Portia Part 26

"Now, is it?" asks d.i.c.ky Browne, meditatively. "I've seen nicer, I think. I always feel, when there, as if everything, ceilings, roof and all were coming down on my unfortunate head."

"But it is so old, so picturesque; a perfect dream, _I_ think," says Dulce, rather affectedly.

"It isn't half a bad place, but not to be compared to The Moors, surely," says Sir Mark, gently, looking with some reproof at Dulce--reproof the spoiled child resents--The Moors is Roger's home. "I think The Moors one of the most beautiful places in England."

"And one of the draughtiest," says Miss Blount, ungraciously. "I was there once. It was a year ago. It occurred to me, I remember, that the sun had forgotten it; indeed, I had but one thought all the time I stayed."

"And that was?" asks Roger, defiantly.

"How to get away from it again as soon as possible."

"I am sorry my old home found such disfavor in your sight," says Roger, so quietly that remorse wakes within her breast, bringing with it, however, no good result, rather adding fuel to the flame that has been burning brightly since breakfast time. His rebuke is so abominably mild that it brings Miss Blount to the very verge of open wrath.

"I think Stephen such a dear fellow," says Julia, at this critical juncture. "So--er--well read, and that."

"Yes; though, I think, I have known better," says Sir Mark, looking at Dulce.

"Poor Mr. Gower," says that young lady, airily; "everyone seems determined to decry him. What has he done to everybody, and why should comparisons be drawn? There _may_ be better people, and there may be worse; but--I like him."

"Lucky he," says Roger, with a faint but distinct sneer, his temper forsaking him; "I could almost wish that I were he."

"I could almost wish it, too," says Dulce, with cruel frankness.

"Thank you." Roger, by this time, is in a very respectable pa.s.sion, though n.o.body but he and Dulce have heard the last three sentences.

"Perhaps," he says, deliberately, "it will be my most generous course to resign in favor of--"

"More tea, Portia?" interrupts Dulce, very quickly, in a tone that trembles ever so slightly.

"No, thank you. But, Dulce, I want you near me. Come and sit here."

There is anxiety, mixed with entreaty, in her tone. She has noticed the anger in Roger's face, and the defiance in Dulce's soft eyes, and she is grieved and sorry for them both.

But, Dulce, who is in a very bad mood indeed, will take no notice of either the entreaty or the grief.

"How can I?" she says, with a slow lifting of her brows. "Who will give anybody any tea, if I go away from this? And--" Here she pauses, and her eyes fix themselves upon a break in the belt of firs, low down, at the end of the lawn. "Ah," she says, with a swift blush, "you see I shall be wanted at my post for a little while longer, because--here is Mr. Gower, at last!"

The "at last" is intolerably flattering, though it is a question if the new comer hears it. He is crossing over the soft gra.s.s; his hat is in his hand; his eyes dark and smiling. He looks glad, expectant, happy.

"What superfluous surprise," says Roger to Dulce, with even a broader sneer than his last. "He always _is_ here, isn't he!"

"Yes; isn't it good of him to come," says Miss Blount, with a suspicious dulness--Stephen has not yet come quite close to them. "We are always so wretchedly stupid here, and he is so charming, and so good to look at, and always in such a perfect temper!" As she finishes her sentence she turns her large eyes full on her _fiance_.

Roger, muttering something untranslatable between his teeth, moves away, and then Gower comes up, and Dulce gives him her hand and her prettiest smile, and presently he sinks upon the gra.s.s at her feet, and lies there in a graceful position that enables him to gaze without trouble upon her piquante face. He is undeniably handsome, and is very clean-limbed, and has something peculiar about his smile that takes women as a rule.

"How d'ye do?" he says to Roger presently, when that young man comes within range, bestowing upon him a little nod. Whereon Roger says the same to him in a tone of the utmost _bonhommie_, which, if hypocritical, is certainly very well done, after which conversation once more flows smoothly onwards.

"What were you doing all day?" asks Dulce of the knight at her feet, throwing even kinder feeling than usual into her tone, as she becomes aware that Roger's eyes are fixed upon her.

"Wishing myself here," replies Gower, with a readiness that bespeaks truth.

"What a simple thing to say," murmurs Dulce, with a half-smile, glancing at him from under her long lashes. "But how difficult to believe. After all," with a wilful touch of coquetry, "I don't believe you ever do mean anything you say."

"Don't you," says Gower, with an eagerness that might be born of either pa.s.sion or amus.e.m.e.nt. "You wrong me then. And some day--some day, perhaps, I shall be able to prove to you that what I say I mean." Then, probably, the recollection of many things comes to him, and the quick, warm light dies out of his eyes, and it is with an utter change of tone and manner he speaks next.

"Now, tell me what you were doing all day?" he says, lightly.

"Not very much; the hours dragged a little, I think. Just now, as you came to us, we were discussing--" it is almost on her lips the word "you," but she suppresses it in time, and goes on easily--"a dance we must give as soon as possible."

"An undertaking down here, I suppose?" says Gower, doubtfully; "yet a change, after all. And, of course, you are fond of dancing?" with a pa.s.sing glance, that is almost a caress, at her lithe, svelte figure.

"Yes, very; but I don't care about having a ball here." She says this with a sigh; then she pauses, and a shade saddens her face.

"But why?" asks he, surprised.

"There are many reasons--many. And you might not understand," she says, rather confusedly. She turns her face away from his, and in doing so meets Portia's eyes. She has evidently been listening to what Dulce has just said, and now gives back her cousin's gaze as though against her will. After a moment she slowly averts her face, as if seeking to hide the pallor that is rendering even her lips white.

"Both my evening suits are unwearable," says d.i.c.ky Browne, mournfully.

"I shall have to run up to town to get some fresh things." He says this deprecatingly, as though utterly a.s.sured of the fact that every one will miss him horribly.

"You won't be long away, d.i.c.ky, will you?" says Roger, tearfully; at which Dulce, forgetful for the instant of the late feud, laughs aloud.

"I can't think what's the matter with me," says d.i.c.ky, still mournful; "my clothes don't last any time. A month seems to put 'em out of shape, and make 'em unwearable."

"No wonder," says Sir Mark, "when you get them made by a fellow out of the swim altogether. _Where_ does he live? Cheapside or Westbourne Grove?"

"No; the Strand," says Mr. Browne, to whom shame is unknown, "if you mean Jerry."

"d.i.c.ky employs Jerry because his name is Browne," says Roger. "He's a hanger-on of the family, and is popularly supposed to be a poor relation, a sort of country cousin. d.i.c.ky proudly supports him in spite or public opinion. It is very n.o.ble of him."

"The governor sent me to him when I was a young chap--for punishment, I think," says d.i.c.ky, mildly, "and I don't like to give him up now. He is such a fetching old thing, and so conversational, and takes such an interest in my nether limbs."

"Who are you talking of in such laudatory terms?" asks Dulce, curiously, raising her head at this moment.

"Of Jerry--my tailor," says d.i.c.ky, confidentially.

"Ah! A good man, but--er--tiresome," says Julia, vaguely, with a cleverly suppressed yawn; she is evidently under the impression that they are discussing Jeremy Taylor, _not_ the gentleman in the Strand.

"_Is_ he good?" asks d.i.c.ky, somewhat at sea. "A capital fellow to make trousers, I know, but for his morality I can't vouch."

"I am speaking of the divine, Jeremy Taylor," says Julia, very justly shocked at what she believes to be levity on the part of d.i.c.ky. "_He_ didn't make trousers, he only made maxims!"

"Poor soul!" says Mr. Browne, with heartfelt pity in his tone, to whom Jeremy Taylor is a revelation, and a sad one. "Did he die of 'em?"

Of this frivolous remark Julia deigns to take no notice. And, indeed, they are all too accustomed to Mr. Browne's eccentricities of style to spend time trying to unravel them.

"You haven't yet explained to me the important business that kept you at home all day," Dulce is saying to Mr. Gower. She is leaning slightly forward, and is looking down into his eyes.

"Tenants and a steward, and such like abominations," he says, rather absently. Then, his glance wandering to her little white, slender fingers, that are idly trifling with her fan, "By-the-by," he goes on, "the steward--Mayne, you know--can write with both hands. Odd, isn't it?