Part 39 (1/2)

They were driving up the narrow avenue to the gates of Hurlingham by this time. Lesbia shock out her frock and looked at her gloves, tan-coloured mousquetaires, reaching up to the elbow, and embroidered to match her frock.

To-day she was a study in brown and gold. Brown satin petticoat embroidered with marsh marigolds; little bronze shoes, with marsh marigolds tied on the lachets; brown stockings with marsh marigold clocks; tunic brown foulard smothered with quillings of soft brown lace; Princess bonnet of brown straw, with a wreath of marsh marigold and a neat little buckle of brown diamonds; parasol brown satin, with an immense bunch of marsh marigolds on the top; fan to match parasol.

The seats in front of the field were nearly all full when Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia left their carriage; but their interests had been protected by a gentleman who had turned down two chairs and sat between them on guard. This was Mr. Smithson.

'I have been sitting here for an hour keeping your chairs,' he said, as he rose to greet them. 'You have no idea what work I have had, and how ferociously all the women have looked at me.'

The match was going on. The Lancers were scuffling for the ball, and affording a fine display of hog-maned ponies and close-cropped young men in ideal boots. But Lesbia cared very little about the match. She was looking along the serried ranks of youth and beauty to see if anybody's frock was smarter than her own.

No. She could see nothing she liked so well as her brown satin and b.u.t.tercups. She sat down in a perfectly contented frame of mind, pleased with herself and with Seraphine--pleased even with Mr. Smithson, who had shown himself devoted by his patient attendance upon the empty chairs.

After the match was over the two ladies and their attendant strolled about the gardens. Other men came and fluttered round Lesbia, and women and girls exchanged endearing smiles and pretty little words of greeting with her, and envied her the brown frock and b.u.t.tercups and Mr. Smithson at her chariot wheel. And then they went to the lawn in front of the club-house, which was so crowded that even Mr. Smithson found it difficult to get a tea-table, and would hardly have succeeded so soon as he did if it had not been for the a.s.sistance of a couple of Lesbia's devoted Guardsmen, who ran to and fro and badgered the waiters.

After much skirmis.h.i.+ng they were seated at a rustic table, the blue river gleaming and glancing in the distance, the good old trees spreading their broad shadows over the gra.s.s, the company crowding and chattering and laughing--an animated picture of pretty faces, smart gowns, big parasols, j.a.panese fans.

Lesbia poured out the tea with the prettiest air of domesticity.

'Can you really pour out tea?' gasped a callow lieutenant, gazing upon her with goggling, enraptured eyes. 'I did not think you could do anything so earthly.'

'I can, and drink it too,' answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I adore tea.

Cream and sugar?'

'I--I beg your pardon--how many?' murmured the youth, who had lost himself in gazing, and no longer understood plain English.

Mr. Smithson frowned at the intruder, and contrived to absorb Lesbia's attention for the rest of the afternoon. He had a good deal more to say for himself than her military admirers, and was altogether more amusing.

He had a little cynical air which Lesbia's recent education had taught her to enjoy. He depreciated all her female friends--abused their gowns and bonnets, and gave her to understand, between the lines, as it were, that she was the only woman in London worth thinking about.

She looked at him curiously, wondering how Belle Trinder had been able to resign herself to the idea of marrying him.

He was not absolutely bad looking--but he was in all things unlike a girl's ideal lover. He was short and stout, with a pale complexion, and sunken faded eyes, as of a man who had spent the greater part of his life by candle light, and had pored much over ledgers and bank books, share lists and prospectuses. He dressed well, or allowed himself to be dressed by the most correct of tailors--the Prince's tailor--but he never attempted to lead the fas.h.i.+on in his garments. He had no originality. Such sublime flights as that of the man who revived corduroy, or of that daring genius who resuscitated the half-forgotten Inverness coat, were unknown to him. He could only follow the lead of the highest. He had small feet, of which he was intensely proud, podgy white hands on which he wore the most exquisite rings. He changed his rings every day, like a Roman Emperor; was reported to have summer and winter rings--onyx and the coolest looking intaglios set in filagree for warm weather--fiery rubies and diamonds in ma.s.sive bands of dull gold for winter. He was said to devote half-an-hour every morning to the treatment of his nails, which were perfect. All the inkstains of his youth had been obliterated, and those nails which had once been bitten to the quick during the throes of financial study were now things of beauty.

Lady Lesbia surveyed Mr. Smithson critically, and shuddered at the thought that this person was the best subst.i.tute which the season had yet offered her for her ideal knight. She thought of John Hammond, the tall, strong figure, straight and square; the head so proudly carried on a neck which would have graced a Greek arena. The straight, clearly-cut features, the flas.h.i.+ng eyes, bright with youth and hope and the promise of all good things. Yes, there was indeed a man--a man in all the n.o.bility of manhood, as G.o.d made him, an Adam before the Fall.

Ah, if John Hammond had only possessed a quarter of Mr. Smithson's wealth how gladly would Lesbia have defied the world and married him.

But to defy the world upon nothing a year was out of the question.

'Why didn't he go on the Stock Exchange and make his fortune?' thought Lesbia, pettishly, 'instead of talking vaguely about politics and literature.'

She felt angry with her rejected lover for having come to her empty-handed. She had seen no man in London who was, or who seemed to her, his equal. And yet she did not repent of having rejected him. The more she knew of the world and the more she knew of herself the more deeply was she convinced that poverty was an evil thing, and that she was not the right kind of person to endure it.

She was inwardly making these comparisons as they strolled back to the carriage, while Mr. Smithson and Lady Kirkbank talked confidentially at her side.

'Do you know that Lady Kirkbank has promised and vowed three things for you?' said Mr. Smithson.

'Indeed! I thought I was past the age at which one can be compromised by other people's promises. Pray what are those three things?'

'First, that you will come to breakfast in Park Lane with Lady Kirkbank next Wednesday morning. I say Wednesday because that will give me time to ask some nice people to meet you; secondly, that you will honour me by occupying my box at the Lyceum some evening next week; and thirdly, that you will allow me to drive you down to the Orleans for supper after the play. The drive only takes an hour, and the moonlight nights are delicious at this time of the year.'

'I am in Lady Kirkbank's hands,' answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I am her goods, her chattels; she takes me wherever she likes.'