Part 5 (1/2)

She looked regretfully at the dog, then inquiringly at Victoria, when Mrs Devitt came into the drawing-room.

Her eyes at once fell on Mavis's comeliness; looking at her step-daughter, she found herself comparing the appearance of the two girls. Before she had offered her hand to Mavis, she had decided that, beside her, Victoria appeared at a disadvantage.

Although Mavis's hair and colouring might only appeal to a certain order of taste, the girl's distinction, to which one of the Miss Mees had alluded earlier in the day, was glaringly patent to Mrs Devitt's sharp eyes; beside this indefinable personal quality, Mrs Devitt observed with a shudder, Victoria seemed middle-cla.s.s. Mavis's fate, as far as the Devitts were concerned, was decided in the twinkling of an eye. For all this decision, so suddenly arrived at, Mrs Devitt greeted Mavis kindly; indeed, the friendliness that she displayed caused the girl's hopes to rise.

”Luncheon will be ready directly. We are only waiting for my husband,”

said Mrs Devitt.

”You must be hungry after your journey,” added Victoria.

”I've always a healthy appet.i.te, whatever I do,” remarked Mavis, who was fondly regarding the black spaniel.

Then Montague Devitt, Lowther, and Miss Spraggs entered the drawing-room, to all of whom Mavis was introduced.

The men were quite cordial, too cordial to a girl who, after all, was seeking a dependant's place, thought Mrs Devitt.

Already she envied Mavis for her family, the while she despised her for her poverty.

The attentions that her husband and stepson were already paying her were a hint of what Mrs Devitt might expect where the eligible men of her acquaintance were concerned. She felt the necessity of striking a jarring note in the harmony of the proceedings. Jill, the spaniel, who, at that moment, sprang upon Mavis's lap, supplied the means.

”What is Jill doing here?”

”I really don't mind,” exclaimed Mavis.

”She shouldn't be in the house. There's no reason for her being here at all, now Harold is ill.”

”If you wish her to go,” said Mavis ruefully.

Jill was ordered from the room, but refused to quit her new friend's side. Lowther approached the dog; to emphasise his wishes, he kicked her in the side.

Mavis looked up quickly.

”Come along, you brute!” cried Lowther, who seized the spaniel by the ear, and, despite its yell of agony, was carrying it by this means from the room.

Mavis felt the blood rush to her head.

”Stop!” she cried.

Lowther turned to look at her.

”Stop--, please don't,” she pleaded, as she went quickly to Jill and caught her in her arms.

Lowther looked down, surprised, into Mavis's pleading, yet defiant face.

”It was all my fault: you're hurting her and she's such a dear,”

continued Mavis.

”Better let her stay,” said Devitt, while Mrs Devitt, seeing the girl's flushed face, recalled the pa.s.sage in Miss Mee's letter which referred to Mavis's sudden anger.

Mrs Devitt hated a display of emotion; she put down Mavis's interference with Lowther's design to bad form. She was surprised that Lowther and her husband were so a.s.siduous in their attentions to Mavis; indeed, as Mrs Devitt afterwards remarked to Miss Spraggs: