Part 15 (2/2)
”Juliana, Miss Brent tells me she has never seen our roses. Oh, there are other roses in Hanaford, Miss Brent; I don't mean to imply that no one else attempts them; but unless you can afford to give _carte blanche_ to your man--and mine happens to be something of a specialist...well, if you'll come with me, I'll let them speak for themselves. I always say that if people want to know what we can do they must come and see--they'll never find out from _me_!”
A more emphatic signal from his wife arrested Mr. Gaines as he was in the act of leading Miss Brent away.
”Eh?--What? The Amhersts and Mrs. Ansell? You must excuse me then, I'm afraid--but Westy shall take you. Westy, my boy, it's an ill-wind.... I want you to show this young lady our roses.” And Mr. Gaines, with mingled reluctance and satisfaction, turned away to receive the most important guests of the day.
It had not needed his father's summons to draw the expert Westy to Miss Brent: he was already gravitating toward her, with the nonchalance bred of cosmopolitan successes, but with a directness of aim due also to his larger opportunities of comparison.
”The roses will do,” he explained, as he guided her through the increasing circle of guests about his mother; and in answer to Justine's glance of enquiry: ”To get you away, I mean. They're not much in themselves, you know; but everything of the governor's always begins with a capital letter.”
”Oh, but these roses deserve to,” Justine exclaimed, as they paused under the evergreen archway at the farther end of the lawn.
”I don't know--not if you've been in England,” Westy murmured, watching furtively for the impression produced, on one who had presumably not, by the great blush of colour ma.s.sed against its dusky background of clipped evergreens.
Justine smiled. ”I _have_ been--but I've been in the slums since; in horrible places that the least of those flowers would have lighted up like a lamp.”
Westy's guarded glance imprudently softened. ”It's the beastliest kind of a shame, your ever having had to do such work----”
”Oh, _had_ to?” she flashed back at him disconcertingly. ”It was my choice, you know: there was a time when I couldn't live without it.
Philanthropy is one of the subtlest forms of self-indulgence.”
Westy met this with a vague laugh. If a chap who was as knowing as the devil _did_, once in a way, indulge himself in the luxury of talking recklessly to a girl with exceptional eyes, it was rather upsetting to discover in those eyes no consciousness of the risk he had taken!
”But I _am_ rather tired of it now,” she continued, and his look grew guarded again. After all, they were all the same--except in that particular matter of the eyes. At the thought, he risked another look, hung on the sharp edge of betrayal, and was s.n.a.t.c.hed back, not by the manly instinct of self-preservation, but by some imp of mockery lurking in the depths that lured him.
He recovered his balance and took refuge in a tone of worldly ease. ”I saw a chap the other day who said he knew you when you were at Saint Elizabeth's--wasn't that the name of your hospital?”
Justine a.s.sented. ”One of the doctors, I suppose. Where did you meet him?”
Ah, _now_ she should see! He summoned his utmost carelessness of tone.
”Down on Long Island last week--I was spending Sunday with the Amhersts.” He held up the glittering fact to her, and watched for the least little blink of awe; but her lids never trembled. It was a confession of social blindness which painfully negatived Mrs. Dressel's hint that she knew the Amhersts; if she had even known _of_ them, she could not so fatally have missed his point.
”Long Island?” She drew her brows together in puzzled retrospection. ”I wonder if it could have been Stephen Wyant? I heard he had taken over his uncle's practice somewhere near New York.”
”Wyant--that's the name. He's the doctor at Clifton, the nearest town to the Amhersts' place. Little Cicely had a cold--Cicely Westmore, you know--a small cousin of mine, by the way--” he switched a rose-branch loftily out of her path, explaining, as she moved on, that Cicely was the daughter of Mrs. Amherst's first marriage to Richard Westmore.
”That's the way I happened to see this Dr. Wyant. Bessy--Mrs.
Amherst--asked him to stop to luncheon, after he'd seen the kid. He seems rather a discontented sort of a chap--grumbling at not having a New York practice. I should have thought he had rather a snug berth, down there at Lynbrook, with all those swells to dose.”
Justine smiled. ”Dr. Wyant is ambitious, and swells don't have as interesting diseases as poor people. One gets tired of giving them bread pills for imaginary ailments. But Dr. Wyant is not strong himself and I fancy a country practice is better for him than hard work in town.”
”You think him clever though, do you?” Westy enquired absently. He was already bored with the subject of the Long Island doctor, and vexed at the lack of perception that led his companion to show more concern in the fortunes of a country pract.i.tioner than in the fact of his own visit to the Amhersts; but the topic was a safe one, and it was agreeable to see how her face kindled when she was interested.
Justine mused on his question. ”I think he has very great promise--which he is almost certain not to fulfill,” she answered with a sigh which seemed to Westy's anxious ear to betray a more than professional interest in the person referred to.
”Oh, come now--why not? With the Amhersts to give him a start--I heard my cousin recommending him to a lot of people the other day----”
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