Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
Hawkins takes Florence; Sir George”--she waved her hand towards Miss Sewell. ”Now, Lord Fontenoy, you must take me; and the rest of you sort yourselves.”
As the young people, mostly cousins, laughingly did what they were told, Sir George held out his arm to Miss Sewell.
”I am very sorry for you,” he said, as they pa.s.sed into the dining-room.
”Oh! I knew it would be my turn,” said Letty, with resignation. ”You see, you took Florrie last night, and Aunt Watton the night before.”
George settled himself deliberately in his chair, and turned to study his companion.
”Do you mind warning me, to begin with, how I can avoid giving you a headache? Since this morning my nerve has gone--I want directions.”
”Well--” said Letty, pondering, ”let us lay down the subjects we _may_ talk about first. For instance, you may talk of Mrs. Hawkins.”
She gave an imperceptible nod which directed his eyes to the thin woman sitting opposite, to whom Harding Watton, a fas.h.i.+onable and fastidious youth, was paying but scant attention.
George examined her.
”I don't want to,” he said shortly; ”besides, she would last us no time at all.”
”Oh!--on the contrary,” said Letty, with malice sparkling in her brown eye, ”she would last me a good twenty minutes. She has got on my gown.”
”I didn't recognise it,” said George, studying the thin lady again.
”I wouldn't mind,” said Letty, in the same tone of reflection, ”if Mrs.
Hawkins didn't think it her duty to lecture me in the intervals of copying my frocks. If I disapproved of anybody, I don't think I should send my nurse to ask their maid for patterns.”
”I notice you take disapproval very calmly.”
”Callously, you mean. Well, it is my misfortune. I always feel myself so much more reasonable than the people who disapprove.”
”This morning, then, you thought me a fool?”
”Oh no! Only--well--I _knew_, you see, that I knew better. _I_ was reasonable, and--”
”Oh! don't finish,” said George, hastily; ”and don't suppose that I shall ever give you any more good advice.”
”Won't you?”
Her mocking look sent a challenge, which he met with outward firmness.
Meanwhile he was inwardly haunted by a phrase he had once heard a woman apply to the mental capacities of her best friend. ”Her _mind_?--her mind, my dear, is a shallow chaos!” The words made a neat label, he scoffingly thought, for his own present sensations. For he could not persuade himself that there was much profundity in his feelings towards Miss Sewell, whatever reckless possibilities life might seem to hold at times; when, for instance, she wore that particular pink gown in which she was attired to-night, or when her little impertinent airs suited her as well as they were suiting her just now. Something cool and critical in him was judging her all the time. Ten years hence, he made himself reflect, she would probably have no prettiness left. Whereas now, what with bloom and grace, what with small proportions and movements light as air, what with an inventive refinement in dress and personal adornment that never failed, all Letty Sewell's defects of feature or expression were easily lost in a general aspect which most men found dazzling and perturbing enough. Letty, at any rate within her own circle, had never yet been without partners, or lovers, or any other form of girlish excitement that she desired, and had been generally supposed--though she herself was aware of some strong evidence to the contrary--to be capable of getting anything she had set her mind upon. She had set her mind, as the spectators in this particular case had speedily divined, upon enslaving young George Tressady. And she had not failed. For even during these last stirring days it had been tolerably clear that she and his election had divided Tressady's mind between them, with a balance, perhaps, to her side. As to the _measure_ of her success, however, that was still doubtful--to herself and him most of all.
To-night, at any rate, he could not detach himself from her. He tried repeatedly to talk to the girl on his left, a n.o.ble-faced child fresh out of the schoolroom, who in three years' time would be as much Letty Sewell's superior in beauty as in other things. But the effort was too great. The strenuous business of the day had but left him--in fatigue and reaction--the more athirst for amus.e.m.e.nt and the gratification of another set of powers. He turned back to Letty, and through course after course they chattered and sparred, discussing people, plays and books, or rather, under cover of these, a number of those topics on the borderland of pa.s.sion whereby men and women make their first s.n.a.t.c.hes at intimacy--till Mrs. Watton's sharp grey eyes smiled behind her fan, and the attention of her neighbour, Lord Fontenoy--an uneasy attention--was again and again drawn to the pair.
Meanwhile, during the first half of dinner, a chair immediately opposite to Tressady's place remained vacant. It was being kept for the eldest son of the house, his mother explaining carelessly to Lord Fontenoy that she believed he was ”Out paris.h.i.+ng somewhere, as usual.”
However, with the appearance of the pheasants the door from the drawing-room opened, and a slim dark-haired man slipped in. He took his place noiselessly, with a smile of greeting to George and his neighbour, and bade the butler in a whisper aside bring him any course that might be going.
”Nonsense, Edward!” said his mother's loud voice from the head of the table; ”don't be ridiculous. Morris, bring back that hare _entree_ and the mutton for Mr. Edward.”
The newcomer raised his eyebrows mildly, smiled, and submitted.