Part 29 (1/2)

”Yes, mademoiselle, I know him quite well. I have just been staying with him.”

She clasped her hands eagerly.

”How _very_ interesting! I know him a little. _Isn't_ he nice?”

”No,” said Mariette resolutely. ”He is magnificent--a saint--a scholar--everything--but not nice!”

The girl looked a little puzzled, then angry, and after a few minutes'

more conversation she returned to her young men, conspicuously turning her back on Mariette.

He threw a deprecating, half-penitent look at Elizabeth, whose faced twitched with amus.e.m.e.nt, and sat down in a corner behind her that he might observe without talking. His quick intelligence sorted the people about him almost at once--the two yeoman-squires, who were not quite at home in Mrs. Gaddesden's drawing-room, were awkward with their tea-cups, and talked to each other in subdued voices, till Elizabeth found them out, summoned them to her side, and made them happy; the agent who was helping Lady Merton with tea, making himself generally useful; Philip and another gilded youth, the son, he understood, of a neighbouring peer, who were flirting with the girl in white; and yet a third fastidious Etonian, who was clearly bored by the ladies, and was amusing himself with the adjutant and a cigarette in a distant corner. His eyes came back at last to the _pasteur_. An able face after all; cool, shrewd, and not unspiritual. Very soon, he, the parson--whose name was Everett--and Elizabeth were drawn into conversation, and Marietta under Everett's good-humoured glance found himself observed as well as observer.

”You are trying to decipher us?” said Everett, at last, with a smile.

”Well, we are not easy.”

”Could you be a great nation if you were?”

”Perhaps not. England just now is a palimpsest--the new writing everywhere on top of the old. Yet it is the same parchment, and the old is there. Now _you_ are writing on a fresh skin.”

”But with the old ideas!” said Mariette, a flash in his dark eyes.

”Church--State--family!--there is nothing else to write with.”

The two men drew closer together, and plunged into conversation.

Elizabeth was left solitary a moment, behind the tea-things. The buzz of the room, the hearty laugh of the Lord Lieutenant, reached the outer ear. But every deeper sense was strained to catch a voice--a step--that must soon be here. And presently across the room, her eyes met her mother's, and their two expectancies touched.

”Mother!--here is Mr. Anderson!”

Philip entered joyously, escorting his guest.

To Anderson's half-dazzled sight, the room, which was now fully lit by lamplight and fire, seemed crowded. He found himself greeted by a gentle grey-haired lady of fifty-five, with a strong likeness to a face he knew; and then his hand touched Elizabeth's. Various commonplaces pa.s.sed between him and her, as to his journey, the new motor which had brought him to the house, the frosty evening. Mariette gave him a nod and smile, and he was introduced to various men who bowed without any change of expression, and to a girl, who smiled carelessly, and turned immediately towards Philip, hanging over the back of her chair.

Elizabeth pointed to a seat beside her, and gave him tea. They talked of London a little, and his first impressions. All the time he was trying to grasp the ident.i.ty of the woman speaking with the woman he had parted from in Canada. Something surely had gone? This restrained and rather cold person was not the Elizabeth of the Rockies. He watched her when she turned from him to her other guests; her light impersonal manner towards the younger men, with its occasional touch of satire; the friendly relation between her and the parson; the kindly deference she showed the old Lord Lieutenant. Evidently she was mistress here, much more than her mother. Everything seemed to be referred to her, to circle round her.

Presently there was a stir in the room. Lord Waynflete asked for his carriage.

”Don't forget, my dear lady, that you open the new Town Hall next Wednesday,” he said, as he made his way to Elizabeth.

She shrugged her shoulders.

”But you make the speech!”

”Not at all. They only want to hear you. And there'll be a great crowd.”

”Elizabeth can't speak worth a cent!” said Philip, with brotherly candour. ”Can you, Lisa?”

”I don't believe it,” said Lord Waynflete, ”but it don't matter. All they want is that a Gaddesden should say something. Ah, Mrs.

Gaddesden--how glorious the Romney looks to-night!” He turned to the fireplace, admiring the illuminated picture, his hands on his sides.

”Is it an ancestress?” Mariette addressed the question to Elizabeth.