“Yes, I know,” she said, “but I call the whole clan M^cTavish--it is
near enough, and it does worry Mary so; she corrects me every time.
Now don’t you want to get married, and be just like Mary?” There was a
twinkle in her eye.
I said I had not felt wild about it yet. I wanted to go and see life
first.
But she told me one couldn’t see life unless one was married.
“Not even if one is an adventuress, like me?” I asked.
“A _what!!_”
“An adventuress,” I said. “People do seem so astonished when I say
that! I have got to be one, you know, because Mrs. Carruthers never
left me the money after all, and in the book I read about it, it said
you were that if you had nice clothes, and--and--red hair--and things
and no home.”
She rippled all over with laughter.
“You duck!” she said. “Now you and I will be friends. Only you must not
play with Robert Vavasour. He belongs to me! He is one of my special
and particular own pets. Is it a bargain?”
I do wish now I had had the pluck then to say straight out that I
rather liked Lord Robert, and would not make any bargain, but one is
foolish sometimes when taken suddenly. It is then when I suppose it
shows if one’s head is screwed on firmly, and mine wasn’t to-night.
But she looked so charming, and I felt a little proud, and perhaps
ashamed to show that I am very much interested in Lord Robert,
especially if he belongs to her, whatever that means, and so I said it
was a bargain, and of course I had never thought of playing with him,
but when I came to reflect afterwards, that is a promise, I suppose,
and I sha’n’t be able to look at him any more under my eyelashes. And I
don’t know why I feel very wide awake and tired, and rather silly, and
as if I wanted to cry to-night.
However, she was awfully kind to me, and lovely, and has asked me to go
and stay with her, and lots of nice things, so it is all for the best,
no doubt. But when Lord Robert came in, and came over to us, it did
feel hard having to get up at once and go and pretend I wanted to talk
to Malcolm.
I did not dare to look up often, but sometimes, and I found Lord
Robert’s eyes were fixed on me with an air of reproach and entreaty,
and the last time there was wrath as well?
Lady Verningham kept him with her until every one started to go to bed.
There had been music and bridge, and other boring diversions happening,
but I sat still. And I don’t know what Malcolm had been talking about,
I had not been listening, though I kept murmuring “Yes” and “No.”
He got more and more _empressé_, until suddenly I realized he was
saying, as we rose:
“You have promised! Now remember, and I shall ask you to keep
it--to-morrow!”
And there was such a loving, mawkish, wobbly look in his eyes, it
made me feel quite sick. The horrible part is, I don’t know what I
have promised any more than the man in the moon! It may be something
perfectly dreadful, for all I know! Well, if it is a fearful thing,
like kissing him, I shall have to break my word,--which I never do for
any consideration whatever.
Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is not always so easy to laugh at life as I
once thought! I almost wish I were settled down, and had not to be an
adventuress. Some situations are so difficult. I think now I shall go
to bed.
I wonder if Lord Robert--no, what is the good of wondering; he is no
longer my affair.