should say. One would almost think you
had taken refuge in a house."
"Then one would think wrong. Appearances, you know, are often
deceitful."
"They are indeed. What a beautiful rose that is!"
"Was, you mean. It has seen its best days. By the bye, when you were so
near The Cottage, why didn't you go in and stay there until the rain was
over?"
"I shouldn't dream of asking hospitality from such a very suspicious
sort of person as this Mrs. Arlington seems to be," Miss Beauchamp
replies, with much affectation and more spitefulness.
"You are right,--you always _are_," says Cyril, calmly. "One should shun
the very idea of evil. Extreme youth can never be too careful. Good-bye
for the present, Florence; I fear I must tear myself away from you, as
duty calls me in this direction." So saying, he turns into another path,
preferring a long round to his home to a further _tete-a-tete_ with the
charming Florence.
But Florence has not yet quite done with him. His supercilious manner
and that last harmless remark about "extreme youth" rankles in her
breast; so that she carries back to Chetwoode with her a small stone
carefully hidden in her sleeve wherewith to slay him at a convenient
opportunity.
* * * * *
The same shower that reduces Miss Beauchamp to sullen discontent behaves
with equal severity to Lilian, who reaches home, flushed and laughing,
drenched and out of breath, with the tail of her gown over her shoulders
and a handkerchief round her neck. Guy is with her; and it seems to Lady
Chetwoode (who is much concerned about them) as though they had rather
enjoyed than otherwise their enforced run.
Florence, who arrives some time after them, retires to her room, where
she spends the two hours that must elapse before dinner in repairing all
dilapidations in face and figure. At seven o'clock precisely she
descends and gains the drawing-room as admirably dressed as usual, but
with her good humor still conspicuous by its absence.
She inveighs mildly against the evening's rain, as though it had been
specially sent for the ruin of her clothes and complexion, and says a
good deal about the advantages to be derived from a town life, which is
decidedly gracious, considering how glad she has been all these past
years to make her home at Chetwoode.
When dinner is almost over she turns to Cyril and says, with deliberate
distinctness:
"Until to-day I had no idea you were acquainted with--the widow."
There is no mistaking whom she means. The shot is well fired, and goes
straight home. Cyril changes color perceptibly and does not reply
instantly. Lady Chetwoode looks at him with marked surprise. So does
Lilian. So does Sir Guy. They all await his answer. Miss Beauchamp's
petty triumph is complete.
"Had you not?" says Cyril. "I wonder so amazing a fact escaped your
knowledge."
"Have you met Mrs. Arlington? You never mentioned it, Cyril," says Lady
Chetwoode.
"Oh, yes," says Miss Beauchamp, "he is quite intimate there: aren't you,
Cyril? As I was passing The Cottage to-day in a desperate plight, I met
Cyril coming out of the house."
"Not out of the house," corrects Cyril, calmly, having quite recovered
his self-possession; "out of the garden."
"Was it? You were so enviably dry, in spite of the rain, I quite thought
you had been in the house."
"For once your usually faultless judgment led you astray. I was in an
arbor, where Mrs. Arlington kindly gave me shelter until the rain was
over."
"Was Mrs. Arlington in the arbor too?"
"Yes."
"How very romantic! I suppose it was she gave you the lovely yellow rose
you were regarding so affectionately?" says Miss Beauchamp, with a low
laugh.
"I always think, Florence, what a fortune you would have made at the
bar," says Cyril, thoughtfully; "your cross-examinations would have had
the effect of turning your witnesses gray. I am utterly convinced you
would have ended your days on the woolsack. It is a pity to see so much
native talent absolutely wasted."
"Not altogether wasted," sweetly: "it has at least enabled me to
discover how it was you eluded the rain this evening."
"You met Mrs. Arlington before to-day?" asks Guy, who is half amused and
half relieved, as he remembers how needlessly jealous he has been about
his brother's attentions to Lilian. He feels also some vague doubts as
to the propriety of Cyril's losing his heart to a woman of whom they
know nothing; and his singular silence on the subject of having made her
acquaintance is (to say the least of it) suspicious. But, as Cyril has
been in a chronic state of love-making ever since he got into his first
tall hat, this doubt causes him but little uneasiness.
"Yes," says Cyril, in answer to his question.
"Is she as pretty as Sir Guy says?" asks Lilian, smiling.
"Quite as pretty, if not more so. One may always depend upon Guy's
taste."
"What a good thing it was you knew her! It saved you from that dreadful
shower," says Lilian, good-naturedly, seeing intuitively he is vexed.
"We were not so fortunate: we had to run for our lives all the way home.
It is a pity, Florence, you didn't know her also, as, being so near the
house, you might have thrown yourself upon her hospitality for a little
while."
"I hardly think I see it in that light," drawls Florence, affectedly.
"I confess I don't feel exactly ambitious about making the acquaintance
of this Mrs.--er----"
"Arlington is her name," suggests Cyril, quietly. "Have you forgotten
it? My dear Florence, you really should see some one about your memory:
it is failing every day."
"I can still remember _some_ things," retorts Miss Beauchamp, blandly.
By this time it has occurred to Lady Chetwoode that matters are not
going exactly smoothly; whereupon she glances at Miss Beauchamp, then at
Lilian, and finally carries them both off with her to the drawing-room.
"If there is one thing I detest," says Cyril, throwing himself back in
his chair, with an impatient movement, when he has closed the door upon
them, "it is a vindictive woman. I pity the man who marries Florence
Beauchamp."
"You are rather hard upon her, are you not?" says Guy. "I have known her
very good-natured."
"Lucky you! I cannot recall many past acts of kindness on her part."
"So you met Mrs. Arlington?" says Guy, carelessly.
"Yes; one day I restored to her her dog; and to-day she offered me
shelter from the rain, simply because she couldn't help it. There our
acquaintance rests."
"Where is the rose she gave you?" asks Guy, with a laugh, in which,
after a moment's struggle, Cyril joins.
"Don't lose your heart to her, old boy," Guy says, lightly; but Cyril
well knows he has meaning in what he says.
* * * * *