Part 16 (1/2)
”Introduce me to your friend, won't you?” she continued, looking at Mr. Randolph with a queer half amused gaze.
I introduced him. Lady Thesiger entered into conversation. Presently she beckoned me out of the box.
”Come and sit with me in my box during the next act,” she said, ”I have a great deal to say to you.”
”But I don't want to leave mother,” I replied.
”Nonsense! that cavalier of hers, that delightful young man, how handsome and distinguished looking he is! will take care of her. What do you say his name is--Randolph, Randolph--let me think, it is a good name. Do you know anything about him?”
”Nothing whatever, he happens to be one of our boarders,” I replied.
”He has taken a fancy to mother, and gave us tickets and brought us to this box to-night.”
Jasmine looked me all over.
”I must say you have not at all the appearance of a young woman who has stepped down in the social scale,” she remarked. ”What a pretty dress that is, and you have a nicer colour than ever in your cheeks.
Do you know that you are a very handsome girl?”
”You have told me so before, but I detest compliments,” was my brusque rejoinder.
”Oh! I can see that you are as queer and eccentric as ever. Now I tell you what it is, it is my opinion that you're not poor at all, and that you are doing all this for a freak.”
”And suppose that were the case, what difference would it make?” I inquired.
”Oh! in that case,” answered Lady Thesiger, ”your friends would simply think you eccentric, and love you more than ever. It is the fas.h.i.+on to be eccentric now, it is poverty that crushes, you must know that.”
”Yes,” I answered with bitterness, ”it is poverty that crushes. Well, then, from that point of view we are crushed, for we are desperately poor. But in our present nice comfortable house, even contaminated as we are by our paying guests, we do not feel our poverty, for we have all the good things of life around us, and the whole place seems very flouris.h.i.+ng. Why don't you come to see us, Jasmine?”
”I am afraid you will want me to recommend my friends to go to you, and I really cannot, Westenra, I cannot.”
”But why should you not recommend them?”
”They will get to know that you were, that you belonged, that you”--Jasmine stopped and coloured high. ”I cannot do it,” she said, ”you must not expect it.”
”I won't,” I replied with some pride.
”But all the same, I will come some morning,” she continued. ”You look so nice, and Mr. Randolph is so--by the way, what Randolph is he? I must find out all about him. Do question him about the county he comes from.”
I did not answer, and having said good-bye to Jasmine, returned to our own box.
The play came to an end, and we went home. Mother had gone up to her room. Mr. Randolph and I found ourselves for a moment alone.
”This evening has done her good,” he said, glancing at me in an interrogative fas.h.i.+on.
”Are you talking of mother?” I replied.
”Yes, you must see how much brighter she appeared. Do you think it did really help her?”
”I do not understand you,” I replied; ”help her? She enjoyed it, of course.”
”But can't you see for yourself,” he continued, and his voice was emphatic and his eyes shone with suppressed indignation, ”that your mother is starving. She will not complain; she is one of the best and sweetest women I have ever met, but all the same, I am anxious about her, this life does not suit her--not at all.”