Part 43 (1/2)

'And do you think there is no attraction in goodness, in freshness and innocence, candour, generosity--?'

'I don't know. But I think that if Mary's nose had been a thought longer, and if she had kept her skin free from freckles she would have been almost pretty.'

'Do you really? Luckily for Mary the man who is going to marry her thinks her lovely.'

'I suppose he likes freckles. I once heard a man say he did. He said they were so original--so much character about them. And, pray, who is the man?'

'Your old adorer, and my dear friend, John Hammond.'

Lesbia turned as pale as death--pale with rage and mortification. It was not jealousy, this pang which rent her shallow soul. She had ceased to care for John Hammond. The whirlpool of society had spun that first fancy out of her giddy brain. But that a man who had loved the highest, who had wors.h.i.+pped her, the peerless, the beautiful, should calmly transfer his affections to her younger sister, was to the last degree exasperating.

'Your friend Mr. Hammond must be a fickle fool,' she exclaimed, 'who does not know his own mind from day to day.'

'Oh, but it was more than a day after you rejected him that he engaged himself to Molly. It was all my doing, and I am proud of my work. I took the poor fellow back to Fellside last March, bruised and broken by your cruel treatment, heartsore and depressed. I gave him over to Molly, and Molly cured him. Unconsciously, innocently, she won that n.o.ble heart.

Ah, Lesbia, you don't know what a heart it is which you so nearly broke.'

'Girls in our rank of life can't afford to marry n.o.ble hearts,' said Lesbia, scornfully. 'Do you mean to tell me that Lady Maulevrier consented to the engagement?'

'She cut up rather rough at first; but Molly held her own like a young lioness--and the grandmother gave way. You see she has a fixed idea that Molly is a very second-rate sort of person compared with you, and that a husband who was not nearly good enough for you might pa.s.s muster for Molly; and so she gave way, and there isn't a happier young woman in the three kingdoms than Mary Haselden.'

'What are they to live upon?' asked Lesbia, with an incredulous air.

'Mary will have her five hundred a year. And Hammond is a very clever fellow. You may be sure he will make his mark in the world.'

'And how are they to live while he is making his mark? Five hundred a year won't do more than pay for Mary's frocks, if she goes into society.'

'Perhaps they will live without society.'

'In some horrid little hovel in one of those narrow streets off Ecclestone Square,' suggested Lesbia, shudderingly. 'It is too dreadful to think of--a young woman dooming herself to life-long penury, just because she is so foolish as to fall in love.'

'Your days for falling in love are over, I suppose, Lesbia?' said Maulevrier, contemplating his sister with keen scrutiny.

The beautiful face, so perfect in line and colour, curiously recalled that other face at Fellside; the dowager's face, with its look of marble coldness, and the half-expressed pain under that, outward calm. Here was the face of one who had not yet known pain or pa.s.sion. Here was the cold perfection of beauty with unawakened heart.

'I don't know; I am too busy to think of such things.'

'You have done with love; and you have begun to think of marriage, of establis.h.i.+ng yourself properly. People tell me you are going to marry Mr. Smithson.'

'People tell you more about me than I know about myself.'

'Come now, Lesbia, I have a right to know the truth upon this point.

Your brother--your only brother--should be the first person to be told.'

'When I am engaged, I have no doubt you will be the first person, or the second person,' answered Lesbia, lightly. 'Lady Kirkbank, living on the premises, is likely to be the first.'

'Then you are not engaged to Smithson?'

'Didn't I tell you so just now? Mr. Smithson did me the honour to make me an offer yesterday, at about this hour; and I did myself the honour to reject him.'

'And yet you were whispering together in the box last night, and you were riding in the Row with him this morning. I just met a fellow who saw you together. Do you think it is right, Lesbia, to play fast and loose with the man--to encourage him, if you don't mean to marry him?'