THE PURPLE EMPRESS
Colonel De Vigne once more wore his most magisterial air when after
breakfast on the following morning he drew Dinah aside.
She looked at him with swift apprehension, even with a tinge of guilt.
His lecture of the previous morning was still fresh in her mind. Could he
have seen her on the ice with Sir Eustace on the previous night, she
asked herself? Surely, surely not!
Apparently he had, however; for his first words were admonitory.
"Look here, young lady, you're making yourself conspicuous with that
three-volume-novel baronet: You don't want to be conspicuous, I suppose?"
Her face burned crimson at the question. Then he had seen, or at least he
must know, something! She stood before him, too overwhelmed for speech.
"You don't, eh?" he insisted, surveying her confusion with grim
relentlessness.
"Of course not!" she whispered at last.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Very well then! Don't let there be any
more of it! You've been a good girl up till now but the last two days
seem to have turned your head. I shan't be able to give a good report to
your mother when we get home if this sort of thing goes on."
Dinah's heart sank still lower. The thought of the return home had begun
to dog her like an evil dream.
With a great effort she met the Colonel's stern gaze. "I am very sorry,"
she faltered. "But--but Lady Grace did say I might go and see Mrs.
Everard--the invalid sister--yesterday."
"I know she did. She thought you had been flirting with Sir Eustace long
enough."
Dinah's sky began to clear a little. "Then you don't mind my going to see
her?" she said.
"So long as you are not there too often," conceded the Colonel. "The
younger brother is a nice little chap. There is no danger of your getting
up to mischief with him."
Dinah's face burned afresh at the suggestion. He evidently did not
actually know; but he suspected very strongly. Still it was a great
relief to know that all intercourse with these wonderful new friends of
hers was not to be barred.
"There was some talk of a sleigh-drive this afternoon," she ventured,
after a moment. "Mr. Studley is taking his sister and she asked me to go
too. May I?"
"You accepted, I suppose?" demanded the Colonel.
"I said I thought I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly she
caught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Do
please--please--let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't ever
have any fun again when this is over."
"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you can
go--you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. And
remember--no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it.
Is that understood?"
Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about future
prohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she was
beginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace as
was at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. In
fact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that she
did not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To go
out sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked of
life that day.
It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, and
she spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ing
with Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very far
one, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique as
he descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.
She recalled the brief conversation that the brothers had held in her
hearing the night before, and marvelled at the memory of Scott's attitude
towards him.
"He isn't a bit afraid of him," she reflected. "In fact he behaves
exactly as if he were the bigger of the two."
This phenomenon puzzled her very considerably, for Scott was wholly
lacking in the pomposity that characterizes many little men. She wondered
what had been the subject of their discussion. It had been connected with
Isabel, she felt sure. She was glad to think that she had Scott to
protect her, for there was something of tyranny about the elder brother
from which she shrank instinctively, his magnetism notwithstanding, and
the thought of poor, tragic Isabel being coerced by it was intolerable.
The memory of the latter's resolution to make the acquaintance of the de
Vignes recurred to her as she and Billy returned for luncheon. Would she
carry it out? She wondered. The look that Scott had flung at the old
nurse dwelt in her mind. It would evidently be an extraordinary move if
she did.
They reached the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from the
rink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah.
Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment Dinah
heard her name.
The group parted, and she saw Isabel Everard, very tall and stately in a
deep purple coat, standing with Lady Grace de Vigne.
Billy gave her a push. "Go on! They're calling you."
And Dinah found the strange sad eyes upon her, alight with a smile of
welcome. She went forward impetuously, and in a moment Isabel's cold
hands were clasped upon her warm ones.
"I have been waiting for you, dear child," the low voice said. "What have
you been doing?"
Dinah suddenly felt as if she were standing in the presence of a
princess. Isabel in public bore herself with a haughtiness fully equal to
that displayed by Sir Eustace, and she knew that Lady Grace was impressed
by it.
"I would have come back sooner if I had known," she said, closely holding
the long, slender fingers.
"My dear, you are woefully untidy now you have come," murmured Lady
Grace.
But Isabel gently freed one hand to put her arm about the girl. "To me
she is--just right," she said, and in her voice there sounded the music
of a great tenderness. "Youth is never tidy, Lady Grace; but there is
nothing in the world like it."
Lady Grace's eyes went to her daughter whose faultless apparel and
perfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarum
appearance.
"I do not altogether agree with you in that respect, Mrs. Everard," she
said, with a smile. "I think young girls should always aim at being
presentable. But I quite admit that it is more difficult for some than
for others. Dinah, my dear, Mrs. Everard has been kind enough to ask you
to lunch in her sitting-room with her, and to go for a sleigh-drive
afterward; so you had better run and get respectable as quickly as you
can."
"Oh, how kind you are!" Dinah said, with earnest eyes uplifted. "You know
how I shall love to come, don't you?"
"I thought you might, dear," Isabel said. "Scott is coming to keep us
company. He has arranged for a sleigh to be here in an hour. We are going
for a twelve-mile round, so we must not be late starting. It gets so cold
after sundown."
"I had better go then, hadn't I?" said Dinah.
"I am coming too," Isabel said. Her arm was still about her. It remained
so as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Lady Grace! I will take great care of
the child. Thank you for allowing her to come."
She bowed with regal graciousness and moved away, taking Dinah with her.
"Exit Purple Empress!" murmured a man in the background close to Rose.
"Who on earth is she? I haven't seen her anywhere before."
Rose uttered her soft, artificial laugh. "She is Sir Eustace Studley's
sister. Rather peculiar, I believe, even eccentric. But I understand they
are of very good birth."
"That covers a multitude of sins," he commented. "She's been a mighty
handsome woman in her day. She must be many years older than Sir Eustace.
She looks more like his mother than his sister."
"I believe she is actually younger," Rose said. "They say she has never
recovered from the sudden death of her husband some years ago, but I know
nothing of the circumstances."
"A very charming woman," said Lady Grace, joining them. "We have had
quite a long chat together. Yes, her manner is a little strange, slightly
abstracted, as if she were waiting for something or someone. But a very
easy companion on the whole. I think you will like her, Rose dear."
"She's dead nuts on Dinah," observed Billy with a chuckle. "She don't
look at anyone else when she's got Dinah."
Lady Grace smiled over his head and took no verbal notice of the remark.
"They are a distinguished-looking family," she said. "Run and wash your
hands, Billy. Are you thinking of ski-ing this afternoon, Rose?"
"You bet!" murmured Billy, under his breath. He too had seen the distant
figure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.
"It depends," said Rose, non-committally.
"Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning," said
her mother. "We must see what they say about it."
Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back. "Heads Sir Eustace and
tails Captain Brent," he muttered to the man who had commented upon
Isabel's beauty. "Heads it is!"
Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his
companion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?"
Billy's green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment. "You did, Lady Grace.
And I'm going. Good-bye!"
He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.
"A very unmannerly little boy!" observed Lady Grace, with severity.
"Come, my dear Rose! We must go in."
"I don't like either the one or the other," said Rose, with a very
unusual touch of petulance. "They are always in the way."
"I fully agree with you," said Lady Grace acidly. "But it is for the
first and last time in their lives. I have already told the Colonel so.
He will never ask them to accompany us again."
"Thank goodness for that!" said Rose, with restored amiability. "Of
course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit."
"Which is very nearly reached," said Lady Grace.