“Do you know what he means, mother?” she cried. “Did you bring me to London to market? That’s what he means. Did you come to set up a booth in Vanity Fair? If you did, you must find other wares. Rintoul would make such a good salesman, it is a pity to balk him. But I am not going to be put up to auction,” cried the girl, springing to her feet. Then she laughed, though she was so angry. “I am going to get ready for a walk,” she said. “I think that delightful bonnet that Miss Macalister in Dunearn made for me will be the very thing for the Park—”
“Heaven above! do you let her have bonnets from Miss Macalister in Dunearn?” cried Rintoul, dismayed, as his sister disappeared. “Even in the country I would never consent to that.”
“You must not pour too much wisdom upon us all at once,” said his mother, “especially upon Edith, who is not used to it.” Lady Lindores could not take it all seriously. She was vexed at the bottom of her heart, yet could not but smile at the oracle who had so short a time before been simple Robin—her nice, kind, silly, lovable boy. He had not ceased to be lovable even in his new development as Mentor and man of the world.
“That is all very well, mother; but if you make a joke of it, what is the good of coming to town at all?” cried Rintoul, with his serious face—too serious to be angry. “Edith may flare up if she pleases—she doesn’t know any better; but surely you must understand she has never had her chance. Who is to see her down in the country? There was Torrance of course, but Carry snapped him up.”
“Robin,” said his mother, her countenance changing, “I desire you will not speak in that heartless, vulgar way. Yes, my boy, it is vulgar, though you think it so wise. Poor Carry, to her sorrow, has snapped up, as you say, a most unsuitable husband and a miserable life. I wish I was free of blame in that matter. We must make the best of it now, since there’s no remedy; but to speak as if Carry’s marriage was something to be envied—”
“Well, Torrance is rather a brute,” Rintoul acknowledged, somewhat subdued; “but what a place and what a position! Carry’s boy, with our connection and all that money, may be—anything she chooses to make him—”
“Carry’s boy is not half so much to me as Carry herself,” said Lady Lindores, gravely; “but that is done, and we must make the best of it,” she added, with a sigh.
“A girl may pick up a bad husband anywhere,” said Rintoul, regaining his confidence. “It just as often happens in a hot love-match as in anything else. There’s Lily Trevor, old Lord Warhawk’s daughter, would never rest till they had let her marry Smithers of the Blues—and they say he beats her. Charley Floyd says there never was such a wretched ménage; and she might have married half-a-dozen fellows, every one a better match than Smithers. There’s no accounting for these sort of things. But, mamma, unless we’re all mad together, we must give Edith her chance. By Jove, when you think of it, she’s past her first bloom!” (“and that’s mostly the thing that fetches,” he added parenthetically, under his breath)—“she’s twenty-one, mother! The moment she’s seen anywhere, people will begin to calculate when she came out: and it’s three seasons back! That does a girl more harm than anything. There’s always a little added on to everyone’s age, and I shouldn’t wonder in the least if they made her out to be thirty! She doesn’t look it, fortunately; but what are looks, when half the women one sees are made up like pictures? But mind my words, mother—you will repent it all your life if you don’t make up your mind now to give Edith one real good chance.”
Lady Lindores made no reply. She began to lose her sense of amusement, and to feel vexed and humiliated, sore and wroth, as parents do when their children parade before them sentiments which are unworthy. Perhaps a woman cannot be quite just in such a predicament. It may be all an unconscious fiction, this atrocious precocious cynicism and worldliness of youth. Nothing is ever so cruelly conventional, so shamelessly egoistical, as the young disciple of social philosophy, who is possibly hiding a quivering and terrified youthful heart beneath that show of abominable wisdom. But it is hard for a mother whose whole heart is bent on finding excellence and nobleness in her child, to be tolerant of what appears to be such apparent and unmistakable unworthiness. Lady Lindores felt, while her son was speaking, as if some barbarous giant had got her heart in his hand and crushed it, clinching his cruel grasp. She did not look at him while he pleaded that Edith might have her chance, nor answer him when he had spoken. What could she say to the boy who could thus discourse to her like an old man learned in all wickedness? There was a poignant sting of injured pride, too, in the sensation with which she listened to him. This from the boy she had trained, to whom she must have given his first conception of life, of women and their ways! Had it been her example, against her will, unconscious of any such possibility, that had taught him to despise them? She looked at the young face so dear to her, and which was now full of all the gravity of conviction, endeavouring to enforce its doctrines upon her mind, with a mixture of hot impatience and hopeless toleration. Poor boy! this was what he really thought, honestly believed, though he was her son! His eyes were quite impressive in their sincerity. “She ought to see people,”
