The Three Brides

'If you would it would be an immense relief, my dear. Raymond is very much annoyed; she says she will speak to nobody till she has had an apology.'

'Then she can be as great a goose as I! Why, the Yankee muse and Mrs. Duncombe took all in good part; but Cecil has not atom of fun in her. Don't you think that was the gift the fairies left out at the christening of the all- endowed princess?'

Mrs. Poynsett laughed, but anxiously. 'My dear, if you can make peace, it will be a family blessing.'

'I! I'll eat any dirt in the world, and make Tom eat it too, rather than you should be vexed, or make discord in the house,' cried Rosamond, kissing her, and speeding away to Cecil's door.

It was Raymond who opened it, looking perturbed and heated, but a good deal amazed at seeing his intended scapegoat coming thus boldly to present herself.

'Let me in,' she breathlessly said. 'I am come to tell Cecil how sorry I am she was so much vexed; I really did not know it before.'

'I am ready to accept any proper apology that is offered me,' said Cecil, with cold dignity; 'but I cannot understand your profession that you did not know I was vexed. You could have intended nothing else.'

'But, Cecil, you misunderstood-' began Rosamond.

'I never misunderstand-'

'No human creature can say that!' interposed Raymond, immensely thankful to Rosamond-whatever her offence-for her overtures, and anxious they should be accepted.

'I could not,' continued Cecil, 'misunderstand the impertinent insults offered to my friends and to myself; though if Lady Rosamond is willing to acknowledge the impropriety I will overlook it.'

Raymond's face and neck crimsoned, but Raymond's presence helped her to rein in her temper; and she thought of Julius, and refrained from more than a 'Very well. It was meant as a harmless joke, and-and if you-you did not take it so, I am very sorry.'

Raymond saw the effort, and looked at his wife for softening; but as he saw none, he met the advance by saying kindly, 'I am sure it was so meant, though the moment was unfortunate.'

'Indeed it was so,' cried Rosamond, feeling it much easier to speak to him, and too generous to profess her own innocence and give up Tom. 'It was just a moment's idle fancy-just as we've chaffed one another a hundred times; and for the Blockhead, it is the boys' pet old stock charade that they've acted scores of times. It was mere thoughtlessness; and I'll do or say anything Cecil pleases, if only she won't bother Julius or Mrs. Poynsett about our foolishness.' And the mist of tears shone in the dark lashes as she held out her hand.

'I cannot suppose it mere thoughtlessness-' began Cecil; but Raymond cut her short with angry displeasure, of which she had not supposed him capable. 'This is not the way to receive so kind an apology. Take Rosamond's hand, and respond properly.'

To respond properly was as little in Cecil's power as her will; but she had not been an obedient daughter for so large a proportion of her life without having an instinct for the voice of real authority, and she did not refuse her hand, with the words, 'If you express regret I will say no more about it.'

And Rosamond, thinking of Julius and his mother, swallowed the ungraciousness, and saying 'Thank you,' turned to go away.

'Thank you most heartily for this, my dear Rosamond,' said Raymond, holding out his hand as he opened the door for her; 'I esteem it a very great kindness.'

Rosamond, as she felt the strong pressure of his hand, looked up in his face with a curious arch compassion in her great gray eyes. He shut the door behind her, and saw Cecil pouting by the mantelpiece, vexed at being forced into a reconciliation, even while she knew she could not persist in sending all the family except Frank to Coventry. He was thoroughly angry at the dogged way in which she had received this free and generous peace-making, and he could not but show it. 'Well,' he said, 'I never saw an apology made with a better grace nor received with a worse one.'

Cecil made no reply. He stood for a minute looking at her with eyes of wondering displeasure, then, with a little gesture of amazement, left the room.

Cecil felt like the drowning woman when she gave the last scissor-like gesture with her fingers. She was ready to fall into a chair and cry. A sense of desolateness was very strong on her, and that look in his dark eyes had seemed to blast her.

But pride came to her aid. Grindstone was moving about ready to dress her for dinner. No one should see that she was wounded, or that she took home displeasure which she did not merit. So she held up her head, and was chilling and dignified all dinner-time; after which she repaired to Lady Tyrrell's conversazione.

CHAPTER XIX. The Monstrous Regiment of Women

Descend, my muse!

Raymond had been invited by one of his fellow-guests to make a visit at his house, and this was backed up on the morning after his return by a letter containing a full invitation to both himself and his wife. He never liked what he called 'doing nothing in other people's houses,' but he thought any sacrifice needful that might break up Cecil's present intimacies, and change the current of her ideas; and his mother fully agreed in thinking that it would be well to being a round of visits, to last until the Session of Parliament should have begin. By the time it was over Julius and Rosamond would be in their own house, and it might be easier to make a new beginning.

The friends whom he could reckon on as sure to welcome him and his bride were political acquaintances of mark, far above the Dunstone range, and Cecil could not but be gratified, even while Mrs. Duncombe and her friend declared that they were going to try to demoralize her by the seductions of the aristocracy.

After all, Cecil was too much of an ingrained Charnock to be very deeply imbued with Women's Rights. All that she wanted was her own way, and opposition. Lady Tyrrell had fascinated her and secured her affection, and she followed her lead, which was rather that of calm curiosity and desire to hear the subject ventilated than actual partisanship, for which her ladyship was far too clever, as well as too secure in her natural supremacy. They had only seemed on that side because other people were so utterly alien to it, and because of their friendship with the really zealous Mrs. Duncombe.

The sanitary cause which had become mixed with it was, however, brought strongly before their minds by Mrs. Tallboys' final lecture, at which she impressed on the ladies' minds with great vehemence that here they might lead the way. If men would not act as a body, the ladies should set the example, and shame them, by each doing her very utmost in the cleansing of the nests of disease that reeked in the worn-out civilization of the cities of the old country. The ladies listened: Lady Tyrrell, with a certain interest in such an eager flow of eloquence; Eleonora, with thoughts far away. Bessie Duncombe expressed a bold practical determination to get one fragment, at least, of the work done, since she knew Pettitt, the hair-dresser, was public-spirited enough to allow her to carry out her ideas on his property, and Cecil, with her ample allowance, as yet uncalled for, in the abundance of her trousseau, promised to supply what the hair-dresser could not advance, as a tangible proof of her sincerity.

She held a little council with Mrs. Duncombe at the working society, when she resigned her day into that lady's hands on going away. 'I shall ask Mrs. Miles Charnock,' said that lady. 'You don't object?'

'Oh no, only don't ask her till I'm gone, and you know she will only come on condition of being allowed to expound.'

'We must have somebody, and now the thing has gone on so long, and will end in three months, the goody element will not do much harm, and, unluckily, most women will not act without it.'

'You have been trying to train Miss Moy.'

'I shall try still, but I can't get her to take interest in anything but the boisterous side of emancipation.'

'I can't bear the girl,' said Cecil; 'I am sure she comes only for the sake of the horses.'

'I'm afraid so; but she amuses Bob, and there's always a hope of moving her father through her, though she declares that the Three Pigeons is his tenderest point, and that he had as soon meddle with it as with the apple of his eye. I suppose he gets a great rent from that Gadley.'

'Do you really think you shall do anything with her?' said Cecil, who might uphold her at home, but whose taste was outraged by her.

'I hope so! At any rate, she is not conventional. Why, when I was set free from my school at Paris, and married Bob three months later, I hadn't three ideas in my head beyond horses and balls and soldiers. It has all come with life and reading, my dear.'