Part 11 (2/2)
”I'm always found out, as a rule,” says Mrs. Bohun, with a light laugh.
”That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia, don't you?” indicating the tall, cold-looking woman near her, who so far unbends as to take Monica's hand kindly and bestow upon her one of her handsome smiles.
”She has come here to look after me and see that I don't get into a sc.r.a.pe or make myself unhappy.”
”Could you be unhappy?” says Rossmoyne, from behind her chair, in so disagreeable a tone that every one looks at him. ”Decidedly,” thinks Monica to herself, ”he has either neuralgia or an execrable temper.”
”Miserably so,” says the pretty widow, airily. ”Though, after all,”
reflectively, ”I believe I have even a greater talent for making others so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my fault. I was 'born so,' like that poor man with the twisted neck.”
”Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at all events,”
says Hermia Herrick. ”You have been in magnificent spirits ever since you came to Aghyohillbeg.”
”You've learned it?” says Olga, staring at her with pretended surprise.
”The name, I mean. Well, you _are_ clever. It takes most people four long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully happy here. I _ought_ to be. It would be the grossest ingrat.i.tude if I were otherwise, as all the men have been good enough to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is the princ.i.p.al thing.”
At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses his face unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws up his head and glances with a coldly displeased expression into the vague distance.
”Have you been here long?” asks Monica, turning to her friend.
”_Very_ long,” pettishly. Something--perhaps Rossmoyne--has annoyed the capricious beauty.
”Only a fortnight,” says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. ”You _must_ know that.”
”I don't judge time by days and weeks; it _seems_ long,” says Mrs.
Bohun, ”years,--an eternity almost!”
A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group. Rossmoyne's dark face grows darker still; the smile fades from Ronayne's face, a shadow falls athwart his eyes.
”I think I like the country,” says Monica, suddenly. ”It is so calm, so quiet, and there are moments when the very beauty of it brings tears to my eyes.”
”I love it too,” says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her pointedly in a friendly tone, although no introduction has been gone through between them. ”I wonder how any one who has once tasted the sweetness of it can ever again long for the heat and turmoil of the town.”
”Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing,” says Mrs. Bohun, ”but for what a _little_ time! Perhaps,--I am not sure,--but _perhaps_ I should like to live for three months of every year in the country. After that, I know I should begin to pine again for the smoke and s.m.u.ts of my town.”
”If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here,” says Lord Rossmoyne, sullenly.
”And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually so charming temper,” returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.
”Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion,” says some one at this moment. Monica starts more at the name mentioned than at the exceedingly worn-out words uttered. She glances at the speaker, and sees he is a very ugly young man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal expression. He is looking at Rossmoyne. ”Sit down, dear boy,” he says, _sotto voce_ and very sadly. ”There's too much of you; you should never stand. You appear to so much better advantage when doubled in two. It don't _sound_ well, does it? but----”
”But really, when you come to think of it,” Mrs. Bohun is saying, feelingly, ”there is very little in the country.”
”There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily,” says the sad man who mentioned Desmond's name. ”Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by saying you had forgotten those aesthetic flowers,--blossoms, I mean.
Don't you yearn when you think of them? _I_ do.”
”So glad you are awake at last, Owen!” says Mrs. Bohun.
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