Part 4 (2/2)

”Yes,” said Mary slowly; ”she is charming, certainly. Haven't you seen her, Philip? You used to be constantly there.”

Rainham a.s.sumed the air of reflection.

”Really, I believe I used, when Eve was in short frocks, and Charles conspicuously absent. Like Lady Garnett, I find the barrister exhausting. He is very unlike his father.”

”We are going to Switzerland with them this summer, you know, Philip? Will you join us?”

”Ah!” he put his cup down, not responding for a moment. ”It would be delightful, but I am afraid impossible. You see, there's the dock; I have been away from it six months, and I shall have to repeat the process when the fogs begin. No, Lady Garnett, I won't be tempted.”

She began to press him, and they fenced rapidly for some minutes, laughing. Rainham had just been induced to promise that he would at least consider the proposition, when the footman announced Mr. and Miss Sylvester. They came in a moment later; and while the barrister, a tall well-dressed man, with the shaven upper lip and neat whisker of his cla.s.s, and a back which seemed to bend with difficulty, explained to Lady Garnett that his mother was suffering too much from neuralgia to come with them, Rainham resumed his acquaintance with the young girl. He had seen little of her during the past two years, and in the last of them, in which she had changed most, he had not seen her at all. It was with a slight shock, then, that he realized how completely she had grown up. He remembered her in so many phases of childhood and little girlhood, ranging up from a time when her speech was incoherent, and she had sat on his knee and played with his watch, to the more recent occasions when he had met her riding in the Park with her brother; and she had waved her little whip to him, looking particularly slim and pretty in the very trying costume which fas.h.i.+on prescribes for little girls who ride.

They had always been very good friends; she had been a most engaging little companion, and really, he reflected, he had been extremely fond of her. It gave him a distinct pain to reflect that their relation had, in the nature of things, come to an end. Gradually, as they talked, the young girl growing out of the first restraint of her shyness, and falling back into something of her old manner, the first painful impression of her entire strangeness left Rainham. In spite of her mature, little society air, her engaging attempts at worldliness, she was, after all, not so grown-up as she seemed. The child gleamed out here and there quite daintily, and as he indulged in reminiscence, and reminded her of some of their more remote adventures, her merriment found utterance very childishly.

”Our most tragical encounter, though, was with the monkey. Have you forgotten that? It was on one of your birthdays--you had a good many of them in Florence--I forget which it was. You must have been about ten. I had taken you to the Zoological Gardens, such as they were.”

Her laughter rippled out softly again.

”I remember,” she nodded, ”it was dreadful.”

”Yes,” he said; ”we were at the monkey-cage; you had grown tired of feeding the ostrich with _centesimi_.”

”Oh, Philip!” she interrupted him; ”I never, _never_ would have done such a thing. It was you who used to give the poor bird _centesimi_.

I only used to watch.”

”Ah, you connived at it, anyhow,” he went on. ”Well, we were feeding the monkeys, this time with melon-seeds, when we somehow aroused the ire of a particularly ugly brute, who must have been distantly connected with a bull. Anyhow, he made a grab at the scarlet _berret_ you were wearing, just missed your hair, and demolished the cap.”

”I remember,” she laughed. ”You tied your handkerchief round my head, like an old peasant woman, and took me back in a carriage. And mamma was dreadfully angry about the cap, because she had bought it at Biarritz, and couldn't replace it in Italy. She thought you ought to have taken steps to get it back.”

”Dear me!” said Rainham solemnly, ”why didn't I think of it before?

I wonder if it's too late to do anything now.”

The girl's laughter broke out again, this time attracting the attention of her brother, who was discussing the projected travels, with the aid of Bradshaw, at Mary Masters' side. He glanced at them askance, pulling at his collar in his stiff, nervous fas.h.i.+on a little uneasily.

”What a long time ago all that seems, Philip!” she remarked after a while.

He was silent for a moment examining his finger-nails intently.

”Yes,” he said rather sadly; ”I suppose it does. I dare say you wouldn't care much for the Zoo now?”

”Oh, I shouldn't mind,” she said gaily, ”if you will take me.”

But a move had been made opposite, and Charles Sylvester, coming up to them, overheard this last remark.

”I think we must be off,” he said, consulting his watch. ”Where is Rainham going to take you?”

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