The Vision of Desire Part 3

His eyes entreated her gaily. They were extremely charming eyes, of some subtly blended colour that was neither slate nor violet, but partook a little of both, and shaded by absurdly long lashes which gave them an almost womanish softness. A certain shrewd old d.u.c.h.ess, who knew her world, had once been heard to observe that Tony Brabazon's eyes would get him in and out of trouble as long as he lived.

Ann smiled.

"That's quite a brain-wave, Tony," she replied. "I won't say no. And if you're very good we'll go down to the Kursaal afterwards, and I'll let you have a little innocent flutter at the tables." Ann had no belief in the use of too severe a curb. She felt quite sure that if Tony's gambling propensities were bottled up too tightly, they would only break out more strongly later on--when he might chance to be in a part of the world where he could come to bigger grief financially than was possible at Montricheux.

She glanced down at the watch on her wrist and, seeing that the time had slipped by more quickly than she imagined, proceeded to gather up her gloves. "I think it's time I went back to Villa Mon Reve, now," she said tentatively, fearing a burst of opposition.

But, having got his own way over the arrangements for the morrow, Tony consented to be amenable for once. Together they took their way up the pleasant street and at the gates of the villa he made his farewells.

"I shall drop into the club for a rubber, I think," he vouchsafed, "before going home like a good little boy."

"Don't play high," cautioned Ann good-humouredly.

She could detect the underlying note of resentment in his voice, and she entered the house meditating thoughtfully upon the amazing short-sightedness evinced by elderly gentlemen in regard to the upbringing of their heirs.

CHAPTER II

THE BRABAZONS OF LORNE

"Ann's the best pal Tony could possibly have, so, for goodness' sake, be content with that and don't get addling your brains by trying to marry her off to him. Match-making isn't a man's job. A female child of twelve could beat the cleverest man that's hatched at the game."

Lady Susan Hallett fired off her remarks, as was her wont, with the vigour and precision of a machine-gun. There was always a delightful definiteness both about her ideas and the expression of them.

The man she addressed was standing with his back to the open French window of the pretty salon, angrily oblivious of the blue waters of Lac Leman which lapped placidly against the stone edges of the _quai_ below. He was a tall, fierce-looking old man, with choleric blue eyes and an aristocratic beak of a nose that jutted out above a bristling grey moustache. A single eyegla.s.s dangled from a broad, black ribbon round his neck. "One of the old school" was written all over him--one of the old, autocratic school which believed that "a man should be master in his own house, b'gad!" By which--though he would never have admitted it--Sir Philip Brabazon inferred a kind of divinely appointed dictatorship over the souls and bodies of the various members of his household which even included the right to arrange and determine their lives for them, without reference to their personal desires and tastes.

It was odd, therefore, that his chief friend and confidante--and the woman he would have married thirty years ago if she would only have had him--should be Lady Susan, as tolerant and modern in her outlook as he was archaic.

She was a tall, st.u.r.dily built woman of the out-of-door, squiress type. Her fine-shaped head was crowned by a wealth of grey hair, simply coiled in a big knot on the nape of her neck and contrasting rather attractively with her very black, arched eyebrows and humorous dark eyes. Those same eyes were now regarding Sir Philip with a quizzical expression of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Besides," she pursued. "Ann wouldn't have half as much pull with him if she _were_ his wife, let me tell you."

"You think not?"

"I'm sure. A man will let himself be lectured and generally licked into shape by the woman he wants to marry--but after marriage he usually prefers to do all the lecturing that's required himself."

The old man shot a swift glance at her from under a pair of s.h.a.ggy brows.

"How do you know?" he demanded rudely. "You're not married."

Lady Susan nodded.

"That's why."

"Do you mean--do you mean--" he began stormily, then, meeting her quiet, humorous gaze, stammered off into silence. Presently he fixed his monocle in one of his fierce old eyes and surveyed her from behind it as from behind a barricade.

"Do you mean me to understand that that's the reason you declined to marry me?"

She laughed a little.

"I think it was. I didn't want to be browbeaten into submission--as you browbeat poor Virginia, and as you would Tony if he hadn't got a good dash of the Brabazon devil in him. You're a confirmed bully, you know."

"I shouldn't have bullied you." There was an odd note of wistfulness in the harsh voice, and for a moment the handsome, arrogant old face softened incredibly. "I shouldn't have bullied you, Susan."

"Yes, you would. You couldn't have helped it. You'd like to bully my little Ann into marrying Tony if you dared--monster!"

The grim mouth beneath the clipped moustache relaxed into an unwilling smile.

"I believe I would," he admitted. "Hang it all, Susan, it would settle the boy if he were married. He wants a wife to look after him."

"To look after him?"--with a faintly ironical inflection.

"That's what I said"--irritably. "That's--that's what wife's for, dammit!

Isn't it?"

"Oh, no." She shook her head regretfully. "That idea's extinct as the dodo.

Antiquated, Philip--very."

He glared at her ferociously.

"Worth more than half your modern ideas put together," he retorted. "Women, don't know their duty nowadays. If they'd get married and have babies and keep house in the good, old-fashioned way, instead of trying to be doctors and barristers and the Lord knows what, the world would be a lot better off. A good wife makes a good man--and that's job enough for any woman."

"I should think it might be," agreed Lady Susan meditatively. "But it sounds a trifle feeble, doesn't it? I mean, on the part of the good man.

It's making a sort of lean-to greenhouse of him, isn't it?"

"You're outrageous, Susan! I'm not a 'lean-to' anything, but do you suppose I'd be the bad-tempered old ruffian I am--at least, you say I am--if you'd married me thirty years ago?"

"Twenty times worse, probably," she replied promptly. "Because, like most wives, I should have spoiled you."

Sir Philip looked out of the window.

"I've missed that spoiling, Susan," he said. Once again that incongruous little note of wistfulness sounded in his voice. But, an instant later, Lady Susan wondered if her ears had deceived her, for he swung round and snapped out in his usual hectoring manner: "Then you won't help me in this?"

"Help you to marry off Ann to Tony? No, I won't. For one thing, I don't want to spare her. And if ever I have to, it's going to be to some one who'll look after _her_--and take jolly good care of her, too!"

"Obstinate woman! Well--well"--irritably. "What am I to do, then?"

"Can't you manage your own nephew?"

"No, I can't, confound it! Told me this morning he wanted to be an architect. An architect!" He spoke as though an architect were something that crawled. "Imagine a Brabazon of Lorne turning architect!"

"Well, why not?" placidly. "It's better than being nothing but a gambler--like poor d.i.c.k. Tony always did love making plans. Don't you remember, when he was about eight, he made a drawing of heaven, with seating accommodation for the angels--cherubim and seraphim, and so on--in tiers? The general effect was rather like a plan of the Albert Hall"--smiling reminiscently. "Seriously, though, Philip, if the boy wants _work_, in the name of common sense, let him have it."

"There's plenty of work for him at Lorne"--stubbornly. "Let him learn to manage the property. That's what I want--and what I'll have. G.o.d bless my soul! What have I brought the boy up for? To be a comfort in my old age, of course, and a credit to the name. Architect be hanged!"

As he spoke there came the sound of footsteps in the hall outside--light, buoyant steps--and Lady Susan's face brightened.