Part 7 (1/2)

'Now,' said Mrs. Vereker, gleefully re-entering the room, with a cl.u.s.ter of lace and flowers artistically poised upon her shapely little head, 'is not that a duck, and don't I look adorable?'

'Quite a work of art,' cried Desvoeux, with enthusiasm. 'Siren! why, already too dangerously fair, why deck yourself with fresh allurements for the fascination of a broken-hearted world? I am convinced Saint Simon Stylites would have come down from his pillar on the spot if he could but have seen it!'

'And confessed himself a gone c.o.o.n from a moral point of view,' laughed Mrs. Vereker, despoiling herself of the work of art in question. 'And now let us have some lunch; and mind, Mr. Desvoeux, you can only have a very little, because, you see, we did not expect you.'

Afterwards, when it was time for Maud to go, it was discovered that no carriage had arrived to take her home. 'What can I do?' she said, in despair. 'Felicia will be waiting to take me to the Camp. George promised to send back his office-carriage here the moment he got to the Board.'

'Then,' said Desvoeux, with great presence of mind, 'he has obviously forgotten it, and I will drive you home. Let me order my horses; they are quite steady.'

Maud looked at Mrs. Vereker--she felt a burning wish to go, and needed but the faintest encouragement. Felicia would, she knew, be not well pleased; but then it was George's fault that she was unprovided for, and it seemed hardly good-natured to reject so easy an escape from the embarra.s.sment which his carelessness had produced.

'I would come and sit in the back seat, to make it proper,' cried Mrs.

Vereker, 'but that I am afraid of the sun. I tell you what: I will drive, and you can sit in the back seat, Mr. Desvoeux; that will do capitally.'

'Thank you,' said Desvoeux, with the most melancholy attempt at politeness and his face sinking to zero.

'Indeed, that is impossible!' cried Maud. 'I know you want to stay at home. I will go with Mr. Desvoeux.' And go accordingly they did, and on the way home Desvoeux became, as was but natural, increasingly confidential. 'This is my carriage,' he explained, 'for driving married ladies in: you see there is a seat behind--very far behind--and well railed off, to put the husbands in and keep them in their proper place--quite in the background. It is so disagreeable when they lean over and try to join in the conversation; and people never know when they are _de trop_.'

'Ah, but,' said Maud, 'I don't like driving with you alone. I hear you are a very terrible person. People give you a very bad character.'

'I know,' answered her companion; 'girls are always jilting me and treating me horribly badly, and then they say that it is all my fault. I dare say they have been telling you about Miss Fotheringham's affair, and making me out a monster; but it was she that was alone to blame.'

'Indeed,' said Maud, 'I heard that it made her very ill, and she had to be sent to England, to be kept out of a consumption.'

'This was how it was,' said Desvoeux; 'I adored her--quite adored her; I thought her an angel, and I think her one still, but with one defect--a sort of frantic jealousy, quite a mania. Well, I had a friend--it happened to be a lady--for whom I had all the feelings of a brother. We had corresponded for years. I had sent her innumerable notes, letters, flowers, presents, you know. I had a few things that she had given me--a note or two, a glove, a flower, a photograph, perhaps--just the sort of thing, you know, that one sends----'

'To one's brother,' put in Maud. 'Yes; I know exactly.'

'Yes,' said Desvoeux, in the most injured tone, 'and I used to lend her my ponies, and, when she wanted me, to drive her. And what do you think that Miss Fotheringham was cruel, wild enough to ask? To give back all my little mementoes to write no more notes, have no more drives; in fact, discard my oldest, dearest friend!--I told her, of course, that it was impossible, impossible!' Desvoeux cried, getting quite excited over his wrongs: '”Cruel girl,” I said, ”am I to seal my devotion to you by an infidelity to the kindest, tenderest, sweetest of beings?” Thereupon Miss Fotheringham became quite unreasonable, went into hysterics, sent me back a most lovely locket which I had sent her only that morning; and Fotheringham _pere_ wrote me the most odious note, in his worst style, declaring that I was trifling! Trifling, indeed! and to ask me to give up my----'

'Your sister!' cried Maud; 'it was hard indeed! Well, here we are at home. Let me jump down quick and go in and get my scolding.'

'And I,' said Desvoeux, 'will go to the Agency and get mine.'

Stolen waters are sweet, however; and it is to be feared that these two young people enjoyed their _tete-a-tete_ none the less for the consideration that their elders would have prevented it if they had had the chance.

CHAPTER XII.

A CHAPTER OF DISCLOSURES.

For his thoughts, Would they were blank sooner than filled with me!

Maud did not exactly get a scolding, but Felicia looked extremely grave.

Maud's high spirits were gone in an instant; the excitement which had enabled her to defy propriety hitherto deserted her at the door; the recklessness with which Desvoeux always infected her had driven away with him in his mail-phaeton, and left her merely with the disagreeable consciousness of having acted foolishly and wrongly. Felicia knew exactly how matters stood and scarcely said a word. Her silence however was, Maud felt, the bitterest reproach.

'Scold me, scold me, dear,' she cried, the tears starting to her eyes; 'only don't look like that and say nothing!'

'Well,' said Felicia, 'first promise me never again to drive alone with Mr. Desvoeux.'