Part 46 (2/2)

”How do you do, Tom?” Lady Chetwoode says, putting her a little to one side to welcome her husband, but still holding her hand. ”I do hope you two have come to stay a long time in the country.”

”Yes, until after Christmas, so you will have time to grow heartily sick of us,” says Mrs. Steyne. ”Ah, Florence.”

She and Florence press cheeks sympathetically, as though no evil pa.s.sages belonging to the past have ever occurred between them. And then Lady Chetwoode introduces Lilian.

”This is Lilian,” she says, drawing her forward. ”I have often written to you about her.”

”My supplanter,” remarks Mabel Steyne, turning with a smile that lights up all her handsome brunette face. As she looks at Lilian, fair and soft and pretty, the rather _insouciant_ expression that has grown upon her own during her encounter with Florence fades, and once more she becomes her own gay self. ”I hope you will prove a better companion to auntie than I was,” she says, with a merry laugh, taking and pressing Lilian's hand. Lilian instinctively returns the pressure and the laugh. There is something wonderfully fetching in Mrs. Steyne's dark, brilliant eyes.

”She is the best of children!” Lady Chetwoode says, patting Lilian's shoulder; ”though indeed, my dear Mabel, I saw no fault in you.”

”Of course not. Have you noticed, Miss Chesney, Lady Chetwoode's greatest failing? It is that she will not see a fault in any one.”

”She never mentioned your faults, at all events,” Lilian answers, smiling.

”I hope your baby is quite well?” Florence asks, calmly, who is far too well bred ever to forget her manners.

”The darling child,--yes,--I hope she is well,” Lady Chetwoode says, hastily, feeling as though she has been guilty of unkindness in not asking for the baby before. Miss Beauchamp possesses to perfection that most unhappy knack of placing people in the wrong position.

”Quite, thank you,” answering Lady Chetwoode instead of Florence, while a little fond glance that is usually reserved for the nursery creeps into her expressive eyes. ”If you admired her before, you will quite love her now. She has grown so big and fat, and has such dear little sunny curls all over her head!”

”I like fair babies,” says Lilian.

”Because you are a fair baby yourself,” says Cyril.

”She can say Mammy and Pappy quite distinctly, and I have taught her to say Auntie very sweetly,” goes on Mrs. Steyne, wrapt in recollection of her offspring's genius. ”She can say 'cake' too, and--and that is all, I think.”

”You forget, Mabel, don't you?” asks her husband, languidly. ”You underrate the child's abilities. The other day when she was in a frenzy because I would not allow her to pull out my moustache in handfuls she said----”

”She was never in a frenzy, Tom,” indignantly: ”I wonder how you can say so of the dear angel.”

”Was she not? if _you_ say so, of course I was mistaken, but at the time I firmly believed it was temper. At all events, Lady Chetwoode, on that momentous occasion she said, 'Nanna warragood,' without a mistake. She is a wonderful child!”

”Don't pay any attention to him, auntie,” with a contemptuous shrug. ”He is himself quite idiotic about baby, so much so that he is ashamed of his infatuation. I shall bring her here some day to let you see her.”

”You must name the day. Would next Monday suit you?”

”You needn't press the point,” Tom Steyne says, warningly: ”but for me, the child and its nurse would be in the room at this moment. Mab and I had a stand-up fight about it in the hall just before starting, and it was only after a good deal of calm though firm expostulation I carried the day. I represented to her that as a rule babies are not invited out to dine at eight o'clock at night, and that children of her age are generally more attractive to their mothers than to any one else.”

”Barbarian!” says Lady Chetwoode.

”How have you been getting on in London, Mab,” asks Cyril. ”Made any new conquests?”

”Several,” replies Tom; ”though I think on the whole she is going off.

She did not make up her usual number this season. She has, however, on her list two nice boys in the F. O., and an infant in the Guards. She is rather unhappy about them, as she cannot make up her mind which it is she likes best.”

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