Part 37 (1/2)

”I'll apologise,” Major Guthrie Brimston gasped.

But Captain Clarence turned on his heel, and walked back to his wife as if he had not heard.

How the inquiry was conducted was not made public. But when it was _said_ that the Clarences had been cleared, and _seen_ that the Guthrie Brimstons had not suffered, society declared it to have been a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, which left matters exactly where they were before. Those who chose to believe in the calumny continued to do so, and _vice versa_, the only difference being that Evadne's generous action in the matter brought blame upon herself from one set, and also--what was worse--brought her into a kind of vogue with another which would have caused her to rage had she understood it. For the story that she had ”said things which no woman could repeat,” added to the fact that she was seen everywhere with a lady whose reputation had been attacked, made men of a certain cla.s.s feel a sudden interest in her.

”Birds of a feather,” they maintained; then spoke of her slightingly in public places, and sent her bouquets innumerable.

Her next decided action, however, put an effectual stop to this nuisance.

CHAPTER IX.

Colonel Colquhoun came to Evadne one day, and asked her if she would not go out.

She put down her work, rose at once, smiling, and declared that she should be delighted.

There had been a big regimental guest night the day before, and Colonel Colquhoun had dined at mess, and was consequently irritable. Acquiescence is as provoking as opposition to a man in that mood, and he chose to take offence at Evadne's evident anxiety to please him.

”She makes quite a business of being agreeable to me,” he' reflected while he was waiting for her to put her hat on. ”She requires me to be on my good behaviour as if I were a school-boy out for a half-holiday, and thinks it her duty to entertain me by way of reward, I suppose.”

And thereupon he set himself determinedly against being entertained, and accordingly, when Evadne rejoined him and made some cheerful remark, he responded to it with a sullen grunt which did small credit to his manners either as a man or a gentleman, and naturally checked the endeavour for the moment so far as she was concerned.

As he did not seem inclined to converse, she showed her respect for his mood by being silent herself. But this was too much for him. He stood it as long as he could, and then he burst out; ”Do you never talk?”

”I don't know!” she said, surprised. ”Do you like talkative women?”

”I like a woman to have something to say for herself.”

While Evadne was trying in her slow way to see precisely what he meant by this little outbreak, they met one of the officers of the regiment escorting a very showy young woman, and as everybody in Malta knows everybody else in society, and this was a stranger, Evadne asked--more, however, to oblige Colonel Colquhoun by making a remark than because she felt the slightest curiosity on the subject; ”Who is that with Mr.

Finchley? A new arrival, I suppose?”

”Oh, only a girl he brought out from England with him,” Colonel Colquhoun answered coa.r.s.ely, staring hard at the girl as he spoke, and forgetting himself for once in his extreme irritability. ”He ought not to bring her here, though,” he added carelessly.

Mr. Finchley had pa.s.sed them, hanging his head, and pretending not to see them. Evadne flushed crimson.

”Do you mean that he brought out a girl he is not married to, and is living with her here?” she asked.

”That is the position exactly,” Colonel Colquhoun rejoined, ”and I'll see him in the orderly room to-morrow and interview him on the subject. He has no business to parade her publicly where the other fellows' wives may meet her; and I'll not have it.”

Evadne said no more. But there was a ball that evening, and during an interval between the dances, when she was standing beside Colonel Colquhoun and several ladies in a prominent position and much observed, for it was just at the time when she was at the height of her unenviable vogue--Mr. Finchley came op and asked her to dance.

She had drawn herself up proudly as he approached, and having looked at him deliberately, she turned her back upon him.

There was no mistaking her intention, Colonel Colquhoun's hand paused on its way to twirl his blond moustache, and there was a perceptible sensation in the room.

Captain Belliot shook his head with the air of a man who has been deceived in an honest endeavour to make the best of a bad lot, and is disheartened.

”She took me in completely,” he said. ”I should never have guessed she was that kind of woman. What is society coming to?”