Eric Balderson was awaiting his mother--not impatiently, he was never
impatient about anything--in the drawing-room, as she had foreseen when
they went in. And so was tea, thanks to Eric. He was one of those
people in whose case it is not difficult to take the bad with the good,
for the latter so decidedly predominated. If slow, tiresomely slow
sometimes, he was so considerate; if in a certain sense heavy, he was so
entirely to be relied upon, and in unselfish thoughtfulness for others,
above all in small matters--for in important ones I cannot endorse the
popular axiom that "the best of men are selfish"--he was almost like a
woman.
"Now, isn't that nice?" said his mother, appreciatively. "Tea _just_
ready. You are clever, Eric. Isn't he a good boy, Winifred? Of course
it's all due to my splendid bringing up, but still he does me credit,
doesn't he?"
Winifred smiled, but did not speak. She knew he was excellent, but she
did not care much for Eric Balderson. Celia liked him better.
"I suppose you have learned to be daughter as well as son to your
mother," she said quietly, as she stood by the table, while this very
"tame-cat" young man, as Winifred contemptuously called him, poured out
the tea for his mother and her young friends.
"Yes, that's to say she has had to put up with my feeble efforts in that
direction, failing better," he said. "Now then, I think I have got
hers--my mother's--tea just as she likes it; will you be so good as to
tell me of any peculiarities of taste of yours, or your sister's--cream,
sugar, both or neither, or which?"
"Winifred takes no cream--I take both. Yes, I will hand Mrs Balderson
hers, and you can look after Winifred. This is mine? Thank you," and
Celia seated herself near the tea-table.
"Did you enjoy the concert this afternoon?" young Mr Balderson
inquired. "It was a concert you were at, wasn't it?"
"Oh yes, very much, very much indeed," said Celia. "It was a very nice
concert. But _the_ thing that we cared for most was Miss Norreys'
singing."
"Miss Norreys--Hertha Norreys, do you mean?"
"Yes," said Mrs Balderson, "these girls have both fallen in love with
her, Eric."
"With _her_ as well as with her singing," said Winifred.
Eric looked up with a comical expression.
"She is very charming, I am told," he said. "I cannot testify to the
fact from personal experience, for you can't exactly call a person
charming who deliberately snubs you."
"How do you mean?" said his mother. "I didn't know you had ever met
Miss Norreys, and if you have, why should you think she snubbed you?"
"Because she did," Eric replied simply.
Winifred's eyes sparkled. Her admiration for Hertha rose still higher.
"Just what I should have expected of her," she thought to herself.
"My dear Eric," said his mother, with a very slight touch of annoyance
in her tone, "I think you talk nonsense sometimes."
He smiled.
"Sometimes, perhaps, but not always," he said.
But he rose from his seat as he spoke, for he was more than quick at
reading his mother's feelings, and went towards the piano.
"I'll look out the songs, mother, that I want to try over," he remarked.
"That's to say, if you are still good for a little practising before
dinner."
"Certainly I am. Indeed, we hurried home partly on that account," Mrs
Balderson replied. "I will run up-stairs and take off my things in a
moment. And you, dears, will have a little quiet time for your letters,
and for resting, if you are tired."
"I shall be glad to write my letters, but I am not the least tired,
thank you," said Winifred, in her clear, slightly incisive tone, almost
as if resenting the kindly imputation.
"I _am_, rather," said Celia gently.
"I scarcely see how you could help it, after such a busy day," agreed
Mrs Balderson. "You have been on the go since early this morning.
Such a contrast from your regular restful life at home. Not that we
Londoners can stand so much fatigue as country people often imagine we
can, fancying that a rush is our usual existence." She was leaving the
room as she spoke, but stopped to add, "Remember I want you to be fresh
this evening, though it is only a small party. Your cousin is coming,
for one."
"Oh dear," said Winifred, in a half-complaining voice, when her hostess
had gone, "I forgot about Lennox being in London just now. Mrs
Balderson really need not have troubled to ask him. We have quite
enough of him at home."
Eric glanced at her.
"I fear we can scarcely put him off now, except with grave discourtesy,"
he said. And Winifred could not tell if he was laughing at her or not.
"Besides," he went on, "though I cannot hope the fact would carry any
weight with it, I am very fond of Lennox. I do my best to see something
of him whenever I get a chance."
"Oh yes," said Winifred, coolly, "I know you and he are chums. Well, as
long as he does not sit beside me at dinner and entertain me with
questions about the cows and the pigs and the old women at home, whom I
am more than thankful to forget for a week or two--"
"He shall not sit beside you at dinner; so much I can guarantee," said
Eric. And though Winifred thanked him laughingly, as if all that had
been said was a joke, she did not entirely disagree with Celia's first
observation when they found themselves alone in their own room.
"Winifred," said Celia, "I think Mr Eric Balderson was _really_ rather
angry at your tone about Lennox. I heard it in his voice, though he has
that dry way of speaking that makes it difficult to know whether he is
in fun or earnest."
She was standing in front of the fire--a brightly glowing one--in the
large room, which, with a dressing-room out of it, the two girls shared
together. And as she spoke she turned round slowly, and looked at her
sister half timidly.
"Well, and what if he were?" said Winifred. "After all, Lennox is our
cousin, not his. He does not need to take up the cudgels in the poor
dear's defence. It would be very impertinent."
"He would not mean it that way," said Celia, "and though you are so much
cleverer and wiser than I, you know, Winifred, onlookers sometimes see
the most. Don't you think, considering how things are with Lennox, it
would be better always to speak very nicely of him? After all, his
caring for you is no crime--you need not _despise_ him for it."
"Oh, bother!" said Winifred, throwing herself back into a comfortable
chintz-covered arm-chair, "perhaps it would be better. But I hate
beating about the bush and always thinking such a lot about what to say
and not to say. I do like to be natural. However, I'll be more
careful. But I am so tired of Lennox and all that dull, humdrum country
life that Mrs Balderson calls restful and delightful. And so are you,
Celia; we are at one on these subjects."
"Of course we are," said the younger girl, "though my feeling is not
that I want to leave home, but simply to have--you know what--my chance,
my test, which I _cannot_ have at home. But you are very good, dear
Winifred, not to think _me_ impertinent for warning you."
For a moment or two there was silence.