Also the story finds Colonel Musgrave in the company of his sister on a
warm April day, whilst these two sat upon the porch of the Musgrave home
in Lichfield, and Colonel Musgrave waited until it should be time to
open the Library for the afternoon. And about them birds twittered
cheerily, and the formal garden flourished as gardens thrive nowhere
except in Lichfield, and overhead the sky was a turkis-blue, save for a
few irrelevant clouds which dappled it here and there like splashes of
whipped cream.
Yet, for all this, the colonel was ill-at-ease; and care was on his
brow, and venom in his speech.
"And one thing," Colonel Musgrave concluded, with decision, "I wish
distinctly understood, and that is, if she insists on having young men
loafing about her--as, of course, she will--she will have to entertain
them in the garden. I won't have them in the house, Agatha. You remember
that Langham girl you had here last Easter?" he added, disconsolately
--"the one who positively littered up the house with young men,
and sang idiotic jingles to them at all hours of the night about
the Bailey family and the correct way to spell chicken? She drove me to
the verge of insanity, and I haven't a doubt that this Patricia person
will be quite as obstreperous. So, please mention it to her,
Agatha--casually, of course--that, in Lichfield, when one is partial to
either vocal exercise or amorous daliance, the proper scene of action is
the garden. I really cannot be annoyed by her."
"But, Rudolph," his sister protested, "you forget she is engaged to the
Earl of Pevensey. An engaged girl naturally wouldn't care about meeting
any young men."
"H'm!" said the colonel, drily.
Ensued a pause, during which the colonel lighted yet another cigarette.
Then, "I have frequently observed," he spoke, in absent wise, "that all
young women having that peculiarly vacuous expression about the eyes--I
believe there are misguided persons who describe such eyes as being
'dreamy,'--are invariably possessed of a fickle, unstable and coquettish
temperament. Oh, no! You may depend upon it, Agatha, the fact that she
contemplates purchasing the right to support a peculiarly disreputable
member of the British peerage will not hinder her in the least from
making advances to all the young men in the neighborhood."
Miss Musgrave was somewhat ruffled. She was a homely little woman with
nothing of the ordinary Musgrave comeliness. Candor even compels the
statement that in her pudgy swarthy face there was a droll suggestion
of the pug-dog.
"I am sure," Miss Musgrave remonstrated, with placid dignity, "that you
know nothing whatever about her, and that the reports about the earl
have probably been greatly exaggerated, and that her picture shows her
to be an unusually attractive girl. Though it is true," Miss Musgrave
conceded after reflection, "that there are any number of persons in the
House of Lords that I wouldn't in the least care to have in my own
house, even with the front parlor all in linen as it unfortunately is.
So awkward when you have company! And the Bible does bid us not to put
our trust in princes, and, for my part, I never thought that photographs
could be trusted, either."
"Scorn not the nobly born, Agatha," her brother admonished her, "nor
treat with lofty scorn the well-connected. The very best people are
sometimes respectable. And yet," he pursued, with a slight hiatus of
thought, "I should not describe her as precisely an attractive-looking
girl. She seems to have a lot of hair,--if it is all her own, which it
probably isn't,--and her nose is apparently straight enough, and I
gather she is not absolutely deformed anywhere; but that is all I can
conscientiously say in her favor. She is artificial. Her hair, now! It
has a--well, you would not call it exactly a crinkle or precisely a
wave, but rather somewhere between the two. Yes, I think I should
describe it as a ripple. I fancy it must be rather like the reflection
of a sunset in--a duck-pond, say, with a faint wind ruffling the water.
For I gather that her hair is of some light shade,--induced, I haven't a
doubt, by the liberal use of peroxides. And this ripple, too, Agatha, it
stands to reason, must be the result of coercing nature, for I have
never seen it in any other woman's hair. Moreover," Colonel Musgrave
continued, warming somewhat to his subject, "there is a dimple--on the
right side of her mouth, immediately above it,--which speaks of the most
frivolous tendencies. I dare say it comes and goes when she
talks,--winks at you, so to speak, in a manner that must be simply
idiotic. That foolish little cleft in her chin, too--"
But at this point, his sister interrupted him.
"I hadn't a notion," said she, "that you had even looked at the
photograph. And you seem to have it quite by heart, Rudolph,--and some
people admire dimples, you know, and, at any rate, her mother had red
hair, so Patricia isn't really responsible. I decided that it would be
foolish to use the best mats to-night. We can save them for Sunday
supper, because I am only going to have eggs and a little cold meat, and
not make company of her."
For no apparent reason, Rudolph Musgrave flushed.
"I inspected it--quite casually--last night. Please don't be absurd,
Agatha! If we were threatened with any other direful visitation
--influenza, say, or the seventeen-year locust,--I should
naturally read up on the subject in order to know what to expect. And
since Providence has seen fit to send us a visitor rather than a
visitation--though, personally, I should infinitely prefer the
influenza, as interfering in less degree with my comfort,--I have, of
course, neglected no opportunity of finding out what we may reasonably
look forward to. I fear the worst, Agatha. For I repeat, the girl's face
is, to me, absolutely unattractive!"
The colonel spoke with emphasis, and flung away his cigarette, and took
up his hat to go.
And then, "I suppose," said Miss Musgrave, absently, "you will be
falling in love with her, just as you did with Anne Charteris and Aline
Van Orden and all those other minxes. I _would_ like to see you married,
Rudolph, only I couldn't stand your having a wife."
"I! I!" sputtered the colonel. "I think you must be out of your head! I
fall in love with that chit! Good Lord, Agatha, you are positively
idiotic!"
And the colonel turned on his heel, and walked stiffly through the
garden. But, when half-way down the path, he wheeled about and came
back.
"I beg your pardon, Agatha," he said, contritely, "it was not my
intention to be discourteous. But somehow--somehow, dear, I don't quite
see the necessity for my falling in love with anybody, so long as I have
you."
And Miss Musgrave, you may be sure, forgave him promptly; and
afterward--with a bit of pride and an infinity of love in her kind,
homely face,--her eyes followed him out of the garden on his way to open
the Library. And she decided in her heart that she had the dearest and
best and handsomest brother in the universe, and that she must remember
to tell him, accidentally, how becoming his new hat was. And then, at
some unspoken thought, she smiled, wistfully.
"She would be a very lucky girl if he did," said Miss Musgrave, apropos
of nothing in particular; and tossed her grizzly head.
"An earl, indeed!" said Miss Musgrave