After that little apologetic remark about the chaperon, there followed a silence, the Champernownes and Miss Green remaining figures of stone, and Maud Hartley feeling that she had done her duty as hostess. The carriage rolled merrily over the frost-bound road, and the hoofs of the four horses sounded like an advance of cavalry in the winter stillness. Perhaps the silence inside the omnibus would have lasted all the way to Mandelford had it not been for little Mr. Tivett, who sat between two Miss Champernownes, half hidden among billows of snowy gauze, peeping out at the three pretty faces on the other side of the bus, with bright, inquisitive eyes, like a squirrel out of his nest.
“I don’t know what I have done to offend you, Lady Hartley, that you should not think me worthy to be introduced to these young ladies,” said the good little man at last.
“My dear Mr. Tivett, it was an oversight on my part. I forgot that you and the Miss Marchants had not met before. Of course, you are dying to know them.—Miss Marchant, allow me to introduce Mr. Tivett, a devoted admirer of your sex—a gentleman who knows more about a lady’s dress, and a lady’s accomplishments and amusements, than one woman in a hundred.”
“My dear Lady Hartley,” remonstrated Tivett, in his piping voice, “Miss Marchant will run away with the idea that I am a horrible effeminate little person.”
“She will very soon discover that you are the most obliging little person, and I dare say she will end by being as fond of you as I am.”
“Dearest Lady Hartley, how delightful of you to say that!” exclaimed Mr. Tivett, with a coquettish giggle, darting out his little suède glove to give his hostess an affectionate pat on the shoulder; “and now you have heard my character, Miss Marchant, please will you give me a dance?”
“With pleasure,” replied Eve, wondering whether she would look very ridiculous spinning round a public ballroom with this funny little man, who was small enough to be almost hidden in the Champernowne draperies; “which shall it be?”
“Oh, the first waltz after our arrival, and I hope your sisters will each give me one of the extras.”
“I shall be very glad,” said the girl in the tartan shawl. “I don’t suppose I shall have too many partners.”
Mr. Tivett looked at the three faces critically. The eldest girl was much the prettiest, but there was a family likeness. The faces were all of one type, and they were all pretty. It smote Mr. Tivett’s gentle heart to think these nice girls should be so badly dressed, while the Champernownes, who always snubbed him, and whom he hated, were glorious in frocks fresh from Bond Street. Lady Hartley had not exaggerated Mr. Tivett’s devotion to the fair sex. He loved the society of young matrons and girls in their teens, was never happier than when making himself useful to the ladies of the family, and especially rejoiced when consulted upon any question of etiquette or costume. He was reputed to have faultless taste in dress, and an exquisite tact in all social matters; and when two matrons of his acquaintance happened to quarrel, each was apt to impart the story of her wrongs to Mr. Tivett, whose only difficulty was to be the adviser of both, without seeming unfaithful to either. He was not a sportsman, and he pleaded a weak chest as a reason for loving easy-chairs, and cosy corners in boudoirs and morning-rooms, and a seat in a carriage when other men were walking. His Christian name was Augustus; but he was always known as Gus, or Gussie.
Having been introduced to the eldest sister, Mr. Tivett was on easy terms with the three girls in about five minutes, and for the rest of the journey the four were prattling gaily, Lady Hartley chiming in now and then, just for civility’s sake, while the other women maintained their unfriendly silence.
“I knew we should be late,” Claudia Champernowne exclaimed at last, as the omnibus drew up at a lighted door, and she saw the long line of carriages filling the rustic street from end to end.
Miss Green and the Champernownes marched at once to the cloakroom, an upper room over the shop, whither Lady Hartley followed. The Marchant girls fell back, and lingered in the vestibule—said vestibule being neither more nor less than the cabinetmaker’s empty shop, transformed by scarlet and white draperies and evergreens in pots. The Marchants felt that Lady Hartley’s hospitality came to an end at the door of the ballroom, and that they would do ill to attach themselves to her party.
“I think we had better wait here for our chaperon,” said Eve, as Maud looked back at her from the stairs. “I’m sure we can never be too grateful to you for bringing us, Lady Hartley.”
“Please don’t speak of such a trifle. I am to take you home, remember. You must look out for us at three o’clock.”
“At three o’clock,” thought Jenny, of the tartan shawl; “that’s as much as to say, ‘In the meantime we don’t know you.’ ”
They waited in a little group near the stairs, and saw the three Champernownes come sweeping down, swanlike, beautiful, “in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,” and Miss Green in a very severe, tight-fitting yellow silk frock, with a shortish skirt, and round her homely-complexioned throat a collet necklace of emeralds without flaw or feather; and Lady Hartley in a fuss and flutter of palest blue, which seemed just the most telling background for her diamonds. She had diamonds everywhere, butterflies, stars, true lovers’ knots, hearts, and horseshoes, dotted about bust and shoulders amongst the soft fluffiness of azure gauze; diamonds in her hair, in her ears, on her arms. And yet she did not look vulgarly fine. The slender elegance of her form, the delicate colouring of her face and neck
