A BUBBLE BROKEN.
After a few words had been exchanged, Grace said in reply to a question
of Sir Richard's,--
"Lady May and I are going together, you know: in a day or two we shall
be at Brighton. I mean to bid Alice good-bye to-day. There--I mean at
Brighton--we are to meet Vivian Darnley, and possibly another friend;
and we go to meet your uncle at that pretty little town in Switzerland,
where Lady May----I wonder, by-the-bye, you did not arrange to come with
us; Lady May travels with us the entire time. She says there are some
very interesting ruins there."
"Why, dear old soul!" said Sir Richard, who felt called upon to say
something to set himself right with respect to Lady May, "she's thinking
of quite another place. She will be herself the only interesting ruin
there."
"I think you wish to vex me," said pretty Grace, turning away with a
smile, which showed, nevertheless, that this kind of joke was not an
unmixed vexation to her. "I don't care for ruins myself."
"Nor do I," he said, archly.
"But you don't think so of Lady May. I know you don't. You are franker
with her than with me, and you tell her a very different tale."
"I must be very frank, then, if I tell her more than I know myself. I
never said a civil thing of Lady May, except once or twice, to the poor
old thing herself, when I wanted her to do one or two little things, to
please _you_."
"Oh! come, you can't deceive me; I've seen you place your hand to your
heart, like a theatrical hero, when you little fancied any one but she
saw it."
"Now, really, that is too bad. I may have put my hand to my side, when
it ached from laughing."
"How can you talk so? You know very well I have heard you tell her how
you admire her music and her landscapes."
"No, no--not landscapes--she paints faces. But her colouring is, as
artists say, too chalky--and nothing but red and white, like--what is it
like?--like a clown. Why did not she get the late Mr. Etty--she's always
talking of him--to teach her something of his tints?"
"You are not to speak so of Lady May. You forget she is my particular
friend," says the young lady; but her pretty face does not express so
much severity as her words. "I do think you like her. You merely talk so
to throw dust in people's eyes. Why should not you be frank with me?"
"I wish I dare be frank with you," said Sir Richard.
"And why not?"
"How can I tell how my disclosures might be punished? My frankness might
extinguish the best hope I live for; a few rash words might make me a
very unhappy man for life."
"Really? Then I can quite understand that reflection alarming you in the
midst of a _tête-à-tête_ with Lady May; and even interrupting an
interesting conversation."
Sir Richard looked at her quickly, but her looks were perfectly artless.
"I really do wish you would spare me all further allusion to that good
woman. I can bear that kind of fun from any one but you. Why will you?
she is old enough to be my mother. She is fat, and painted, and
ridiculous. You think me totally without romance? I wish to heaven I
were. There is a reason, that makes your saying all that particularly
cruel. I am not the sordid creature you take me for. I'm not insensible.
I'm not a mere stock of stone. Never was human being more capable of the
wildest passion. Oh, if I dare tell you all!"
Was all this acting? Certainly not. Never was shallow man, for the
moment, more in earnest. Cool enough he was, although he had always
admired this young lady, when he entered the room. He had made that
entrance, nevertheless, in a spirit quite dramatic. But Miss Maubray
never looked so brilliant, never half so tender. He took fire--the
situation aiding quite unexpectedly--and the flame was real. It might
have been over as quickly as a balloon on fire; but for the moment the
conflagration was intense.
How was Miss Maubray affected? An immensely abler performer than the
young gentleman who had entered the room with his part at his fingers'
ends, and all his looks and emphasis arranged--only to break through all
this, and begin extemporising wildly--she, on the contrary, maintained
her _rôle_ with admirable coolness. It was not, perhaps, so easy; for
notwithstanding appearances, her histrionic powers were severely tasked;
for never was she more angry. Her self-esteem was wounded; the fancy (it
was no more), she had cherished for him was gone, and a great disgust
was there instead.
"You shall ask me no questions till I have done asking mine," said the
young lady, with decision; "and I will speak as much as I please of Lady
May!"
This jealousy flattered Sir Richard.
"And I will say this," continued Grace Maubray, "you never address her
except as a lover, in what you romantic people would call the language
of love."
"Now, now, now! How can you say that? Is that fair?"
"You do."
"No, really, I swear--that's _too_ bad!"
"Yes, the other day, when you spoke to her at the carriage window--you
did not think I heard--you accused her so tenderly of having failed to
go to Lady Harbroke's garden-party, and you couldn't say what you meant
in plain terms, but you said, 'Why were you false?'"
"I didn't, I swear."
"Oh! you did; I heard every syllable; 'false' was the word."
"Well, if I said 'false,' I must have been thinking of her hair; for she
is really a very honest old woman."
At this moment a female voice in distress is heard, and poor Lady May
comes pushing out of the pretty little room, in which Grace Maubray had
placed her, sobbing and shedding floods of tears.
"I can't stay there any longer, for I hear everything; I can't help
hearing every word--honest old woman, and all--opprobrious. Oh! how
_can_ people be so? how _can_ they? Oh! I'm very angry--I'm very
angry--I'm very angry!"
If Miss Maubray were easily moved to pity she might have been at sight
of the big innocent eyes turned up at her, from which rolled great
tears, making visible channels through the paint down her cheeks. She
sobbed and wept like a fat, good-natured child, and pitifully she
continued sobbing, "Oh, I'm a-a-ho--very angry; wha-at shall I do-o-o,
my dear? I-I'm very angry--oh, oh--I'm very a-a-angry!"
"So am I," said Grace Maubray, with a fiery glance at the young baronet,
who stood fixed where he was, like an image of death; "and I had
intended, dear Lady May, telling you a thing which Sir Richard Arden may
as well hear, as I mean to write to tell Alice to-day; it is that I am
to be married--I have accepted Lord Wynderbroke--and--and that's all."
Sir Richard, I believe, said "Good-bye." Nobody heard him. I don't think
he remembers how he got on his horse. I don't think the ladies saw him
leave the room--only, he was gone.
Poor Lady May takes her incoherent leave. She has got her veil over her
face, to baffle curiosity. Miss Maubray stands at the window, the tip of
her finger to her brilliant lip, contemplating Lady May as she gets in
with a great jerk and swing of the carriage, and she hears the footman
say "Home," and sees a fat hand, in a lilac glove, pull up the window
hurriedly. Then she sits down on a sofa, and laughs till she quivers
again, and tears overflow her eyes; and she says in the intervals,
almost breathlessly,--
"Oh, poor old thing! I really am sorry. Who could have thought she cared
so much? Poor old soul! what a ridiculous old thing!"
Such broken sentences of a rather contemptuous pity rolled and floated
along the even current of her laughter.