A Double Knot Part 26

"He was a very old friend of poor mamma's."

"Poor mamma?" said Lord Henry inquiringly.

"Oh yes; poor mamma and papa died when we were very little girls, and we have been with our aunts ever since."

Lord Henry sipped his wine, gazed sidewise at his beautiful companion, and sighed. He thought of Gertrude Millet, and let his eye rest from time to time upon her brother, vainly trying to trace a resemblance, and also that though Lady Millet had undoubtedly seemed pleased by his advances, Gertrude had been chilling, and Marie Dymc.o.x was not.

Possibly, too, as the old man sighed, he thought that he had no time to lose now that he had been thinking that he would marry, and he sighed again as if in regret of something he had lost, something he might have had, but had been too careless or indifferent to win.

A close observer would have noticed that there were tears in his eyes just then. Lady Littletown was a close observer, and by the aid of her eyegla.s.s she did notice it, and secretly hugged herself.

"But you go out a good deal--to parties, to concerts, or b.a.l.l.s?"

"Oh no!" laughed Marie, and her white teeth showed beneath her coral lips, while Major Malpas, who was nearly opposite, looked at her intently from beneath his heavy eyelids, and softly stroked his moustache. "I was never at a party before."

"And do you like it?" said Lord Henry, beaming upon her, as, with a secret kind of satisfaction, he quietly admired the animated countenance beside him.

"Oh yes, yes," she said softly. "I can't help liking it very much."

"Well," said Lord Henry, smiling in quite a pleased manner, "why should you help liking it?"

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully; "only we are always so quiet at the Palace, and aunts have often said that too much gaiety was bad."

"Too much, my dear child. Yes, certainly; but a little is very pleasurable, and innocent, and good."

Marie's eyes, as they met his, said that they were delighted to hear it, and as she sat and let the quiet, chivalrous old gentleman draw her out, no one would have credited her with being one of the heroines of some of the schoolroom scenes in which poor little Ruth had been the victim.

Lord Henry Moorpark grew more and more thoughtful as he chatted on with his companion. There was something inexpressibly refreshing in Marie's words and ways, and he, too, congratulated himself upon the dinner-party, which he had looked upon as a nuisance, and to which he had come solely out of respect for Lady Littletown, turning out so pleasurable and fresh.

He was not the only elderly guest who thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, for the Honourable Isabella Dymc.o.x partook of her share of the courses in a state of, for her, unwonted flutter. In accordance with the plotting and planning that had been at work in the Palace coterie, she had come fully prepared to give a furtive observation to what was going on with Clotilde and Marie, the children who, with her sister, she was fain to confess had arrived at a marriageable age; but from the moment she had laid her tremulous hand upon Marcus Glen's arm, and had been led by him to her seat, her nieces had been forgotten.

Certainly Glen had several times over exchanged glances with Clotilde, and taken notice of the fact that Elbraham was growing more and more familiar and loud; but all the same he had found ample time to devote himself with a good deal of a.s.siduity to Miss Isabella, making her at first surprised and cold, soon after pleased and full of agreeable thoughts, and at last thoroughly gratified at the way in which her companion attended to her lightest wishes and conversed upon society at Hampton Court.

"I--I won't be so foolish as so think he means anything," said Miss Isabella to herself; "for he is quite young and manly-looking, almost handsome, while I am getting very old indeed, and all hope of _that_ is past; but he is very nice and gentlemanly, and so very different to officers as a rule. I must say I like him very much."

She showed, too, that she did as soon as the cold formal crust had been melted away, and Marcus was not slow to realise the fact.

He was perfectly honest, for he knew that the Honourable Isabella was the aunt of Clotilde, and being as impressionable as most young men of his age, he had felt to some extent the power of that lady's eyes.

Under the circ.u.mstances, as he had been thrown with the relative, he had thought it fair campaigning to make friends with her, and this he had done to such an extent that the attentions she had received, and a gla.s.s or two of wine, made the lady very communicative, and far happier than her sister, who found the dinner much less to her taste.

For Major Malpas was not best pleased at having to take her in, and he had confined himself to the most frigid civilities. He was perfectly gentlemanly, but as the dinner wore on he grew more polite, and by consequence the Honourable Philippa became icy in her manner, till at last she seemed to be frozen stiff.

"Humph!" he thought, "better have gone and sat with Renee Morrison.

Yes," he continued, staring hard at d.i.c.k, "your sister, my half-fledged c.o.c.kerel."

The other guests merely formed chorus to the princ.i.p.al singers in the little social opera, but they were wonderfully led by Lady Littletown, whose tongue formed her conductor's baton, by which she swayed them with a practised ease.

She had a word in season for everyone where it was needful to keep up the balance of the parts, and wonderfully skilful was her way. She gave a great deal of her time to everybody, but little Richard Millet never missed any of her attentions. In a very short time she had quite won his confidence, and knew that Major Malpas was a regular plunger, that Captain Glen was the dearest and best fellow in the world, that he hadn't any more vice in him than a child, that they were the dearest of friends, and that Marcus had only about two hundred and fifty a year besides his pay.

"I begin to like Hampton Court, Lady Littletown," said the boy warmly, for the champagne had been frequent.

"I'm sure you'll love the place when you begin to know us better. Of course you will come to all my 'at homes?'"

"That I will," exclaimed the delighted youth. "By the way, Lady Littletown, what lovely girls those Miss Dymc.o.xes are!"

"Yes, are they not?" replied Lady Littletown; "but oh, fie, fie, fie!

This will not do. I will not listen to a single word. I'm not going to lend myself to any match-making. What would Lady Millet say?"

"But, really, Lady Littletown--"

"Oh dear me, no; I will not listen. I know too well, sir, what you officers are--so wicked and reckless, and given to breaking ladies'

hearts. I think I shall absolutely forbid you even approaching them when you come up to the drawing-room. I would not for the world be the means of causing any heart diseases amongst my guests."

"But surely, Lady Littletown, a fellow may admire at a distance?"

"Oh dear no," said her ladyship playfully; "I think not. I'm afraid you are a very bad, dangerous man, and I shall have to withdraw my invitation."

d.i.c.k Millet pleaded; the invitation was not withdrawn; and the little fellow was better satisfied with himself than he had felt for months.

"It's an uncommonly well got-up affair, after all," he thought; "but I wish the ladies would go now. I want to get the wine over, and go up to the drawing-room."

To the little fellow's satisfaction the long-drawn-out repast did come to an end, that cleverly-managed signal was given which acts electrically at a certain stage of a dinner; the ladies rose, and in place of one of the younger gentlemen opening the door, Lord Henry performed that duty, a genial but half-sad smile playing about his thin, closely-shaven lips, as Marie looked up in his face in pa.s.sing. Then the last lady went out, and the gentlemen closed up to their coffee and wine.

Somehow or other, Marcus Glen found himself now near Lord Henry, and while a knot of listeners heard Mr Elbraham's opinion upon the Eastern Question, especially with regard to the new Sultan and the position of Egypt, the young officer entered into a quiet discussion upon the history of the old Palace, and was surprised and pleased to find how much his companion knew of the past days of the old red-brick building, but above all at the genial, winning manner the old gentleman possessed.

Acting the part of host now for the time being, he soon proposed that they should adjourn, for there was a strange longing within him to be within sight and hearing of Marie.

"Ah, to be sure," said Elbraham; "if I wanted to invest, gentlemen, I should say Egyptian bonds. By all means, let's join the ladies."

He, too, had come to the conclusion that he should like "another talk to that girl." But the drawing-room was filling fast, and there were no more _tete-a-tetes_. Arthur Litton arrived soon after ten, and his chief approached him to shake hands, as if they had not met for some time.

"Well?" said Litton.

"Stunning, sir, stunning! 'Bove par."

"Oh!"

"Deuced good dinner, Litton, 'pon my soul. People not half so sn.o.bbish as I expected to find them. I say, look here. What do you think of that piece of goods?"

He indicated Clotilde, about whom d.i.c.k Millet was now hovering; but who had turned from him to listen to a remark just made by Glen.

"Hum, ha!" said Litton critically. "Oh, that's one of the Dymc.o.x girls, isn't it?"

"I didn't ask you anything about who she is; I said what do you think of her?"

"Not bad-looking, I should say," replied Litton coolly; "but nothing particular."

"Oh, you be blowed!" said the great financier, and he screwed his short thick neck down a little lower into his chest, and turned away.