Diana Tempest Volume I Part 10

"So should I," said Di, quietly, "if I did not like him so much."

"You do like him, then?"

"I do, and I mean to act on the square by him!"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do, granny, perfectly! I have known him too long to alter my manner to him. I know him by heart. If I once begin to be serious and reserved with him, if I once fail to keep him at arm's length, which talking nonsense does, his feeling towards me, which only amuses him now, will become serious too. Lord Hemsworth is not so superficial as he seems. He would have been in earnest before now if I would have let him, and he is the kind of man who could be very much in earnest. I can't help his playing with edged tools, but I _can_ prevent his cutting himself."

"My dear, he is in love with you now, and has been for the last six months."

"Yes," said Di, "he is in a way; but he would be much worse if he had had encouragement."

"And what do you call allowing him to talk to you for half an hour on the stairs, if it is not encouragement? You may be certain there was not a creature there who did not think you were encouraging him."

"I don't mind what creatures think, as long as I don't _do_ the thing.

And he knows well enough I don't!"

"Why _not_ do it, if you like him?"

"Well, granny," said Di, after a pause, "the way I look at it is this. I don't mean only about Lord Hemsworth, but about any one who, well, who is interested in me--really interested in me, I mean; not one of the sham ones who want to pa.s.s the time. I never consider them. I say something like this to myself. 'Di, do you observe that man?' 'Yes,' I say, 'my eye is upon him.' 'Are you aware that he will come and speak to you the first instant he can?' 'Yes, I know that.' 'Look at him well.'

Then I look at him. 'What do you think of him?' 'He is rather nice-looking,' I say, 'and he is pleasant to talk to, and he has the right kind of collars. I like him.' 'Di,' I say to myself very solemnly--you have no idea how solemn I am on these occasions--'are you willing to prefer him to the rest of the whole universe, to listen to his conversation for the remainder of your natural life, to knock under to him entirely; in short, to take him and his collars for better for worse?' 'No, of course not,' I say indignantly; 'I should not think of such a thing!' 'Then,' I reply, 'you have no earthly right to let him think you might be persuaded to; or to allow him to take a single one of the preliminary steps in that direction, however gratifying it may be to your vanity to see him do it, or however sorry you may be to lose him.

He is paying you the highest compliment a man can pay a woman. One good turn deserves another. He has seen you looking at him. Here he comes to try the first rung of the ladder. Stop him at once, before he has climbed high enough for a fall. He will soon go away if he thinks you are heartless and frivolous. Well, then, he is a good fellow. He deserves it at your hands. Let him think you heartless, and send him away none the worse.' That is something of what I feel about men--I mean the nice ones, granny."

Mrs. Courtenay raised her eyes to the ceiling of the carriage, and her two hands made a simultaneous upheaval under her voluminous wraps. Her hopes for Lord Hemsworth had suffered a severe shock during the last few minutes, and words were a relief.

"Of all the egregious folly I have heard in the course of a long life,"

she remarked, "I think that takes the palm. How do you suppose any woman in the whole world, or man either, would marry if they looked at marriage like that? Things come gradually."

"Not with me, granny," said Di, promptly. "Either I see them or I don't see them; and at the beginning I always look on to the end, just as one does in a novel to see whether it is worth reading. I can't pretend to myself when I walk in the direction of church bells that I don't know I shall arrive at the church in the end, however pleasant the walk may be."

"You will never marry, so you may as well make up your mind to it," said Mrs. Courtenay, who was already revolving an entirely new idea in her mind, which cast Lord Hemsworth completely into the shade. "If you are so fond of looking at the future, you had better amuse yourself by picturing yourself as a penniless old maid."

"I wish there was something one could be between an old maid and a married woman," said Di. "I think if I had my choice I would be a widow."

Mrs. Courtenay, somewhat propitiated by her new idea, gave her silent but visible laugh, and Di went on--

"What do you think of John Tempest, granny? He is so black that talking of widows reminded me of him."

Mrs. Courtenay sustained a slight nervous shock.

"I had not much conversation with him," she said, stifling a slight yawn. "I am glad to see him back in England. Remind me to ask him next time we have a dinner-party."

"He looks clever," said Di. "Ugly men sometimes do. It is a way they have."

"It does not matter how ugly a man is if he looks like a gentleman."

"Not a bit," said Di. "I am only sorry he looks as if he had been cut out with a blunt pair of scissors because he is a Tempest, and Tempests ought to be handsome to keep up the family traditions. Look at the old man in Westminster Abbey. I am proud of his nose whenever I look at it.

I wish the present head of the family had kept a firmer hold on that feature, that is all; and, it being a hook, I should have thought he might easily have done so. I think it is a want of good taste to bring the Fane features so prominently to Overleigh, don't you? Archie represents the looks of the family certainly, and so do I, granny, though I believe you fondly imagine I am not aware of it. But it does not matter so much what we look like, as it does with the head of the family."

"The family has got a head to it for the first time for two generations," remarked Mrs. Courtenay, closing the conversation by putting on her respirator.

As Lord Hemsworth turned away from putting Mrs. Courtenay and Di into their carriage he saw John coming down the steps.

"Still here?" he said. "I thought you had gone hours ago."

"It is a fine night," said John, who did not think it necessary to say that he _was_ still there; "I think I shall walk."

"So will I," replied Lord Hemsworth, and they went out together.

John and Lord Hemsworth had known each other since the Eton days, and had that sort of quiet liking for each other which has the germ of friendship in it, which circ.u.mstances may eventually quicken or destroy.

As they turned into Whitehall a hansom, one of many, pa.s.sed them at a foot's pace, with its usual civil interrogatory, "Cab, sir?"

"That cab horse with the white stocking reminds me," said Lord Hemsworth, "that I was looking at a bay mare at Tattersall's to-day for my team. I wish you would come and see her, Tempest. I like her looks, and she is a good match to the other bay, but she has a white stocking."

"I don't see any harm in one," said John, with interest; "but it rather depends on the rest of the team."

"That is just it," said Lord Hemsworth. "I drive a scratch team this year, two greys and two bays with black points. She is right height, good action, not too high, and has been driven as a wheeler, which is what I want her for; but I don't like the idea of a white stocking among them."

And talking of one of the subjects that most Englishmen have in common, they proceeded slowly past the Horse Guards and into Trafalgar Square.

"Tempest," said Lord Hemsworth, after a time, "do you know it strikes me very forcibly that we are being followed?"

"Not likely," said John.

"Not at all likely, but the fact all the same. Look there, that is the same hansom waiting at the corner that hailed us as we came out of the gates. I know him by the white stocking."

"I should imagine there might be about five hundred and one cab horses with white stockings in London."

"I dare say, but I know a horse again when I see him just as much as I know a face. I bet you anything you like that is the same horse."

"I dare say it is," said John absently.

Lord Hemsworth said nothing more. They walked up St. James's Street in silence.

"I have taken rooms here for the moment," said John, stopping at the corner of King Street. "I will come round to Tattersall's about two to-morrow. Good night."

Lord Hemsworth bade him good night, and then walked on up St. James's Street. There were a few hansoms on the stand. The last, which was in the act of drawing up behind the others, had a horse with a white stocking.

"Now," said Lord Hemsworth to himself, "we will see whether it is Tempest or me he is after, for I am certain it is one of us."

He stopped short near the cab-stand, and, striking a light, lit a cigarette, holding the match so that his face was plainly visible. Then he proceeded leisurely on his way and turned down Piccadilly. There were a good many people in the street and a certain number of carriages.

Presently he stopped under a somewhat dark archway, and threw away his cigarette.