The vicar was standing by the flower-stand talking to Eve, and opening
out the calyx of a new orchid, a half faded blossom of which he had
picked from the pot to explain some peculiarities of its nature, while
Eve, looking bright and interested, drank in his every word.
Mr Purley was filling out an easy-chair, having picked out one without
arms for obvious reasons, and he was gossiping away to Mrs Glaire.
"How do, Purley?" said Richard, with a face as smooth as if nothing had
occurred to fret him. "Glad to see you."
"Glad to see you too, Glaire; but you don't say, `How are you?'"
"Who does to a doctor," laughed Richard. "Why you couldn't be ill if
you tried."
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Mr Purley. "Well, if I'm not ill, I'm hungry."
"Always are," said Richard, with a sneer; and then seeing that his
retort was a little too pointed, he blunted it by pandering to the stout
medico's favourite joke, and adding, "Taken any one for a ride lately?"
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the doctor. "That's good! He's getting a regular
Joe Miller in kid gloves, Mrs Glaire: that he is. Ha-ha-ha!"
Richard gave a short side nod, for he was already crossing the room to
the flower-stand.
"Talking about flowers?" he said, quietly. "That's pretty. I didn't
know they'd asked you to dinner, Mr Selwood, and you must have thought
me very gruff."
"Don't name it," said the vicar, frankly; but he was looking into the
younger man's eyes in a way that made him turn them aside in a shifty
manner, and begin picking nervously at the leaves of a plant as he went
on--
"Fact is, don't you know, I'm cross and irritable. When a man's got all
his fellows on strike or lock out, it upsets him."
"Yes, Mr Selwood," interposed Eve, "the poor fellow has been dreadfully
worried lately. But it's all going to be right soon, I hope."
"I don't know," said Richard, cavalierly; "they're horribly obstinate."
Mrs Glaire, who had been watching all this eagerly, while she made an
appearance of listening to Mr Purley's prattle, gave her son a grateful
look, to which he replied with a smile and a nod, when a servant entered
and announced the dinner.
Richard Glaire's smile and nod turned into a scowl and a twitch on
hearing his mother's next words, which were--
"Mr Selwood, will you take in my niece? Mr Purley, your arm."
The vicar passed out with Eve, followed by the doctor and their hostess,
leaving Richard to bring up the rear, which he did after snatching up a
book and hurling it across the room crash into the flower-stand.
"She's mad," he muttered,--"she's mad;" and then grinding his teeth with
rage he followed into the dining-room.
Richard contrived to conceal his annoyance tolerably during the dinner,
but his mother saw with secret satisfaction that he was thoroughly
piqued by the way in which Eve behaved towards their visitor; and even
with the effort he made over himself, he was not quite successful in
hiding his vexation; while when they went out afterwards on to the
croquet lawn, and the vicar and Eve were partners against him, he gave
vent to his feelings by vicious blows at the balls, to the no slight
damage of Mrs Glaire's flowers.
This lady, however, bore the infliction with the greatest equanimity,
sitting on a garden seat, knitting, with a calm satisfied smile upon her
face even though Eve looked aghast at the mischief that had been done.
Matters did not improve, for Richard, after being, to his great disgust,
thoroughly beaten, and having his ball driven into all kinds of
out-of-the-way places by his adversaries, found on re-entering the
drawing-room that he was to play a very secondary part.
Eve recollected that Mr Selwood could sing a little, and he sang in a
good manly voice several songs, to which she played the accompaniment.
Then Eve had to sing as well, a couple of pretty ballads, in a sweet
unaffected voice, and all this time the whist-table was waiting and
Richard pretending to keep up a conversation with the doctor, who
enjoyed the music and did not miss his whist.
At length the last ballad was finished, tea over, and Richard had made
his plans to exclude Eve from the whist-table, when he gnashed his teeth
with fury, for his mother said--
"Eve, my dear, why don't you ask Mr Selwood to try that duet with you?"
"What, the one Richard was practising, aunt?"
"Yes, my dear, that one."
"Oh, no," exclaimed the vicar. "If Mr Glaire sings I will not take his
place. Perhaps he will oblige us by taking his part with you."
"But Dick doesn't know it, Mr Selwood," said Eve, laughing merrily,
"and he's sure to break down. He always does in a song. Do try it."
Dick turned livid with rage, for this was more than he could bear, and,
seeing his annoyance, Mr Selwood pleasantly declined, saying--
"But I have an engagement on; I am to win some money of the doctor here,
for my poor people."
"Didn't know it was the correct thing to gamble to win money for
charity."
"Oh, I often do," said the vicar, pleasantly. "Now I'll be bound, Mr
Glaire, if I'd asked you for a couple of guineas to distribute, you'd
think me a great bore."
"You may depend upon that," said Richard. "I never give in charity."
"But at the same time, you would not much mind if I won that sum from
you at whist."
"You'd have to win it first," said Richard, with a sneer.
"Exactly," said the vicar; "and I might lose."
"There, don't talk," said Richard; "let's play. Come along, mamma."
Mrs Glaire was about to excuse herself, but seeing her son's looks, she
thought better of her decision, and to keep peace went up to the table;
Eve saying she would look on.
It fell about then that the vicar and Mrs Glaire were partners, and as
sometimes happens, Richard and his partner, the doctor, had the most
atrocious of hands almost without exception. This joined to the fact
that Mrs Glaire played with shrewdness, and the vicar admirably, so
disgusted Richard that at last he threw down the cards in a pet, vowing
he would play no more.
"Well, it is time to leave off, really," said the vicar, glancing at his
watch. "Half-past ten."
"Don't forget to give your winnings away in charity, parson," said
Richard, in a sneering tone.
"Dick!" whispered Eve, imploringly.
"Hold _your_ tongue," was the reply. "I know what I'm saying."
"No fear," said the vicar, good-temperedly, as he was bidding Mrs
Glaire good night; "shall I send you an account? Good night, Miss
Pelly. Thanks for a delightful evening. Good night, Mr Glaire."
He held out his hand, and gave Richard's a grip that made him wince, and
then, after a few words in the hall, he was gone, with the doctor for
companion.
"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Richard, savagely.
"Why, Dick, dear, how cross you have been," said Eve, while Mrs Glaire
watched the game.
"Cross! Enough to make one," he cried, angrily; and then, mimicking the
vicar's manner, "Good night, Miss Pelly. Thanks for a delightful
evening."
"Well, I'm sure it was, Dick," said Eve; "only you would be so cross."
"And well I might, when you were flirting in that disgraceful way all
the evening."
"Oh, Dick!" exclaimed Eve, reproachfully; and the tears stood in her
eyes.
"Well, so you were," he cried, "abominably. If anybody else had been
here, they would have said that you were engaged to be married to that
cad of a parson, instead of to me."
The tears were falling now as Eve laid her hand upon her cousin's
shoulder.
"Dick, dear," she whispered; "don't talk to me like that; it hurts me."
"Serve you right," he growled.
"If I have done anything to annoy you to-night, dear, it was done in all
innocence. But you don't--you can't mean it."
"Indeed, but I do," he growled, half turning his back.
Mrs Glaire was sitting with her back to them, and still kept busy over
her work.
"I am so sorry, Dick--dear Dick," Eve said, resting her head on the
young man's shoulder. "Don't be angry with me, Dick."
"Then promise me you'll never speak to that fellow any more," he said,
quickly.
"Dick! Oh, how can I? But there, you don't mean it. You are only a
little cross with me."
"Cross!" he retorted; "you've hurt me so to-night that I've been wishing
I'd never seen you."
"Oh, Dick!" she exclaimed, as she caught his hand, and raised it to her
lips. "Please forgive me, and believe me, dear Dick, that I have not a
single thought that is not yours. Please forgive me."
"There, hold your tongue," he said, shortly; "she's looking."
Poor little Eve turned away to hide and dry her tears, and then Mrs
Glaire, looking quite calm and satisfied with the prospect of events,
said--
"Eve, my child, it is past eleven."
"Yes, aunt, I'm going to bed. Good night."
"Good night, Richard."
"Good night," he said, sulkily; and he bent down his head and brushed
the candid white forehead offered to him with his lips, while, his hands
being in his pockets, he at the same time crackled between his fingers a
little note that he had written to Daisy, appointing their next
interview, this arrangement having been forgotten in the hurry of the
day's parting. And as he spoke he was turning over in his mind how he
could manage to get the note delivered unseen by Banks or his wife, for
so far as he could tell at the moment, he had not a messenger he could
trust.