Jock looked startled. How if there be no such rotifer?' he said. 'You don't really think there will be nothing to depend when we are both gone?'
'When?'
'Yes, I've a chance of getting on Cameron's staff in India.'
'Oh, that's all right, old fellow! Why, you'll be my next neighbour.'
'But about mother? You don't seriously think Ali and Armie will be nothing but dead weights on her?'
'Only as long as there's anybody to hold them up', said Bobus, perceiving that his picture had taken an effect the reverse of what he intended. 'They have no lack of brains, and are quite able to shift for themselves and mother too, if only they have to do it, even if she were a pauper, which she isn't.'
But it was with a less lightsome heart that Jock went to his quarters to prepare for a fancy ball, where he expected to meet Elvira, though whether he should approach her or not would depend on her own caprice.
It was a very splendid affair. A whole back garden, had been transformed into a vast pavilion, containing an Armida's garden, whose masses of ferns and piles of gorgeous flowers made delightful nooks for strangers who left the glare of the dancing-room, and the quaint dresses harmonised with the magic of the gaslight and the strange forms of the exotics.
The simple scarlet of the young Guardsman was undistinguished among the brilliant character-groups which represented old fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There were 'The White Cat and her Prince,' 'Puss-in- Boots and the Princess,' 'Little Snowflake and her Bear,' and, behold, here was the loveliest Fatima ever seen, in the well-known Algerine dress, mated with a richly robed and turbaned hero, whose beard was blue, though in ordinary life red, inasmuch as he was Lady Flora's impecunious and not very reputable Scottish peer of a brother. That lady herself, in a pronounced bloomer, represented the little old woman of doubtful identity, and her husband the pedlar, whose 'name it was Stout'; while not far off the Spanish lady, in garments gay, as rich as may be, wooed her big Englishman in a dress that rivalled Sir Nicolas Blount's.
There was a pretty character quadrille, and then a general melee, in which Jock danced successively with Cinderella and the fair equestrian of Banbury Cross, and lost sight of Fatima, till, just as he was considering of offering himself to little Bo-peep, he saw her looking a good deal bored by the Spanish lady's Englishman.
Tossing her head till the coins danced on her forehead, she exclaimed, 'Oh, there's my cousin; I must speak to him!' and sprang to her old companion as if for protection. 'Take me to a cool corner, Jock, ' she said, 'I am suffocating.'
'No wonder, after waltzing with a mountain.'
'He can no more waltz than fly! And he thinks himself irresistible! He says his dress is from a portrait of his ancestor, Sir Somebody; and Flora declares his only ancestor must have been the Fat Boy! And he thought I was a Turkish Sultana! Wasn't it ridiculous! You know he never says anything but 'Exactly.''
'Did he intone it so as to convey all this?'
'He is a little inspired by his ruff and diamonds. Flora says he wants to dazzle me, and will have them changed into paste before he makes them over to his young woman. He has just tin enough to want more, and she says I must be on my guard.'
'You want no guard, I should think, but your engagement.'
'What are you bringing that up for? I suppose you know how Allen wrote to me?' she pouted.
'I know that he thought it due to you to release you from your promise, and that he is waiting anxiously for your reply. Have you written?'
'Don't bore so, Jock,' said Elvira pettishly. 'It was no doing of mine, and I don't see why I should be teased.'
'Then you wish me to tell him that he is to take your silence as a release from you.'
'I authorise nothing,' she said. 'I hate it all.'
'Look here, Elvira,' said Jock, 'do you know your own mind? Nobody wants you to take Allen. In fact, I think he is much better quit of you; but it is due to him, and still more to yourself, to cancel the old affair before beginning a new one.'
'Who told you I was beginning a new one?' asked she pertly.
'No one can blame you, provided you let him loose first. It is considered respectable, you know, to be off with the old love before you are on with the new. Nay, it may be only a superstition.'
'Superstition!' she repeated in an awed voice that gave him his cue, and he went on-'Oh yes, a lady has been even known to come and shake hands with the other party after he had been hanged to give back her troth, lest he should haunt her.'
'Allen isn't hanged,' said Elvira, half frightened, half cross. 'Why doesn't he come himself?'
'Shall he? ' said Jock.
'My dear child, I've been running madly up and down for you!' cried Lady Flora, suddenly descending on them, and carrying off her charge with a cursory nod to the Guardsman, marking the difference between a detrimental and even the third son of a millionaire.
He saw Elvira no more that night, and the next post carried a note to Belforest.
31st May.
DEAR ALLEN-I don't know whether you will thank me, but I tried to get a something definite out of your tricksy Elf, and the chief result, so far as I can understand the elfish tongue, is, that she sought no change, and the final sentence was, 'Why doesn't he come himself?' I believe it is her honest wish to go on, when she is left to her proper senses; but that is seldom. You must take this for what it is worth from the buffoon, J. L. B.
Allen came full of hope, and called the next morning. Miss Menella was out riding. He got a card for a party where she was sure to be present, and watched the door, only to see her going away on the arm of Lord Clanmacnalty to some other entertainment. He went to Mr. Folliott's door, armed with a note, and heard that Lady Flora and Miss Menella were gone out of town for a few days. So it went on, and he turned upon Jock with indignation at having been summoned to be thus deluded. The undignified position added venom to the smart of the disregarded affection and the suspense as to the future, and Jock had much to endure after every disappointment, though Allen clung to him rather than to any one else because of his impression that Elvira's real preference was unchanged (such as it was), and that these failures were rather due to her friend than to herself.
This became more clear through Mrs. Evelyn. Her family had connections in common with the Dowager Lady Clanmacnalty, and the two ladies met at the house of their relation. Listening in the way of duty to the old Scottish Countess's profuse communications, she heard what explained a good deal.
Did she know the Spanish girl who was with Flora-a handsome creature and a great heiress? Oh yes; she had presented her. Strange affair! Flora understood that there was a deep plot for appropriating the young lady and her fortune.
'She had been engaged to Mr. Brownlow long before claims were known,' began Mrs. Evelyn.
'Oh yes! It was very ingeniously arranged, only the discovery was made too soon. I have it on the best authority. When the girl came to stay with Flora, her aunt asked for an interview-such a nice sensible woman-so completely understanding her position. She said it was such a distress to her not to be qualified to take her niece into society, yet she could not take her home, living so near, to be harassed by this young man's pursuit.'
'I saw Mrs. Gould myself,' said Mrs. Evelyn. 'I cannot say I was favourably impressed.'
'Oh, we all know she is not a lady; never professes it poor thing. She is quite aware that her niece must move in a different sphere, and all she wants is to have her guarded from that young Brownlow. He follows them everywhere. It is quite the business of Flora's life to avoid him.'
'Perhaps you don't know that Mrs. Brownlow took that girl out of a farmhouse, and treated her like a daughter, merely because they were second or third cousins. The engagement to Allen Brownlow was made when the fortune was entirely on his side.'
'Precaution or conscience, eh?' said the old lady, laughing. 'By the by, you were intimate with Mrs. Brownlow abroad. How fortunate for you that nothing took place while they had such expectations! Of no family, I hear, of quite low extraction. A parish doctor he was, wasn't he?'
'A distinguished surgeon.'
'And _she_ came out of some asylum or foundling hospital?'
'Only the home for officers' daughters,' said Mrs. Evelyn, not able to help laughing. 'Her father, Captain Allen, was in the same regiment with Colonel Brownlow, her husband's brother. I assure you the Menellas and Goulds have no reason to boast.'
