'I am very glad and thankful! I only wish you had seen him last week. He was better then, but he had a worry about our little nephew, which threw him back.'
'So he told me. The more quiescent and amused you can keep him, the more chance of a fair recovery there will be. I am glad he thinks of dining with the party to-night.'
'I am glad he still thinks. I had to come away early, when he had still left it doubtful.'
'I encouraged the idea with all my might.'
'Do you think he will be able to go back to his parish?'
'Most assuredly not while every worry tells on him in this manner. You must, if possible, take him abroad for the winter, before he begins to think about it.'
'He has leave of absence for a year.'
'Dating from Easter, I think. Keep him in warm climates as long as you can. Find some country to interest him without over-fatigue, and you will, I hope, be able to bring him home fit to consider the matter.'
'That is all you promise?'
'All I dare-not even to promise-but to let you hope for.'
An interruption came; one of the young ladies had had her skirt trodden on, and wanted it to be stitched up. Then came Jane Mohun to deposit a handkerchief which some one had dropped. 'I can stay a moment,' she said; 'no one will come to buy till the masque is ended. Oh, this red cloak will be the death of me!'
'You look highly respectable without it.'
'I shall only put it on for the coup d'oeil at first. Oh, Geraldine, what is to be done with that horrid little Maura?'
'The pretty little Greek girl-Mrs. Henderson's sister?'
'Oh! it is not Mrs. Henderson's fault, nor my sister Ada's either, except that the little wretch must have come round her. I know Ada meant to stay away on that very account.'
'What account?'
'Ivinghoe's, to be sure! Oh! I forgot. You are so much one of us that I did not remember that you did not know how the foolish boy was attracted-no, that's too strong a word-but she thought he was, when they were here to open Rotherwood Park. He did flirt, and Victoria- his mother, I mean-did not like it at all. She would never have come this time, but that I assured her that Maura was safe at Gastein!'
'Is it so very undesirable?'
'My dear! Their father was old White's brother, a stone-mason. He was raised from the ranks, but his wife was a Greek peasant-and if you had seen her, when the Merrifield children called her the Queen of the White Ants! Ivinghoe is naturally as stiff and formal as his mother, I am not much afraid for him, except that no one knows what that fever will make of a young man, and I don't want him to get his father into a scrape. There, I have exhaled it to you, and there is a crowd as if the masque was done with.'
It was, and the four hundred auditors were beginning to throng about the stalls, strays coming up from time to time, and reporting with absolute enthusiasm on the music and acting. Marilda was one of these.
'Well, Cherry, I saw no great harm in it after all, and Francie looked sweetly pretty, just as poor Alda did when she first came to us. Lance must make his own excuses to Alda. But Gerald looked horridly ill! He sang very well, but he had such red spots on his cheeks! I'd get Clement's doctor to sound him. Lord Rotherwood was quite complimentary. Now I must go and buy something-I hear there is the Dirty Boy-I think I shall get it for Fernan's new baths and wash-houses. Then isn't there something of yours, Cherry?'
'Not to compete with the Dirty Boy.'
'Ah! now you are laughing at me, Cherry. Quite right, I am glad to hear you do it again.'
The next visitor was Lance.
'Oh, Cherry, how cool you look! Give me a cup of tea-not refreshment-stall tea. That's right. Little Francie is a perfect gem-looks and voice-not acting-no time for that. Heigh-ho!'
'Where's Gerald?'
'Somewhere about after that Merrifield niece with the doleful name, I fancy. He did very well when it came to the scratch.'
'Have you seen Dr. Brownlow? He has been to see Clement.'
'That's first-rate! Where shall I find him?'
'Somewhere about, according to your lucid direction, I suppose.'
'What does he think of old Tina?'
Geraldine told him, and was rather surprised, when he whistled as though perplexed, and as Fergus rushed in, glorious with the news that Sir Ferdinand had bought his collection of specimens for the Bexley museum, he rose up, looking perturbed, to find Dr. Brownlow.
Next came Gillian with news that the Dirty Boy was sold to Lady Travis Underwood.
'And mayn't I stay a moment or two?' said she. 'Now the masque is over, that Captain Armytage is besetting me again.'
'Poor Captain Armytage.'
'Why do you pity him? He is going to join his ship, the Sparrow Hawk, next week, and that ought to content him.'
'Ships do not always fill a man's heart.'
'Then they ought. I don't like it,' she added, in a petulant tone. 'I have so much to learn and to do, I don't want to be tormented about a tiresome man.'
'Well, he will be out of your way to-morrow.'
'Geraldine, that is a horrid tone.'
'If you choose to put meaning in it, I cannot help it.'
'And that horrid little Maura! She is in the most awful flutter, standing on tiptoe, and craning out her foolish little neck. I know it is all after Ivinghoe, and he never has come to our counter! Kalliope has been trying to keep her in order, but I'm sure the Queen of the White Ants must have been just like that when she got poor Captain White to marry her. Kalliope is so much vexed, I can see. She never meant to have her here. And Aunt Ada stayed away on purpose.'
'Has she seen much of him?'
'Hardly anything; but he did admire her, and she never was like Kalliope. But what would Aunt Ada do? Oh dear! there's that man! He has no business at Aunt Jane's charity stall. I shall go and tell him so.'
Geraldine had her little private laugh before Adrian came up to her with a great ship in his arms-
'Take care of this, Aunt Cherry. She is going to sail on the Ewe. I bought her with the sovereign Uncle Fernan gave me.'
Geraldine gave the ship her due admiration, and asked after the masque.
'Oh, that went off pretty well. I wouldn't have been Fely! All the ladies went and said 'Pretty dear!' when he sang his song about the bat's back.
Disgusting! But then he has not been a fellow at school, so he made his bow and looked as if he didn't mind it.'
'And Francie?'
'Francie looked perfectly stunning. Everybody said so, and she sang- -well, she sang better than she did at home; but she was in an awful funk, though I kept on looking at her, and shouting bravo to encourage her; and she must have heard my voice, for I was just in front.'
'I hope she was encouraged.'
'But she is very stupid. I wanted to take her round to all the stalls, and show her what to buy with the five Jubilee sovereigns Uncle Fernan gave her, for you know she has never been anywhere, or seen anything. I thought she would like it, and besides, all our fellows say they never saw such an awfully pretty girl, and they can't believe all that hair is her own-she had it all down her back, you know-so I told them I would let them have a pull to try.'
'Poor Francie! She declined, I suppose?'
'Well, there was that ridiculous swell, Fergus's cousin, Ivinghoe, and he has taken her off to see the stupid flowers in the conservatory. I told Sophy I wondered she permitted such flirting, but of course Francie knew no better.'
'Oh! and you couldn't stop it?'
