Part 9 (2/2)

Lady Barnes composed herself. It is necessary to smile at children, and she endeavoured to satisfy her own sense of it.

”Come in, Beatty; come and kiss granny!” And Lady Barnes held out her arms.

But the child stood still, surveyed her grandmother with a pair of startling eyes, and then, turning, made a rush for the door. But her father was too quick for her. He closed it with a laugh, and stood with his back to it. The child did not cry, but, with flaming cheeks, she began to beat her father's knees with her small fists.

”Go and kiss granny, darling,” said Roger, stroking her dark head.

Beatty turned again, put both her hands behind her, and stood immovable.

”Not kiss granny,” she said firmly. ”Don't love granny.”

”Oh, Beatty”--Mrs. French knelt down beside her--”come and be a good little girl, and I'll show you picture-books.”

”I not Beatty--I Jemima Ann,” said the small thin voice. ”Not be a dood dirl--do upstairs.”

She looked at her father again, and then, evidently perceiving that he was not to be moved by force, she changed her tactics. Her delicate, elfish face melted into the sweetest smile; she stood on tiptoe, holding out to him her tiny arms. With a laugh of irrepressible pride and pleasure, Roger stooped to her and lifted her up. She nestled on his shoulder--a small Odalisque, dark, lithe, and tawny, beside her handsome, fair-skinned father. And Roger's manner of holding and caressing her showed the pa.s.sionate affection with which he regarded her.

He again urged her to kiss her grandmother; but the child again shook her head. ”Then,” said he craftily, ”father must kiss granny.” And he began to cross the room.

But Lady Barnes stopped him, not without dignity. ”Better not press it, Roger: another time.”

Barnes laughed, and yielded. He carried the child away, murmuring to her, ”Naughty, naughty 'ittie girl!”--a remark which Beatty, tucked under his ear, and complacently sucking her thumb, received with complete indifference.

”There, you see!” said the grandmother, with slightly flushed cheeks, as the door closed: ”the child has been already taught to dislike me, and if Roger had attempted to kiss me, she would probably have struck me.”

”Oh, no!” cried Mrs. French. ”She is a loving little thing.”

”Except when she is jealous,” said Lady Barnes, with significance. ”I told you she has inherited more than her eyes.”

Mrs. French rose. She was determined not to discuss her hostess any more, and she walked over to the bow window as though to look at the prospects of the weather, which had threatened rain. But Roger's mother was not to be repressed. Resentment and antagonism, nurtured on a hundred small incidents and trifling jars, and, to begin with, a matter of temperament, had come at last to speech. And in this charming New Englander, the wife of Roger's best friend, sympathetic, tender, with a touch in her of the nun and the saint, Lady Barnes could not help trying to find a supporter. She was a much weaker person than her square build and her double chin would have led the bystander to suppose; and her feelings had been hurt.

So that when Mrs. French returned to say that the sun seemed to be coming out, her companion, without heeding, went on, with emotion: ”It's my son I am thinking of, Mrs. French. I know you're safe, and that Roger depends upon Mr. French more than upon anyone else in the world, so I can't help just saying a word to you about my anxiety. You know, when Roger married, I don't think he was much in love--in fact, I'm sure he wasn't. But now--it's quite different. Roger has a very soft heart, and he's very domestic. He was always the best of sons to me, and as soon as he was married he became the best of husbands. He's devoted to Daphne now, and you see how he adores the child. But the fact is, there's a person in this neighbourhood” (Lady Barnes lowered her voice and looked round her)--”I only knew it for certain this morning--who ... well, who might make trouble. And Daphne's temper is so pa.s.sionate and uncontrolled that----”

”Dear Lady Barnes, please don't tell me any secrets!” Elsie French implored, and laid a restraining hand on the mother's arm, ready, indeed, to take up her work and fly. But Lady Barnes's chair stood between her and the door, and the occupant of it was substantial.

Laura Barnes hesitated, and in the pause two persons appeared upon the garden path outside, coming towards the open windows of the drawing-room. One was Mrs. Roger Barnes; the other was a man, remarkably tall and slender, with a stoop like that of an overgrown schoolboy, silky dark hair and moustache, and pale gray eyes.

”Dr. Lelius!” said Elsie, in astonishment. ”Was Daphne expecting him?”

”Who is Dr. Lelius?” asked Lady Barnes, putting up her eyegla.s.s.

Mrs. French explained that he was a South German art-critic, from Wurzburg, with a great reputation. She had already met him at Eton and at Oxford.

”Another expert!” said Lady Barnes with a shrug.

The pair pa.s.sed the window, absorbed apparently in conversation. Mrs.

French escaped. Lady Barnes was left to discontent and solitude.

But the solitude was not for long.

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