Through the open window, however, there were borne now and again to the little girl, odd fragments of their talk.
“Ida and Sefton had a desperate quarrel overnight,” once she heard Juliet say.
And as the child stood on tiptoes to peep at an Emperor butterfly which had settled on the great golden disc of a tall sunflower, there came to her the words from Juliet in a slightly contemptuous tone:
“Peggy has begun her old trick of peeping into my letters, and—”
But here Goody’s voice interposed with, “Hush, my dearie, not so loud,” and then Goody’s hand showing amid the flowers on the sill closed the casement.
IX
Juliet went sauntering home under the shadow of the high hedgerows, pink now with trailing wild rose, and half-opened buds of honeysuckle.
It was a delicious day, with sun enough to suggest the tropics, breeze enough to make one think of the Alps. The air seemed absolutely laden with flower-scents; a distant sharpening of a scythe, the faraway tinkling of a sheep-bell, were the only sounds that broke the stillness of the summer air.
Juliet had many subjects for thought that morning. A little absentmindedly she turned the corner of a lane that led her at least a mile out of her way, and brought her back to the Hall by the park gates opening into the high-road.
A carriage and pair on the point of driving out pulled up at her approach.
“At last!” exclaimed a voice from out of the carriage. “You naughty child, where have you been?”
Juliet looked up to see a very tiny, very golden-haired, and very fashionably attired lady closing her sunshade, and extending a hand in greeting.
“Mrs. Glynde!” she exclaimed, “have you dropped out of the clouds? When, where, and how did you get here?”
“I caught the first train down this morning, arrived at Dering station three hours ago, called at the MacNamaras’ on my way here, and they were good enough to let me have their carriage. No, I won’t go back to the house; I’m sure your father and mother—”
“Wha‑t?” exclaimed Juliet, making round eyes at her.
“Oh, I beg your pardon—your father and Lady Culvers, I mean—have had more than enough of my society; they have been entertaining me for the past hour and a half. If you don’t mind I’ll take a stroll round the park with you, I’ve something very special to tell you.”
She alighted as she spoke.
Juliet led the way down a cool avenue where young lime-trees arched their boughs above, and tall bracken waved its graceful fronds on either side of a stretch of greensward, smooth and springy with its undergrowth of moss.
“I’m miserable, brokenhearted, desolate!” exclaimed Mrs. Glynde, so soon as she saw that she and Juliet had the solitude to themselves.
But whatever her misery and desolateness might have caused her to neglect, it assuredly was not her toilet. That suggested, alike in its elaborateness and finish, the most artistic of Parisian modistes, and the most skilful and assiduous of maids.
Mrs. Glynde’s friends were thoroughly aware of the fact that at its lowest computation her age could not be far off fifty. Dress, however, and the use of toilet accessories, reduced it in appearance to about five-and-thirty.
“I could easily make myself look as young as she does, if I chose to spend a fortune on cosmetics,” sometimes her friends would say ill-temperedly to their husbands.
“I would much rather you did not, my dear,” those husbands as a rule would reply.
But, all the same, when the choice was offered to them, they generally preferred Mrs. Glynde’s society to that of the more sober-minded matrons, for in conversation she was invariably lively and entertaining, and in manner sympathetic.
Juliet racked her brains to find out what could have broken Mrs. Glynde’s heart.
“Let me think. You have seen someone in a bonnet that must have been ‘created’ in Paris at the same time as yours—twin-sister to it, in fact.”
“Juliet, it’s far worse than that. It’s about Arthur.”
“Oh‑h! only touches you at second hand, then. He can’t find a rhyme to some pet word of his, and he scorns to pilfer one, I suppose?”
“Cruel child! Do you think a trifle like that would have made me get up at six o’clock in the morning, and sent me flying down into the wilderness when I’m due today at a luncheon, a flower-show, a dinner, and a ball afterwards, at which the Royalties will be present? Give me credit for devotion to Arthur, if for nothing, else.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll give you credit for devotion to Arthur, and for a good many other things,” answered Juliet, lightly, and with a side glance at the golden hair which appeared to have “Auricomus” written upon it.
“What sacrifice will not a mother make on behalf of a son, and an only son, like my Arthur?” continued the lady.
“What, indeed! Luncheons, flower-shows, dinners, balls, and Royalties included.”
“Juliet, you have no heart. You are a second Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and I believe if my poor Arthur were going to commit suicide, you’d—”
“ ‘Hold your course without remorse, and slay him with a vacant stare,’ or something like that. But is he contemplating anything so terrible as bullets, or knives, or prussic acid?”
“Something quite as terrible. Only yesterday he came to me and announced his intention of joining an expedition to Central Africa. ‘I have lost heart, I have lost hope!’ he said. ‘Something I must do to fill my life!’ ”
She ended her sentence with a heavy sigh.
“Oh‑h, is that all he is going to do?” And Juliet drew a long breath that seemed to imply surprise and disappointment commingled.
“All! What could be worse?” cried Mrs. Glynde, despairingly.
“A great many things. Now if I were Mrs. Glynde, and Arthur were my son, I should feel that it would be a good deal worse if he had come to me
