"Sir, You are very welcome to our house:
It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy."
--SHAKESPEARE.
FROM Christmas Day to New Year's Day we all know is but a week--but
_what_ a week it is! For my part I think this season of supposed jollity
the most uncomfortable and forlorn of any in the year. During all these
seven interminable days the Boodie still clings to her belief in Roger,
and vows he will surely return before the first day of '82 shall have
come to an end. It is very nearly at an end now; the shadows have fallen
long ago; the night wind has arisen; the snow that all day long has been
falling slowly and steadily, still falls, as if quite determined never
again to leave off.
They are all sitting in the library, it being considered a snugger room
on such a dreary evening that the grander drawing-room. Stephen Gower,
who has just come in, is standing by the centre-table with his back to
it, and is telling them some little morsel of scandal about a near
neighbor. It is a bare crumb, yet it is received with avidity and
gratitude, and much laughter, so devoid of interest have been all the
other hours of the day.
Nobody quite understands how it now is with Dulce and Stephen. That they
have patched up their late quarrel is apparent to everybody, and as far
as an ordinary eye can see, they are on as good terms with each other as
usual.
Just now she is laughing even more merrily than the rest at his little
story, when the door opens, and Sir Christopher and Fabian enter
together.
Sir Christopher is plainly very angry, and is declaring in an extremely
audible voice that "he will submit to it no longer;" he furthermore
announces that he has "seen too much of it," whatever "_it_" may be, and
that for the future he "will turn over a very different leaf." I wonder
how many times in the year this latter declaration is made by everybody?
Fabian, who is utterly unmoved by his vehemence, laying his hand upon
his uncle's shoulder, leads him up to the fireplace and into the huge
arm-chair, that is his perpetual abiding-place.
"What is it?" asks Sir Mark, looking up quickly.
"Same old story," says Fabian, in a low voice, with a slight shrug of
his shoulders. "Slyme. Drink. Accounts anyhow. And tipsy insolence,
instead of proper explanation." As Fabian finishes, he draws his breath
hastily, as though heartily sick and tired of the whole business.
Now that he is standing within the glare of the fire, one can see how
altered he is of late. His cheeks are sunken, his lips pale. There is,
too, a want of energy about him, a languor, a listlessness, that seems
to have grown upon him with strange rapidity, and which suggests the
possibility that life has become rather a burden than a favor.
If I say he looks as dead tired as a man might look who has been for
many hours engaged in a labor trying both to soul and body, you will,
perhaps, understand how Fabian looks now to the eyes that are gazing
wistfully upon him from out the semi-darkness.
Moving her gown to one side, Portia (impelled to this action by some
impulsive force) says, in a low tone:
"Come and sit here, Fabian," motioning gently to the seat beside her.
But, thanking her with great courtesy, he declines her invitation, and,
with an unchanged face, goes on with his conversation with Sir Mark.
Portia, flushing hotly in the kindly dark, shrinks back within herself,
and linking her fingers tightly together, tries bravely to crush the
mingled feelings of shame and regret that rise within her breast.
"I can stand almost anything myself, I confess, but insolence," Sir Mark
is saying, _a propos_ of the intoxicated old secretary. "It takes it out
of one so. I have put up with the most gross carelessness rather than
change any man, but insolence from that class is insufferable. I
suppose," says Sir Mark, meditatively, shifting his glass from his left
to his right eye, "it is because one can't return it."
"One can dismiss the fellow, though," says Sir Christopher, still
fuming. "And go Slyme shall. After all my kindness to him, too, to speak
as he did to-night! The creature is positively without gratitude."
"Don't regret that," says Dicky Browne, sympathetically. "_You_ are
repining because he declines to notice your benefits; but think of what
Wordsworth says--
'I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds,
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the _gratitude_ of men
Has oftener left me mourning.'
Look here, Sir Christopher, my experience is, that if once you do a
fellow a good turn he'll stick to you through life, and make you feel
somehow as if he belonged to you, and _that_ isn't pleasant, is it?"
Dicky pauses. Wordsworth is his strong point, and freely he quotes and
misquotes him on all occasions. Indeed, I am of the opinion he is the
only poet Dicky ever read in his life, and that because he was obliged
to.
"I have done with Slyme," goes on Sir Christopher, hotly. "Yes,
_forever_. Now, not a word, Fabian; when my mind is made up (as you all
know) it is made up, and nothing can alter it." This is just what they
do _not_ all know. "As for you," continues Sir Christopher, indignantly,
addressing himself solely to Fabian, "you plead for that miserable old
sot out of nothing but sheer obstinacy--not because you like him. Now,
_do_ you like him? Come now, I defy you to say it."
Fabian laughs slightly.
"There, I knew it!" exclaims Sir Christopher, triumphantly, though
Fabian in reality has said nothing; "and as for him, he positively
detests you. What did he say just now?--that he--"
"Oh, never mind that," says Fabian, poking the fire somewhat vigorously.
"Do let us hear it," says Julia, in her usual lisping manner. "Horrid
old man; I am quite afraid of him, he looks so like a gnome, or--or--one
of those ugly things the Germans write about. What did he say of dear
Fabian?"
"That he had him in his power," thunders Sir Christopher, angrily. "That
he could make or unmake him, as the fancy seized him, and so on. Give
you my honor," says Sir Christopher, almost choking with rage, "it was
as much as ever I could do to keep my hands off the fellow!"
Portia, sinking further into her dark corner, sickens with apprehension
at these words. Suspicion, that now, alas! has become a certainty, is
crushing her. Perhaps before this she has had her doubts--vague doubts,
indeed, and blessed in the fact that they may admit of contradiction.
But now--_now_--
What was it Slyme had said? That he could either "make or unmake him,"
that he "had him in his power." Does Slyme, then, know the--the _truth_
about him? Was it through _fear_ of the secretary that Fabian had acted
as his defender, supporting him against Sir Christopher's honest
judgment? How quickly he had tried to turn the conversation; how he had
seemed to shrink from deeper investigation of Slyme's impertinence. All
seems plain to her, and with her supposed knowledge comes a pain, too
terrible almost to be borne in secret.
Fabian, in the meantime, had seated himself beside Julia, and is
listening to some silly remarks emanated by her. The Boodie, who is
never very far from Fabian when he is in the room, is sitting on his
knee with her arms around his neck.
"Come here, Boodie," says Dicky Browne, insinuatingly. "You used to say
you loved me."
"So I do," says the Boodie, in fond remembrance of the biggest doll in
Christendom. "But--"
She hesitates.
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Fabian more,'"
parodies Mr. Browne, regretfully. "Well, I forgive you. But I thought it
was Roger on whom you had set your young affections. By the by, he has
disappointed you, hasn't he? Here is New Year's Day, and he has not
returned to redeem his promise."
"He will come yet," says the Boodie, undauntedly.
"'He will return; I know him well,'" again quotes Mr. Browne; "that's
your motto, I suppose, like the idiotic young woman in the idiotic song.
Well, I admire faith myself; there's nothing like it."
"Don't mind him," says Fabian, tenderly, placing his arm round the
discomfited Boodie, and pressing her pretty blonde head down upon his
breast. "I don't understand him, so, of course, you don't."
"But why?" says Dicky Browne, who is evidently bent on mischief; "she
has a great deal more brains than you have. Don't be aspersed by him,
Boodie; _you_ can understand me, I know, but I dare say I can soar
higher than he can follow, and what I say to you contains 'thoughts that
lie beyond the reach of his few words of English speech.'"
"Thank you," says Fabian.
The Boodie is plainly puzzled.
"I don't know what you mean," she says to Dicky; "I only know this,"
defiantly, "that I am certain Roger will return to-night, even if I am
in bed when he comes."
The words are hardly out of her mouth when the door opens and somebody
appears upon the threshold. This somebody has had an evident tussle with
the butler outside, who, perhaps, would fain have announced him, but
having conquered the king of the servants' hall, the somebody advances
slowly until he is midway between the centre of the room and the direct
glare of the firelight.
Every one grows very silent. It is as though a spell has fallen upon
them all; all, that is, except Dulce. She, rising hurriedly from her
seat, goes toward the stranger.
"It is _Roger_!" she cries suddenly, in so glad a voice, in a voice so
full of delight and intense thankfulness, that every one is struck by
it.
Then Roger is in their midst, a very sunburnt Roger, but just at first
his eyes are only upon Dulce, and after a little bit it becomes apparent
to everybody that it is Dulce alone he sees; and that she is in fact the
proud possessor of all the sight he owns.
He has taken between both his the two little trembling hands she has
extended to him, and is pressing them warmly, openly, without the
slightest idea of concealing the happiness he feels in being at her side
again.
A little happy smile wreathes her lips as she sees this, and with her
white fingers she smooths down the gray sleeve of his coat, as if he
were a priceless treasure, once lost, but now restored to her again.
I think Dare likes being looked upon as a long-lost priceless treasure,
because he does not move, and keeps his eyes still on her as though he
would never like to remove them, and makes no objection to his sleeve
being brushed up the wrong way.
"It seems like a hundred thousand years since you went away," says
Dulce, with a little happy sigh, after which every one crowds around
him, and he is welcomed with extreme joy into the family circle again.
Indeed, the Boodie exhibits symptoms of insanity, and dances round him
with a vivacity that a dervish might be proud of.
This is, of course, very delightful, specially to Stephen Gower, who is
sitting glooming upon space, and devoured with something he calls
disgust, but might be more generally termed the commonest form of
jealousy. The others are all crowding round Roger, and are telling him,
in different language, but in one breath, how welcome he is.
This universal desire to light mythical tar-barrels in honor of the
wanderer's return suggests at last to Mr. Gower the necessity of
expressing his delight likewise. Rising, therefore, from his seat, he
goes up to Roger, and insists on shaking him cordially by the hand. This
proceeding on his part, I am bound to say, is responded to by Roger in a
very niggardly manner--a manner that even undergoes no improvement when
Mr. Gower expresses his overwhelming satisfaction at seeing him home
again.
"We are all more pleased to see you again than we can say," declares Mr.
Gower, purposely forgetful of that half-hour in the back-yard, when they
had been bent on pommeling each other, and doubtless would have done so
but for Sir Mark.
He says this very well indeed, and with quite an overflow of
enthusiasm--perhaps rather too great an overflow; because Roger, looking
at him out of his dark eyes, decides within himself that this whilom
friend of his is now his bitterest enemy, hating him with all the
passionate hatred of a jealous heart.
The Boodie is in a state of triumph bordering on distraction. "_She_
had always said he (Roger) would return on New Year's Day; _she_ had
believed in his promise; _she_ had known he would not disappoint," and
so on. Every now and then she creeps up to the returned wanderer, to
surreptitiously pat his sleeve or his cheek, looking unutterable things
all the time. Finally she crowns herself by pressing into his hand a
neatly tied little square parcel, with a whisper to the effect that it
is his Christmas-box, that she has been keeping for him all the week.
At this Roger takes her up in his arms and kisses her warmly, and tells
her he has "something lovely" for her up-stairs in his portmanteau, and
that after dinner she must come up with him to his room, and they will
unpack it together.
This announcement is very near being the cause of bloodshed. Jacky and
Pussy, who have been listening intently to every word of it, now glare
fiendishly upon the favored Boodie, and sullenly, but with fell
determination, make a movement toward her. In another moment all might
have been over, and the poor Boodie a mangled corse, but that Roger,
coming hurriedly to the rescue, declares there are two _other_ "lovely
things" in his portmanteau, suitable to the requirements of Pussy and
her brother, whereon peace is once more restored.
To Sir Christopher this unexpected return of Roger is an indescribable
blessing. His mind at once rises above all things disagreeable; Slyme
and his impertinence fade out of remembrance, at least for the present.
He sees and thinks of nothing but his handsome lad, who has returned to
him safe and sound. There is quite a confusion indeed just at first;
every one is talking together, and nobody is dreaming of listening to
anybody. All Dulce's heart seems to go out to Roger, as she marks the
glad light that brightens his dark eyes as he returns Fabian's greeting.
After a little while every one sobers down, and Roger, who is looking
brown and healthy, if a trifle thin, seats himself besides Dulce upon
the small ottoman, that, as a rule, is supposed to be only equal to the
support of one individual at a time. As neither Dulce nor Roger,
however, appear in the very slightest degree uncomfortable upon it, a
doubt is at once and forever afterwards thrown upon this supposition.
Once only a little hitch occurs that throws a slight damp upon their
content. Roger, feeling the Boodie's offering growing warm within his
hands, mechanically opens it, even while carrying on his smiling
_tete-a-tete_ with Dulce, but soon the smiles vanish! There, on his open
palm, lies a very serpent, a noisome reptile, a box of chocolate creams!
A most improper word escapes him. He precipitately drops the box (it is
a very pretty box with a lovely young lady on the cover), chocolates and
all, behind the ottoman, where they fall softly, being in a high state
of decay and damp, and looks gloomily at Dulce. She responds with
fervor; she is, indeed, perhaps, a trifle the gloomiest, and for a
moment silence is unbroken.
Then they sigh, then they look again, then they try to pretend that
nothing has happened to disturb them, and presently so far succeed that
conversation once more falls into an easy channel and flows on
unbrokenly.
She is smiling up at him in a happy fashion, long unknown to her, and he
is looking down at her with such an amount of satisfaction and content
in his gaze as cannot be mistaken. One might easily believe he has
forgotten the manner of their parting, and is now regarding her as his
own particular possession.
When this sort of thing has gone on for five minutes, Gower, feeling he
can stand it no longer, draws his breath quickly, and going over to the
small ottoman seats himself upon a low chair, quite close to his
betrothed; this effort he makes to assert his position, with all the air
of a man who is determined to do or die. Her fan is lying on her knee.
Taking it up, with a defiant glance at Roger, he opens it, and trifles
with it idly, in a sort of proprietary fashion.
Yet even while he does it, his heart is sad within him and filled with a
dire foreboding. The thought that he is unwelcome, that his presence at
this moment is probably being regarded in the light of an intrusion by
these two, so near to him, fills him with bitterness; he is almost
afraid to look at Dulce, lest he shall read in her eyes a cold
disapprobation of his conduct in thus interrupting her _tete-a-tete_,
when to his surprise a little hand is laid upon his arm, and Dulce's
voice asks him a question that instantly draws him into the
conversation.
She is smiling very kindly at him; more kindly indeed than she has done
for many days; she is in such a happy mood, in such wonderfully gay,
bright spirits, that all the world seems good to her, and it becomes
necessary to her to impart her joyousness to all around. _Every one_
must be happy to-night, she tells herself; and so, as I have said
before, she smiles on Gower, and pats him gently on the arm, and raises
him at once to the seventh heaven out of the very lowest depths of
despair.
The change is so sudden that Stephen naturally loses his head a little.
He draws his chair even nearer to the ottoman. He determines to outsit
Roger. In five minutes--in half an hour, at all events--the fellow will
be obliged to go and speak to somebody else, if only for decency's sake.
And then there is every chance that the dressing-bell will soon ring.
Dulce's extreme delight, so innocently expressed at her cousin's return
had certainly given him a severe shock, but _now_ there is no reason why
he should not remain victor, and keep the prize he had been at such
pains to win.
All is going well. Even with Roger freshly returned by her side, she has
shown kindness to him, she has smiled upon him with a greater warmth
than usual. I daresay she is determined to show her cousin her
preference for _him_ (Stephen). This thought makes him positively glow
with hope and pride. By guarding against any insidious advances on the
part of the enemy, by being ever at Dulce's side to interpose between
her and any softly worded sentimental converse, he may conquer and drive
the foe from off the field.
Not once this evening until the friendly bedroom candlesticks are
produced will he quit her side--never until--
In one moment his designs are frustrated. All his plans are laid low.
The voice of Julia breaks upon his ear like a death-knell. She, being
fully convinced in her own mind that "poor dear Stephen" is feeling
himself in the cold, and is, therefore, inconceivably wretched,
determines, with most mistaken kindness, to come to the rescue.
"Stephen, _may_ I ask you to do something for me?" she says, in her
sweetest tones and with her most engaging smile.
"You may," says Mr. Gower, as in duty bound, and in an awful tone.
"Then do come and help me to wind this wool," says Julia, still in her
most fetching manner, holding out for his inspection about as much
scarlet wool as it would take an hour to wind, doing it at one's utmost
speed.
With a murderous expression Stephen crosses the room to where she is
sitting--at the very antipodes from where he would be, that is, from
Dulce--and drops sullenly into a chair at her side.
"Poor dear fellow, already he is feeling injured and out of spirits,"
says Julia to herself, regarding him with furtive compassion.
"Beast! she is in a plot against me!" says Mr. Gower to his own soul,
feeling he could willingly strangle her with her red wool.
So do we misunderstand the feelings and motives of our best friends in
this world.
Dulce and Roger thus left to their own resources, continue to be openly
and unrestrainedly happy. Every now and then a laugh from one or other
of them comes to the stricken Stephen, sitting on his stool of
repentance, winding the endless wool. By and by it becomes worse when no
laugh is heard, and when the two upon the ottoman seem to be conversing
in a tone that would be a whisper if it dared. To Gower it is already a
whisper, and frenzy ensues.
Wild thoughts arise within his breast; something it seems to him must be
done, and that _soon_. Shall he throw this vile wool, this scarlet
abomination, in Julia's placid face, and with a naughty word defy her to
hold him prisoner any longer? Or shall he fling himself bodily upon
Roger and exterminate him? Or shall he publicly upbraid Dulce with her
perfidy? No; this last is too mild a course, and something tells him
would not create the havoc that alone can restore peace to his bosom.
Shall he--
Oh, blessed sound, the dressing bell. Now she must tear herself away
from this new-found cousin and go up-stairs--doubtless to array herself
in her choicest garments for his delectation later on. He grinds his
teeth again, as this thought comes to torment him.
Regardless of Julia's cry of horror and remonstrance, he drops the wool
and rises to his feet, leaving it a hopeless mass on the carpet. He
makes a step in Dulce's direction, but she, too, has got up, and before
he can reach her has disappeared through the doorway, and is half-way up
the old oak staircase.
He takes her in to dinner, certainly, later on, but finds, on seating
himself, that Roger, by some unaccountable chance, has secured the seat
on her other side. He finds out, too, presently, that she is devoting
all her conversation to her cousin, and seems curiously inquisitive
about his travels. She appears indeed positively athirst for information
on this subject; and the soup is as naught, and the fish as sawdust, in
the eyes of Mr. Gower.
"You were in Egypt, too? Tell me all about it. I have always so _longed_
to hear about Egypt," says Dulce, with soft animation.
"Egypt?" says Roger, with some natural hesitation as to how to begin;
Egypt is a big place, and just now seems a long way off. "Well, there is
a good deal of it, you know; what do you want to know most?"
"Whether you enjoyed yourself--whether you were happy there?" replies
she, promptly. I daresay it isn't quite the answer he had expected,
because he looks at her for half a minute or so very intently.
"Happy? That includes such a great deal," he says, at length. "It is a
very interesting country beyond doubt, and there are Pyramids, you know;
you heard of 'em once or twice, I shouldn't wonder; and there are
beggars and robbers, and more sand than I ever saw in my life,
and--_No_," with a sudden, almost startling change of tone, "I was _not_
happy there, or anywhere else, since last I saw you!"
"Robbers!" says Dulce, hastily, with a rather forced little laugh;
"regular brigands, do you mean, going about in hordes, with tunics, and
crimson sashes, and daggers. How _could_ one be happy with such terrible
people turning up at every odd corner? I daresay," trifling nervously
with a wine glass, "it would make one often wish to be at home again."
"I often wished to be at home again." Somehow his manner gives her to
understand that the gentlemen in crimson sashes had nothing whatever to
do with this wish.
"I fancied brigands belonged exclusively to Greece and Italy," says
Dulce, still intent upon the wine-glass. "Are they very picturesque, and
do they really go about dressed in all the colors of the rainbow?"
Plainly Miss Blount has been carefully studying the highly-colored
prints in the old school-books, in which the lawless Greeks are depicted
as the gayest of the gay.
"They are about the most ill-looking ruffians it has ever been my fate
to see," says Mr. Dare, indifferently.
"How disappointing! I don't believe you liked being in Egypt after all,"
says Dulce, who cannot resist returning to tread once more the dangerous
ground.
"I think one place is about as good as another," says Mr. Dare,
discontentedly, "and about as bad. One shouldn't expect too much, you
know."
"Perhaps it would be as well if one didn't expect anything," says Dulce.
"_Better_, no doubt."
"You take a very discontented view of things; your traveling has made
you cynical, I think."
"Not my _traveling_?"
This is almost a challenge, and she accepts it.
"What then?" she asks, a little coldly.
"Shall I tell you?" retorts he, with an unpleasant smile. "Well, no; I
will spare you; it would certainly not interest _you_. Let us return to
our subject; you are wondering why I am not in raptures about Egypt; I
am wondering why I should be."
"No; I was finding fault with you because you gave me the impression
that all places on earth are alike indifferent to you."
"Perhaps that is true. I don't defend myself. But I know there was a
time when certain scenes were dear to me."
"There _was_?"
"Yes; I've outgrown it, I suppose; or else memory, rendering all things
bitter, is to blame. It is our cruelest enemy, I dare say we might all
be pretty comfortable forever if we could only 'Quaff the kind Nepenthe,
and forget our lost Lenores!'"
"'Ock, 'm?" asks the sedate butler at this emotional moment, in his most
prosaic tones.
Dulce starts perceptibly, and says "No," though she means "Yes." Roger
starts too, and, being rather absent altogether, mistakes the sedate
butler's broken English for good German, and says, "Hockheim?" in a
questioning voice; whereupon Dicky Browne, who has overheard him, laughs
immoderately and insists upon repeating the little joke to everybody.
They all laugh with him, except, indeed, Portia, who happens to be
miles away in thought from them, and does not hear one word of what is
being said.
"Portia," says Dicky, presently.
No answer; Portia's soul is still winging its flight to unseen regions.
"Still deaf to my entreaties," says Mr. Browne, eyeing her fixedly.
Something in his tone rouses her this time from her day-dreams, and,
with a rather absent smile, she turns her face to his. Fabian, who has
been listening to one of Mark Gore's rather pronounced opinions upon a
subject that doesn't concern us here, looks up at this moment and lets
his eyes rest upon her.
"Will you not deign to bestow even one word upon your slave?" asks
Dicky, sweetly. "Do. He pines for it. And after all the encouragement,
too, you have showered upon me of late, this behavior--this studied
avoidance is strange."
"You were asking me--?" begins Portia vaguely, with a little soft laugh.
"'Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant?'" quotes Mr. Browne, with
sentimental reproach. As usual, he attacks his favorite author, and, as
usual also, gives to that good man's words a meaning unknown to him.
Portia, raising her head, meets Fabian's eyes regarding her earnestly,
and then and there colors hotly; there is no earthly reason why she
should change color, yet she does so unmistakably, nay, painfully. She
is feeling nervous and unstrung, and--not very well to-night, and even
this light mention of the word love has driven all the blood from her
heart to her cheeks. A moment ago they were pale as Lenten lilies, now
they are dyed as deep as a damask rose.
For a moment only. She draws her breath quickly, full of anger at her
own want of self-control, and then the flush fades, and she is even
paler than she was before. Again she glances at Fabian, but not again do
her eyes meet his. He has seemingly forgotten her very existence and has
returned to his discussion with Sir Mark. He is apparently deeply
interested, nay, animated, and even as she watches him he laughs aloud,
a rare thing for him.
She tells herself that she is glad of this; _very_ glad, because it may
prove he has not noticed her emotion. Her awkward blush, doubtless, was
unseen by him. Yet I think she is piqued at his indifference, because
her eyes grow duller and her lips sadder, and there is a small, but
painful, flutter at her heart, that reminds her of the days before she
came to Old Court, and that compels her to press her fingers tightly
together, under cover of the table-cloth, in a vain effort to subdue it.
Dicky, who had noticed her quick transitions of color, and who feels
there is something wrong, without knowing what, and who also understands
that he himself, however unwittingly, has been the cause of it, grows
annoyed with himself, and, to distract attention, turns to the Boodie,
who is generally to be found at his elbow when anything sweet is to be
had.
The butler and his attendant are politely requesting the backs of all
the heads to try a little jelly, or cream, or so on. This, at the Court,
is virtually the children's hour, as Sir Christopher--who adores
them--is of opinion that they prefer puddings to fruit, and that, as
they should be made free of both, they are to put in an appearance with
the first sweet every evening.
The Boodie, whose "vanity" is whipped cream, has just been helped to it,
and Dicky, at this moment (that he may give Portia time to recover
herself) turning to the golden-haired fairy beside him, adds to her
felicity by dropping some crimson jelly into the centre of the cream.
"There now, I have made an island for you," he says.
Julia overhears him, and thinking this a capital opportunity to show off
the Boodie's learning, says, proudly:
"Now, darling, tell Dicky what an island really is."
Dicky feels honestly obliged to her for following up his lead, and so
breaking the awkward silence that has descended upon him and Portia.
"A tract of land entirely surrounded by water," says the Boodie,
promptly, betraying a faint desire to put her hands behind her back.
"Not at all," says Mr. Browne, scornfully; "it is a bit of red jelly
entirely surrounded by cream!"
"It is _not_," says the Boodie, with a scorn that puts his in the shade.
To be just to the Boodie, she is always eager for the fray. Not a touch
of cowardice about her. "How," demands she, pointing to the jelly, with
a very superior smile, "how do you think one could live upon _that_?"
"Why not? I don't see how anyone could possibly desire anything better
to live upon."
"Just fancy Robinson Crusoe on it," says the Boodie, with a derisive
smile.
"I could fancy him very fat on it; I could also fancy him considering
himself in great luck when he found it, or discovered it. They always
discovered islands, didn't they? _I_ should like to live on just such an
island for an indefinite number of years."
"You are extremely silly," says Miss Beaufort, politely; "you know as
well as I do that it wouldn't keep you up."
"Well, not, perhaps, so strongly as a few other things," acknowledges
Mr. Browne, gracefully; "but I think it _would_ support me for all
that,--for a _time_, at least."
"Not for one minute. Why, you couldn't stand on it."
"A prolonged acquaintance with it _alone_ might make me totter, I
confess," says Mr. Browne. "But yet, if I had enough of it, I think I
_could_ stand on it very well."
"You could _not_," says the Boodie, indignant at being so continuously
contradicted on a point so clear. "If you had ten whole jellies--if you
had one as big as this house--you couldn't manage it."
"I really beg your pardon," protests Mr. Browne, with dignity. "It is my
belief that I _could_ manage it in time. I'm very fond of jelly."
"You would go right through it and come out at the other side," persists
the Boodie, nothing daunted.
"Like the Thames Tunnel. How nice!" says Dicky Browne, amiably.
"Well, you can't live on it _now_, anyway," says the Boodie, putting the
last bit of the jelly island into her small mouth.
"No, no, indeed," says Dicky, shaking his head with all the appearance
of one sunk in the very deepest dejection.