Part 44 (1/2)
”Several times. I have dined with him and Lady Errington frequently. I understand they are to be here to-night?”
Lady Winsleigh fans herself a little more rapidly, and her full crimson lips tighten into a thin, malicious line.
”Well, I asked them, of course,--as a matter of form,” she says carelessly,--”but I shall, on the whole, be rather relieved if they don't come.”
A curious, amused look comes over Lorimer's face.
”Indeed! May I ask why?”
”I should think the reason ought to be perfectly apparent to you”--and her ladys.h.i.+p's eyes flash angrily. ”Sir Philip is all very well--he is by birth a gentleman,--but the person he has married is not a lady, and it is an exceedingly unpleasant duty for me to have to receive her.”
A feint tinge of color flushes Lorimer's brow. ”I think,” he says slowly, ”I think you will find yourself mistaken, Lady Winsleigh. I believe--” Here he pauses, and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle fixes him with a stony stare.
”Are we to understand that she is educated?” she inquires freezingly.
”Positively well-educated?”
Lorimer laughs. ”Not according to the standard of modern fas.h.i.+onable requirements!” he replies.
Mrs. Marvelle sniffs the air portentously,--Lady Clara curls her lip. At that moment everybody makes respectful way for one of the most important guests of the evening--a broad-shouldered man of careless attire, rough hair, fine features, and keen, mischievous eyes--a man of whom many stand in wholesome awe,--Beaufort Lovelace, or as he is commonly called.
”Beau” Lovelace, a brilliant novelist, critic, and pitiless satirist.
For him society is a game,--a gay humming-top which he spins on the palm of his hand for his own private amus.e.m.e.nt. Once a scribbler in an attic, subsisting bravely on bread and cheese and hope, he now lords it more than half the year in a palace of fairy-like beauty on the Lago di Como,--and he is precisely the same person who was formerly disdained and flouted by fair ladies because his clothes were poor and shabby, yet for whom they now practise all the arts known to their s.e.x, in fruitless endeavors to charm and conciliate him. For he laughs at them and their pretty ways,--and his laughter is merciless. His arrowy glance discovers the ”poudre de riz” on their blooming cheeks,--the carmine on their lips, and the ”kohl” on their eyelashes. He knows purchased hair from the natural growth--and he has a cruel eye for discerning the artificial contour of a ”made-up” figure. And like a merry satyr dancing in a legendary forest, he capers and gambols in the vast fields of Humbug--all forms of it are attacked and ridiculed by his powerful and pungent pen,--he is a sort of English Heine, gathering in rich and daily harvests from the never-peris.h.i.+ng incessantly-growing crop of fools. And as he,--in all the wickedness of daring and superior intellect,-- approaches, Lady Winsleigh draws herself up with the conscious air of a beauty who knows she is nearly perfect,--Mrs. Rush-Marvelle makes a faint endeavor to settle the lace more modestly over her rebellious bosom,--Marcia smiles coquettishly, and Mrs. Van Clupp brings her diamond pendant (value, a thousand guineas) more prominently forward,--for as she thinks, poor ignorant soul! ”wealth always impresses these literary men more than anything!” In one swift glance Beau Lovelace observes all these different movements,--and the inner fountain of his mirth begins to bubble. ”What fun those Van Clupps are!”
he thinks. ”The old woman's got a diamond plaster on her neck! Horrible taste! She's anxious to show how much she's worth, I suppose! Mrs.
Marvelle wants a shawl, and Lady Clara a bodice. By Jove! What sights the women do make of themselves!”
But his face betrays none of these reflections,--its expression is one of polite gravity, though a sudden sweetness smooths it as he shakes hands with Lord Winsleigh and Lorimer,--a sweetness that shows how remarkably handsome Beau can look if he chooses. He rests one hand on Lorimer's shoulder.
”Why, George, old boy, I thought you were playing the dutiful son at Nice? Don't tell me you've deserted the dear old lady! Where is she? You know I've got to finish that argument with her about her beloved Byron.”
Lorimer laughs. ”Go and finish it when you like, Beau,” he answers. ”My mother's all right. She's at home. You know she's always charmed to see you. She's delighted with that new book of yours.”
”Is she? She finds pleasure in trifles then--”
”Oh no, Mr. Lovelace!” interrupts Lady Clara, with a winning glance.
”You must not run yourself down! The book is exquisite! I got it at once from the library, and read every line of it!”
”I am exceedingly flattered!” says Lovelace, with a grave bow, though there is a little twinkling mockery in his glance. ”When a lady so bewitching condescends to read what I have written, how can I express my emotion!”
”The press is unanimous in its praise of you,” remarks Lord Winsleigh cordially. ”You are quite the lion of the day!”
”Oh quite!” agrees Beau laughing. ”And do I not roar 'as sweet as any nightingale'? But I say, where's the new beauty?”
”I really do not know to whom you allude, Mr. Lovelace,” replies Lady Winsleigh coldly. Lorimer smiles and is silent. Beau looks from one to the other amusedly.
”Perhaps I've made a mistake,” he says, ”but the Duke of Roxwell is responsible. He told me that if I came here to-night I should see one of the loveliest women living,--Lady Bruce-Errington. He saw her in the park. I think _this_ gentleman”--indicating Sir Francis Lennox, who bites his moustache vexedly--”said quite openly at the Club last night that she _was_ the new beauty,--and that she would be here this evening.”
Lady Winsleigh darts a side glance at her ”Lennie” that is far from pleasant.
”Really it's perfectly absurd!” she says, with a scornful toss of her head. ”We shall have housemaids and bar-girls accepted as 'quite the rage' next. I do not know Sir Philip's wife in the least,--I hear she was a common farmer's daughter. I certainly invited her to-night out of charity and kindness in order that she might get a little accustomed to society--for, of course, poor creature! entirely ignorant and uneducated as she is, everything will seem strange to her. But she has not come--”