Portia Part 25

CHAPTER XII.

"Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love."

--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

"I SHOULD think if we are going to give our dance at all, it ought to be soon," says Dulce, with a shrug and a somewhat listless little yawn.

"So we ought," says d.i.c.ky Browne, briskly. It seems the most natural thing in the world that he should use the first person plural, and that he should appear to be the chief promoter of the dance in question.

"We've been talking of it a considerable lot, you know," he goes on, confidentially, "and they will all think it a dodge on your part if you don't give it within the next fortnight."

"A dodge!" says Miss Blount, very justly incensed. "What dodge?"

"Well, look here," says d.i.c.ky--"there once was a fellow--"

He breaks off at this interesting juncture, and, fixing his gla.s.s in his best eye, stares at a figure coming slowly towards them from the house.

They all follow his gaze, and find themselves criticising the approaching form in a vague, surprised fashion.

"Great hat! look at Julia!" says d.i.c.ky, at last, giving way to speech that will not be repressed. The exclamation is quite in keeping with the scene. Julia, in a head gear of the style usually described as a Rubens, of the very largest description, comes simpering up to them, filled with the belief that now, if ever, she is looking her very best. "Great" _is_ the word for it. She is indeed all that.

"My dear Julia, where have you been!" says Dulce, ignoring the hat.

"Searching every room in the house for that last book of Ouida's," says Julia, promptly, who has in reality been posing before a mirror in her own room, crowned with a Rubens. "I'm always losing my things, you know--and my way; my boat, for example, and my train, and my umbrella."

She is plainly impressed with the belief that she is saying something smart, and looks conscious of it.

"Why don't you add your temper," says d.i.c.ky Browne, with a mild smile--which rather spoils the effect of her would-be smartness.

"We were talking about our ball," says Dulce, somewhat quickly. "d.i.c.ky seems to think that we shall lose caste in the neighborhood if we put it off much longer."

"You'll create ill feeling," says Mr. Browne. "The Stanley girls have new gowns, and they want to show them. They'll say nasty things about you."

"That's your second hint on that subject," says Sir Mark. "Get it out, d.i.c.ky, you are dying to say something. What was it you were going to say a few minutes ago about some fellow who--?"

"Who for seven years was going to give a ball, and was asked everywhere on the strength of it. His friends hoped against hope, don't you see, but nothing ever came of it. At the end of the seven years he was as far off it as ever."

"And what did his friends do to him then," asks Julia, who is one of those people who always want _more_ than enough.

"Deponent sayeth not," says Mr. Browne. "Perhaps it was too dark a tale for publication. I suppose they either smote him between the joints of his harness till he died, or else they fell upon him in a body and rent him in pieces."

"What nonsense you can talk at times," says Mrs. Beaufort, mindful of his speech of a few moments ago.

"Not I," says d.i.c.ky Browne.

It is about four o'clock, and already the shadows are lengthening upon the gra.s.s, the soft, cool gra.s.s upon which they are all sitting beneath the shade of the huge chestnut trees, that fling their branches in all directions, some east, some west, some heavenwards.

A little breeze is blowing towards them sweet essences of pinewood and dark fir. Above in the clear sky the fleecy clouds a.s.sume each moment a new form--a yet more tender color--now pale blue, now gray, now a soft pink that verges upon crimson. Down far in the hollows a white mist is floating away, away, to the ocean, and there, too, can be seen (playing hide and seek amongst the great trunks of the giant elms) the flitting forms of the children dancing fantastically to and fro.

The scent of dying meadow-sweet is on the air, and the hush and the calm of evening.

"Dulce, command us to have tea out here," says Sir Mark, removing his cigarette from his lips for a moment.

"Dear Dulce, yes; that will be sweet," says Portia, who is very silent and very pale and very beautiful to-day.

"d.i.c.ky, go and tell some one to bring tea here directly," says Dulce; "and say they are to bring peaches for Portia, because she loves them, and say anything else you like for yourself."

"Thanks; Curacao will do me very nicely," says d.i.c.ky, with all the prompt.i.tude that distinguishes him.

"And Maraschino," suggests Sir Mark, in the mildest tone.

"And just a suspicion of brandy," puts in Roger, almost affectionately.

Overpowered by their amiability and their suggestions, d.i.c.ky turns towards the house.

"I fly," he says. "Think of me till my return."

"Do tell them to hurry, d.i.c.ky," says Dulce, anxiously. "They are always so slow. And tell them to bring lots of cake."

"You shall have it all in a couple of shakes," says Mr. Browne, encouragingly, if vulgarly.

"What's that?" asks Dulce, meaning reproof. "It isn't English, is it?

How soon will it be?"

"Oh--half a jiff," returns he, totally unabashed.

Presently tea is brought, and they are all happy, notably d.i.c.ky, who walks round and into the cakes with unceasing fervor.

"By-the-by, I wonder Stephen hasn't been here to-day," says Julia, addressing no one in particular.

"Something better to do, perhaps," says Portia.

"Yes--where _can_ he be?" says Dulce, waking into sudden animation.

"'Something better to do?' Why, what could that be?"

"Writing sonnets to your eyebrow," answers Roger in an unpleasant tone.

"How clever you are!" retorts she, in a tone even more unpleasant, letting her white lids fall until they half-conceal the scorn in her eyes. _Only_ half!

"He is such a jail bird--I beg his pardon, a town bird," says Sir Mark, lazily, "that I didn't think anything could keep him in the country so long. Yet, he doesn't _look_ bored. He bears the solitary confinement very well."

"There is shooting, isn't there?" suggests Portia.

"Any amount of it," says d.i.c.ky; "but that don't solve the mystery. He couldn't shoot a haystack flying, not if his life depended on it. It's suicide to go out with him! He'd as soon shoot you or me as anything else. I always say the grouse ought to love him; because I don't believe he knows the barrel of his gun from the stock."

"How perfectly dreadful!" exclaims Julia, who always takes everything _au grand serieux_.

"There is other game in the country besides grouse," says Roger, in a peculiar tone.

"I dare say he can't bear to leave that dear old house now he has got into it," says Dulce; "it is so lovely, so quaint, so--"