Evan Harrington Part 31

'Not you, my dear. You guessed "temper."'

'No! you dreadful Aunt Bel!'

'Let me see,' said Aunt Bel, seriously. 'A young man would not marry a woman with Latin, but would not guess it the impediment. Gentlemen moderately aged are mad enough to slip their heads under any yoke, but see the obstruction. It was a man of forty guessed "Latin." I request the Hon. Hamilton Everard Jocelyn to confirm it.'

Amid laughter and exclamations Hamilton confessed himself the man who had guessed Latin to be the cause of Miss Current's remaining an old maid; Rose, crying:

'You really are too clever, Aunt Bel!'

A divergence to other themes ensued, and then Miss Jenny Graine said: 'Isn't Juley learning Latin? I should like to join her while I'm here.'

'And so should I,' responded Rose. 'My friend Evan is teaching her during the intervals of his arduous diplomatic labours. Will you take us into your cla.s.s, Evan?'

'Don't be silly, girls,' interposed Aunt Bel. 'Do you want to graduate for my state with your eyes open?'

Evan objected his poor qualifications as a tutor, and Aunt Bel remarked, that if Juley learnt Latin at all, she should have regular instruction.

'I am quite satisfied,' said Juley, quietly.

'Of course you are,' Rose snubbed her cousin. 'So would anybody be. But Mama really was talking of a tutor for Juley, if she could find one.

There's a school at Bodley; but that's too far for one of the men to come over.'

A school at Bodley! thought Evan, and his probationary years at the Cudford Establishment rose before him; and therewith, for the first time since his residence at Beckley, the figure of John Raikes.

'There's a friend of mine,' he said, aloud, 'I think if Lady Jocelyn does wish Miss Bonner to learn Latin thoroughly, he would do very well for the groundwork and would be glad of the employment. He is very poor.'

'If he's poor, and a friend of yours, Evan, we'll have him,' said Rose: 'we'll ride and fetch him.'

'Yes,' added Miss Carrington, 'that must be quite sufficient qualification.'

Juliana was not gazing gratefully at Evan for his proposal.

Rose asked the name of Evan's friend. 'His name is Raikes,' answered Evan. 'I don't know where he is now. He may be at Fallow field. If Lady Jocelyn pleases, I will ride over to-day and see.'

'My dear Evan!' cried Rose, 'you don't mean that absurd figure we saw on the cricket-field?' She burst out laughing. 'Oh! what fun it will be!

Let us have him here by all means.'

'I shall not bring him to be laughed at,' said Evan.

'I will remember he is your friend,' Rose returned demurely; and again laughed, as she related to Jenny Graine the comic appearance Mr. Raikes had presented.

Laxley waited for a pause, and then said: 'I have met this Mr. Raikes.

As a friend of the family, I should protest against his admission here in any office whatever into the upper part of the house, at least. He is not a gentleman.'

We don't want teachers to be gentlemen,' observed Rose.

'This fellow is the reverse,' Laxley p.r.o.nounced, and desired Harry to confirm it; but Harry took a gulp of coffee.

'Oblige me by recollecting that I have called him a friend of mine,'

said Evan.

Rose murmured to him: 'Pray forgive me! I forgot.' Laxley hummed something about 'taste.' Aunt Bel led from the theme by a lively anecdote.

After breakfast the party broke into knots, and canva.s.sed Laxley's behaviour to Evan, which was generally condemned. Rose met the young men strolling on the lawn; and, with her usual bluntness, accused Laxley of wishing to insult her friend.

'I speak to him--do I not?' said Laxley. 'What would you have more? I admit the obligation of speaking to him when I meet him in your house.

Out of it--that 's another matter.'

'But what is the cause for your conduct to him, Ferdinand?'

'By Jove!' cried Harry, 'I wonder he puts up with it I wouldn't. I'd have a shot with you, my boy.'

'Extremely honoured,' said Laxley. 'But neither you nor I care to fight tailors.'

'Tailors!' exclaimed Rose. There was a sharp twitch in her body, as if she had been stung or struck.

'Look here, Rose,' said Laxley; 'I meet him, he insults me, and to get out of the consequences tells me he's the son of a tailor, and a tailor himself; knowing that it ties my hands. Very well, he puts himself hors de combat to save his bones. Let him unsay it, and choose whether he 'll apologize or not, and I'll treat him accordingly. At present I'm not bound to do more than respect the house I find he has somehow got admission to.'

'It's clear it was that other fellow,' said Harry, casting a side-glance up at the Countess's window.

Rose looked straight at Laxley, and abruptly turned on her heel.

In the afternoon, Lady Jocelyn sent a message to Evan that she wished to see him. Rose was with her mother. Lady Jocelyn had only to say, that if he thought his friend a suitable tutor for Miss Bonner, they would be happy to give him the office at Beckley Court. Glad to befriend poor Jack, Evan gave the needful a.s.surances, and was requested to go and fetch him forthwith. When he left the room, Rose marched out silently beside him.

'Will you ride over with me, Rose?' he said, though scarcely anxious that she should see Mr. Raikes immediately.

The singular sharpness of her refusal astonished him none the less.

'Thank you, no; I would rather not.'

A lover is ever ready to suspect that water has been thrown on the fire that burns for him in the bosom of his darling. Sudden as the change was, it was very decided. His sensitive ears were pained by the absence of his Christian name, which her lips had lavishly made sweet to him. He stopped in his walk.

'You spoke of riding to Fallow field. Is it possible you don't want me to bring my friend here? There's time to prevent it.'

Judged by the Countess de Saldar, the behaviour of this well-born English maid was anything but well-bred. She absolutely shrugged her shoulders and marched a-head of him into the conservatory, where she began smelling at flowers and plucking off sere leaves.

In such cases a young man always follows; as her womanly instinct must have told her, for she expressed no surprise when she heard his voice two minutes after.

'Rose! what have I done?'

'Nothing at all,' she said, sweeping her eyes over his a moment, and resting them on the plants.

'I must have uttered something that has displeased you.'

'No.'

Brief negatives are not re-a.s.suring to a lover's uneasy mind.