Part 20 (1/2)
Charles Sylvester bent forward with bland satisfaction; he had it so obviously on the tip of his tongue that he would be charmed to be her escort, that the girl hastened to interrupt him.
”You were not at Lady Dulminster's, Mr. Sylvester? We quite expected to see you.”
”If I had known that you were to be there!” he exclaimed. Then he added: ”I had a card, and, indeed, I fully intended to look in. But one is always so pressed for time just before the long vacation, and yesterday I was quite exhausted. Did you see any of my people?”
”Yes,” said Mary, ”Eve was there; we expected her to play. It is a very musical house.”
”Ah, yes! I have heard so from my sister, and from Colonel Lightmark. He says that Lady Dulminster is really a most accomplished woman.”
”He looks as if he found her charming,” put in Lady Garnett with a shrug. Then she added, suppressing a yawn, her thin fingers dallying regretfully with the leaves of her novel: ”I suppose your exertions are nearly over, Mr. Sylvester. You will be going away soon?”
He shook his head gravely.
”I fear not for long. I may have a week's cruise with my brother-in-law--you know, he has a yacht for the summer--but my labours are only beginning. I have the elections in view. You agree with me, no doubt, Lady Garnett, that the Government is bound to go to the country in the autumn; you know, of course, that I am thinking of standing for----”
”I congratulate you in advance, Mr. Sylvester! I am sure you will get in, especially if you have your sister down to canva.s.s.”
”I am afraid Eve is not sufficiently interested in politics to be of much a.s.sistance,” said the candidate. Then he went on, a little nervously, pulling at his collar: ”You will wish me success, Miss Masters?”
”Oh, yes!” said the girl hastily; ”I am sure we both wish you that, Mr. Sylvester. We shall be most interested, shall we not, Aunt Marcelle?”
Lady Garnett came to her a.s.sistance with smiling prompt.i.tude.
”Of course, Mr. Sylvester; we will even wear your colours, if they are becoming, you know; and I am sure you would not fight under any others. And, mind, we will have no reforms--unless you like to try your hand on the climate. But nothing else! You are so fond of reforming, you English--even the most Conservative of you--that I live in constant fear of being reformed away. I hope, Mr. Sylvester, you are more Conservative than that.”
Charles Sylvester flushed a little; he cleared his throat elaborately before he replied:
”I fear I have failed to make myself understood, Lady Garnett; in no sense do I call myself a Conservative, though I am prepared to vote with the party on the Irish Question. I am a Liberal Unionist, Lady Garnett. I may almost call myself a Radical Unionist. My views on the emanc.i.p.ation of labour, for instance, are quite advanced. I am prepared----”
Mary interrupted him, absently, demurely, with a little speech that appeared to be a quotation.
”Labour is a pretty beast in its cage to the philanthropic visitor with buns; its temper is better understood of the professional keeper.”
Lady Garnett arched her eyebrows pensively; Charles looked surprised, displeased; Mary hastened to explain, blus.h.i.+ng a little:
”I beg your pardon! the phrase is Mr. Rainham's. I believe it is the only political principle he has.”
Charles's displeasure at the maxim cooled to lofty disdain of its author.
”Ah, yes!--pretty, but cynical, as I should say most of Mr.
Rainham's principles were.”
Lady Garnett was aroused out of her state of vacant boredom for the first time into a certain interest. Mary sat, her hands clasped in her lap, the flush just dying away out of her pale cheeks, while Mr.
Sylvester embarked upon an elaborate disquisition of his principles and his programme--it might have been an expansion of his Parliamentary address--which the elder lady, whom a chance phrase had started upon a new line of thought, scarcely considered.
Does he know? she asked herself. Has this rather stupid young man grown suddenly acute enough to be jealous? Certainly there had been a flash, a trace of curious rancour in his brief mention of Rainham's name, for which it was scarcely easy to account. That the two men, in spite of their long juxtaposition, had never been more than acquaintances, had never been in the least degree friends, she was perfectly well aware; it was not in the nature of either of them to be more intimately allied.
Rainham's indolent humour and fantastic melancholy, his genial disregard of popularity or success, could not but be displeasing to a man so precise and practical as the barrister. Only now she had scented, had dimly perceived beneath his speech, something more than the indefinable aversion of incompatible tempers, a very personal and present dislike. Had things pa.s.sed between them, things of which she was ignorant? Was the sentiment, then, reciprocal? She hardly believed it: Rainham's placid temper gave to his largest hostilities the character merely of languid contempt; it was not worth the trouble to hate anyone, he had said to her so often--neither to hate nor to love. She could imagine him with infidelities on occasion to the last part of his rule; yes, she could imagine that--but for hatred, no! he had said rightly he was too indolent for that. It must be all on one side, then, as happens so frequently in life with love and hate, and the rest--all on one side. And the barrister had risen to take his leave before her reflections had brought her further than this.