Mr. Barton was waiting patiently for us in the white drawing-room, and
we had not been munching muffins for five minutes when the sound of
wheels crunching the gravel of the great sweep--the windows of this
room look out that way--interrupted our manufactured conversation.
“This must be Bob arriving,” Mr. Carruthers said, and went reluctantly
into the hall to meet his guest.
They came back together presently, and he introduced Lord Robert to me.
I felt at once he was rather a pet! Such a shape! Just like the
Apollo of Belvidere! I do love that look, with a tiny waist and nice
shoulders, and looking as if he were as lithe as a snake, and yet could
break pokers in half like Mr. Rochester in “Jane Eyre”!
He has great, big, sleepy eyes of blue, and rather a plaintive
expression, and a little fairish moustache turned up at the corners,
and the nicest mouth one ever saw, and when you see him moving,
and the back of his head, it makes you think all the time of a
beautifully groomed thoroughbred horse. I don’t know why. At once--in a
minute--when we looked at one another, I felt I should like “Bob”! He
has none of Mr. Carruthers’ cynical, hard, expression, and I am sure he
can’t be nearly as old, not more than twenty-seven, or so.
He seemed perfectly at home, sat down and had tea, and talked in the
most casual, friendly way. Mr. Carruthers appeared to freeze up, Mr.
Barton got more banal--and the whole thing entertained me immensely.
I often used to long for adventures in the old days with Mrs.
Carruthers, and here I am really having them!
Such a situation! I am sure people would think it most improper! I
alone in the house with these three men! I felt I really would have to
go--but where!
Meanwhile I have every intention of amusing myself!
Lord Robert and I seemed to have a hundred things to say to one
another. I do like his voice--and he is so perfectly _sans gêne_, it
makes no difficulties. By the end of tea we were as old friends. Mr.
Carruthers got more and more polite, and stiff, and finally jumped up
and hurried his guest off to the smoking-room.
I put on such a duck of a frock for dinner, one of the sweetest
chastened simplicity, in black, showing peeps of skin through the thin
part at the top. Nothing could be more demure or becoming, and my
hair would not behave, and stuck out in rebellious waves and curls
everywhere.
I thought it would be advisable not to be in too good time, so
sauntered down after I knew dinner was announced.
They were both standing on the hearth rug. I always forget to count Mr.
Barton, he was in some chair, I suppose, but I did not notice him.
Mr. Carruthers is the taller--about one inch; he must be a good deal
over six feet, because the other one is very tall too, but now that
one saw them together Mr. Carruthers’ figure appeared stiff and set
beside Lord Robert’s, and he hasn’t got nearly such a little waist. I
wonder if any other nation can have that exquisitely _soigné_ look of
Englishmen in evening dress, I don’t believe so. They really are lovely
creatures, both of them, and I don’t yet know which I like best.
We had such an engaging time at dinner! I was as provoking as I could
be in the time--sympathetically absorbingly interested in Mr. Barton’s
long stories, and only looking at the other two now and then from under
my eyelashes--while I talked in the best demure fashion that I am
sure even Lady Katherine Montgomerie--a neighbour of ours--would have
approved of.
They should not be able to say I could not chaperone myself in any
situation.
“Dam-- good port this, Christopher,” Lord Robert said, when the ’47 was
handed round. “Is this what you asked me down to sample?”
“I thought it was to give your opinion about the pictures,” I
exclaimed, surprised. “Mr. Carruthers said you were a great judge.”
They looked at one another.
“Oh--ah--yes,” said Lord Robert, lying transparently. “Pictures are
awfully interesting. Will you show me them after dinner?”
“The light is too dim for a connoisseur to investigate them properly,”
I said.
“I shall have it all lit by electricity as soon as possible; I wrote
about it to-day,” Mr. Carruthers announced, sententiously. “But I will
show you the pictures myself, to-morrow, Bob.”
This at once decided me to take Lord Robert round to-night, and I told
him so in a velvet voice while Mr. Barton was engaging Christopher’s
attention.
They stayed such a long time in the dining-room after I left that I
was on my way to bed when they came out into the hall, and could with
difficulty be persuaded to remain for a few moments.
“I am too awfully sorry!” Lord Robert said. “I could not get away, I do
not know what possessed Christopher, he would sample ports, and talked
the hind leg off a donkey, till at last I said to him straight out I
wanted to come to you. So here I am--now you won’t go to bed, will
you--please, please.”
He has such pleading blue eyes--imploring pathetically like a baby in
distress--it is quite impossible to resist him! and we started down the
gallery.
Of course he did not know the difference between a Canaletto and a
Turner, and hardly made a pretence of being interested, in fact when we
got to the end where the early Italians hang, and I was explaining the
wonderful texture of a Madonna, he said:
“They all look sea-sick, and out of shape! don’t you think we might sit
in that comfy window seat and talk of something else!” Then he told me
he loved pictures, but not this sort.
“I like people to look human you know, even on canvas,” he said. “All
these ladies appear as if they were getting enteric like people used in
Africa, and I don’t like their halos, and things, and all the men are
old and bald. But you must not think me a Goth--you will teach me their
points, won’t you, and then I shall love them.”