“He scarcely looks the kind of man to appreciate that particular form of attention. Tivett, now, would be delighted with such a gift. There is nothing too microscopic or too feminine to interest that dear little man.”
“He is a dear little man. It is quite delightful to hear him talk about London people and London parties.”
“Did he set you longing to be in the whirl of a London season?”
“I don’t know. It would be very nice, for once in one’s life; but I am quite happy in our country home, as long as—as,” she faltered a little, “father is well and contented.”
He felt that in this faltering phrase there was a hint of domestic cares. Hubert Hartley had told him, during a few minutes’ talk on the omnibus, that Colonel Marchant was something of a Bohemian, and a difficult man to get on with.
“I always feel sorry for those five girls of his,” Sir Hubert concluded.
“You are wise in liking your country life,” said Vansittart. “It is the happier life. All my best days are at Merewood—our place near Liss. Do you know Liss, by the by?”
“No, indeed. I know there is such a place somewhere between here and Portsmouth.”
“You must have passed it, I think. I dare say you sometimes go to Southsea or to the Isle of Wight for your summer holidays.”
“You dare to say too much,” she answered, with her frank, girlish laugh. “We never go anywhere for our summer holidays. We live in the same house all the year round. When a poor man has five daughters he can’t afford to carry them about to seaside lodgings, which are always dreadfully dear in the season, I am told. I think we ought to go back to the ballroom. I am engaged for the next waltz.”
“And I, to a most exacting partner.”
The waltz was half over when they entered the dancing-room, and Hilda Champernowne, who saw them enter side by side, looking very happy, was evidently offended.
“It is hardly worth while standing up,” she said; “the waltz is just over.”
“I thought it had only just begun.”
“That shows how engrossed you must have been.”
“I was giving a young lady some supper, and a young lady who might have starved but for me.”
“Impossible! The young lady was Miss Marchant, whom you yourself pronounced the belle of the ball. Mr. Tivett told me so.”
“In such an assembly as this—where there is some of the best blood in England—there are many belles,” said Vansittart. “Will you come for a turn round the rooms, if you won’t dance?”
The lady rose, and took his arm, somewhat mollified, and in the course of that turn—which could not, from the limited space, last very long—she questioned Vansittart sharply about Miss Marchant. Did he think her good style? Had he found her bright and clever in conversation, or was she very dull?
“The poor things go nowhere, I am told, except to garden-parties, where they are lost in a crowd of nobodies. It has been too sad to see them sitting with that awful woman in the red gown. Why do girls go to dances to endure such purgatory? I would as soon sit in the pillory, like Daniel Defoe, as in that corner with the crimson lady.”
“Oh, but they have been dancing a good deal. Theirs is not quite such a piteous case as you make out.”
“Have they really?” asked Miss Champernowne, with a disparaging drawl; “I’m glad someone has taken compassion upon them. They’ve always been sittin’ when I happened to look their way.”
The Champernownes and the Marchants met an hour later in the cloakroom, and this time Lady Hartley formally introduced the Miss Marchants to the haughty Devonians, in the hope that this might make the return journey a little more sociable; a vain hope, for the Champernownes and Miss Green affected to be overcome by sleep as soon as they had settled themselves in the omnibus. So Mr. Tivett and the Marchants had all the talk to themselves, as before, with an occasional kindly word from the hostess, who was genuinely sleepy, and who dreamt that she and the Marchant girls were travelling in Italy, and that their carriage was stopped by brigands.
The brigand-in-chief was her own groom, who came to open the door, and assist the young ladies to alight at their garden gate. But he was not allowed to do more than hold the door open, for Vansittart was standing on the whitened road ready to hand his partner and her sisters to the ground. They alighted as airily as Mercury on the heaven-kissing hill.
“Dear Lady Hartley, we have no words to express our gratitude,” said Sophy, as Maud shook hands with her at parting.
Eve was less demonstrative, but not less grateful, and the youngest of the three only murmured something unintelligible from between the folds of her tartan shawl.
Vansittart opened a low wooden gate. The house stood boldly out against the clear moonlit sky; but he had no time to look at it, for he was absorbed in guiding Eve Marchant’s footsteps on the slippery garden path, while the groom followed in attendance on her sisters. The path was smooth as glass, and he almost held her in his arms as they went slowly up the sharp little hill that led to the rustic porch.
An old woman opened the door, and the three girls were speedily absorbed into a dark vestibule, a single candle glimmering in the distance.
“Are we very late, Nancy?” asked Eve.
“Not later than I thowt you’d be,” answered the woman, with a north-country accent; and then there was nothing for Vansittart to do except to wish the three sisters good night, and go back to the bus, where Sir Hubert was beginning to be uneasy about his horses waiting in the frosty air.
“Cuts into them like knives,” said Sir Hubert, as his brother-in-law clambered on
