Part 14 (1/2)

”You needn't hedge, Mr. Dromard,” said the girl, smiling.

”Eh?”

”I shan't expect an invitation!”

She nodded knowingly as he blushed; but he had the great merit of being easily amused, and with another word she made him merry and at ease again. Not unreasonably, perhaps, a casual spectator might have suspected these two of a mild but immediate flirtation. Stanley, however, was at a safe and privileged age, and no eye was on him but his brother's. Lord Manister gave the impression of being a rather dignified person in his own home, but he was doing his gracious duty by the guests, none of whom seemed especially to occupy his attention, while he was reasonably polite to all. It was he, too, who at length suggested to Lady Dromard that Miss Luttrell would probably sing something if she were asked.

So Christina sang something--it hardly matters what. Her song was not a cla.s.sic, neither was it grossly popular. It was a pleasant song, pleasantly sung, and the entire absence of pretentiousness and of affectation in the song and the singing was more noticeable than the positive excellence of either. The girl had no greater voice than one would have expected of so small a person, but what she had was in keeping. Lady Dromard, however, had a more sensitive appreciation of good taste than of good music, and she asked for more. Christina sang successively something of La.s.sen's, and then ”Last Night,” taking the English words in each case. She played her own accompaniments, and felt little nervousness until her last song was finished, when it certainly startled her to find Lady Dromard standing at her side.

”Thank you!” said the countess with considerable enthusiasm. ”You sing delightfully, and you sing delightful songs. You must have been very well taught.”

”Mostly in the bush,” said Christina truthfully.

”You come from the bush?”

”But you had some lessons in Melbourne,” put in Ruth, who was visibly delighted.

”Oh, yes, a few,” Tiny said, smiling; ”as many as I was worth.”

”Ah, you shall tell me about Melbourne one day soon,” said Lady Dromard to the young girl. ”Your sister has promised to come over and watch the cricket. I do hope you will come with her.”

Christina expressed her pleasure at the prospect, and, taking the nearest seat, found Lord Manister leaning over the end of the piano and looking down upon her with a rather sardonic smile.

”You haven't looked at me this evening,” he said to her under cover of the general conversation, which was now renewed. ”May I ask what I have done?”

”Certainly you may ask, Lord Manister,” answered the girl with immense simplicity; ”but I can't tell you, because I am not aware that you have done anything beyond making us all very happy and at home.”

”Well, I'm glad to hear that,” said Manister, whose quasi-humorous tone lacked the lightness to deceive; ”I was afraid I had offended you.”

”Offended me!” cried Christina, with widening eyes and a puzzled look.

”When have you seen me to offend me! I haven't seen you since your garden party, and you certainly didn't offend me then--you were awfully nice to us all!”

”Ah, that wasn't seeing you,” Lord Manister murmured. ”I don't reckon that I've seen you since--the photographs. I had to go to Scotland; I meant to tell you.”

”It wouldn't have interested me,” said Christina, with a shrug. ”It might have interested me if you had said--you were _not_ going,” she added next moment. Her tone had dropped. She looked at him and smiled.

Her smile stayed with him after she was gone; but from his face you would not have guessed that he was nursing a kind look. She had given him one smile, which made up for many things. But you would have thought, with his people, that he had been suffering the whole evening from acute boredom: you might well have fancied, with Lady Mary, that a remark disparaging Australian women would have met with a grateful response from him. The response it did meet with was anything but grateful to Lady Mary Dromard. It drove her from the room, in which Manister and his mother were presently left alone.

”I think you were just,” the countess said critically. ”They are pleasant people, and quite all right. The young man is their weak point.”

”They always are,” her son remarked, rather savagely still. ”They're larrikins!”

”The young girl was especially nice, and sang like a lady.”

”Ah, you approve of her,” said Lord Manister dryly.

”Entirely, I think. Evidently you don't. I only saw you speak to her once, toward the end. Yet she has met you in Australia; I should have recognized that, I think. Now her people,” Lady Dromard added tentatively, ”will be rather superior, I suppose, as colonials go?”