Part 3 (1/2)
”I am very glad to see you,” she said, with the air of a potentate issuing a proclamation. ”I _thought_”--somewhat severely--”that you were not coming at all.”
”Did you?” remarked Dolly, with tranquillity.
”Yes,” returned her ladys.h.i.+p. ”And I could not understand it. It is nine o'clock now, and I _believe_ I mentioned eight as the hour.”
”I dare say you did,” said Dolly, unfurling her small downy fan, and using it with much serene grace; ”but I wasn't ready at eight. I hope you are very well.”
”Thank you,” replied her ladys.h.i.+p, icily. ”I am very well. Will you go and take a seat by Euphemia? I allowed her to come into the room to-night, and I notice that her manner is not so self-possessed as I should wish.”
Dolly gave a little nod of acquiescence, and looked across the room to where the luckless Euphemia sat edged in a corner behind a row of painfully conversational elderly gentlemen, who were struggling with the best intentions to keep up a theological discourse with the Rev.
Marmaduke. Euphemia was the eldest Miss Bilberry. She was overgrown and angular, and suffered from chronic embarra.s.sment, which was not alleviated by the eye of her maternal parent being upon her. She was one of Dolly's pupils, and cherished a secret but enthusiastic admiration for her. And, upon the whole, Dolly was fond of the girl. She was good-natured and unsophisticated, and bore the consciousness of her physical and mental imperfections with a humility which was almost touching to her friend sometimes. Catching Dolly's eye on this occasion, she glanced at her imploringly, and then, catching the eye of her mother, blushed to the tips of her ears, and relapsed into secret anguish of mind.
But Dolly, recognizing her misery, smiled rea.s.suringly, and made her way across the room to her, insinuating herself through the theological phalanx.
”I am so glad you are here at last,” said the girl. ”I was so afraid you would n't come. And oh, how nice you look, and how beautifully you manage your train! I could never do it in the world. I should be sure to tumble over it. But nothing ever seems to trouble you at all. You haven't any idea how lovely you were when you went across the room to mamma.. Everybody looked at you, and I don't wonder at it.”
”They would have looked at anybody,” answered Dolly, laughing. ”They had nothing else to do.”
”That is quite true, poor things,” sighed Euphemia, sympathetically.
”You don't know the worst yet, either. You don't know how stupid they are and can be, Dolly. That old gentleman near the screen has not spoken one word yet, and he keeps sighing and wiping the top of his bald head with his pocket-handkerchief until I can't keep my eyes off him, and I am afraid he has noticed me. I don't mean any harm, I'm sure, but I have got nothing to do myself, and I can't help it. But what I was going to say was, that people looked at you as they did not look at others who came in. You seem different some way. And I'm sure that Mr. Gowan of mamma's has been staring at you until it is positively rude of him.”
Dolly's slowly moving fan became stationary for a moment.
”Mr. Gowan,” she said. ”Who is Mr. Gowan?”
”One of mamma's people,” answered Euphemia, ”though I'm sure I can't quite understand how he can be one of them. He looks so different from the rest. He is very rich, you know, and very aristocratic, and has travelled a great deal He has been all over the world, they say. There he is at that side-table.”
Dolly's eyes, travelling round the a.s.semblage with complacent indifference, rested at last on the side-table where the subject of Euphemia's remarks sat.
He really was an eligible Philistine, it seemed, despite Griffith's unflattering description of him.
He was a long-limbed, graceful man, with an aquiline face and superb eyes, which at this moment were resting complacently upon Dolly herself.
It was not exactly admiration, either, which they expressed, it was something of a more entertaining nature, at least so Dolly found it,--it was nothing more nor less than a slowly awakening interest in her which paid her the compliment of rising above the surface of evident boredom and overcoming la.s.situde. It looked as if he was just beginning to study her, and found the game worth the candle. Dolly met his glance with steadiness, and as she met it she measured him. Then she turned to Euphemia again and fluttered the fan slowly and serenely.
”He's nice, is n't he?” commented the guileless Phemie. ”If the rest of them were like him, I don't think we should be so stupid, but as it is, you know, he can't talk when there is n.o.body to talk to.”
”No,” said Dolly. ”One could hardly expect it of him. But I wonder why he does not say something to that thin lady in the dress-cap.”
”Oh, dear!” exclaimed Phemie, ”I don't wonder in the least. That is Miss Berenice MacDowlas, Dolly.”
”Miss Berenice MacDowlas!” echoed Dolly, with a start. ”You don't say so?”
”Yes,” answered Euphemia. ”Do you know her? You spoke as if you did.”
”Well--yes--no,” answered Dolly, with a half laugh. ”I should say I know somebody who does.”
And she looked as if she was rather enjoying some small joke of her own.