_ 300 PARK STREET,
Wednesday, _November 23d._
Oh, how silly to want the moon! But that is evidently what is the matter with me. Here I am in a comfortable house with a kind hostess, and no immediate want of money, and yet I am restless, and sometimes unhappy.
For the four days since I arrived Lady Ver has been so kind to me, taken the greatest pains to try and amuse me and cheer me up. We have driven about in her electric brougham and shopped, and agreeable people have been to lunch each day, and I have had what I suppose is a _succes_. At least she says so.
I am beginning to understand things better, and it seems one must have no real feelings, just as Mrs. Carruthers always told me, if one wants to enjoy life.
On two evenings Lady Ver has been out, with numbers of regrets at leaving me behind, and I have gathered that she has seen Lord Robert, but he has not been here, I am glad to say.
I am real friends with the angels, who are delightful people, and very well brought up. Lady Ver evidently knows much better about it than Mary Mackintosh, although she does not talk in that way.
I can't think what I am going to do next. I suppose soon this kind of drifting will seem quite natural, but at present the position galls me for some reason. I _hate_ to think people are being kind out of charity. How very foolish of me, though!
Lady Merrenden is coming to lunch to-morrow. I am interested to see her, because Lord Robert said she was such a dear. I wonder what has become of him. He has not been here--I wonder--No, I am _too_ silly.
Lady Ver does not get up to breakfast, and I go into her room and have mine on another little tray, and we talk, and she reads me bits out of her letters.
She seems to have a number of people in love with her--that must be nice.
"It keeps Charlie always devoted," she said, "because he realizes he owns what the other men want."
She says, too, that all male creatures are fighters by nature; they don't value things they obtain easily, and which are no trouble to keep. You must always make them realize you will be off like a snipe if they relax their efforts to please you for one moment.
Of course there are heaps of humdrum ways of living, where the husband is quite fond, but it does not make his heart beat, and Lady Ver says she couldn't stay on with a man whose heart she couldn't make beat when she wanted to.
I am curious to see Sir Charles.
They play bridge a good deal in the afternoon, and it amuses me a little to talk nicely to the man who is out for the moment, and make him not want to go back to the game.
I am learning a number of things.
_Night._
Mr. Carruthers came to call this afternoon. He was the last person I expected to see when I went into the drawing-room after luncheon, to wait for Lady Ver. I had my out-door things on, and a big black hat, which is rather becoming, I am glad to say.
"You here!" he exclaimed, as we shook hands.
"Yes, why not me?" I said.
He looked very self-contained and reserved, I thought, as if he had not the least intention of letting himself go to display any interest. It instantly aroused in me an intention to change all that.
"Lady Verningham kindly asked me to spend a few days with her when we left Tryland," I said, demurely.
"Oh, you are staying here! Well, I was over at Tryland the day before yesterday--an elaborate invitation from Lady Katherine to 'dine and sleep quietly,' which I only accepted as I thought I should see you."
"How good of you," I said, sweetly. "And did they not tell you I had gone with Lady Verningham?"
"Nothing of the kind. They merely announced that you had departed for London, so I supposed it was your original design of Claridge's, and I intended going round there some time to find you."
Again I said it was so good of him, and I looked down.
He did not speak for a second or two, and I remained perfectly still.
"What are your plans?" he asked, abruptly.
"I have no plans."
"But you must have--that is ridiculous--you must have made some decision as to where you are going to live!"
"No, I assure you," I said, calmly, "when I leave here on Saturday I shall just get into a cab and think of some place for it to take me to, I suppose, as we turn down Park Lane."
He moved uneasily, and I glanced at him up from under my hat. I don't know why he does not attract me now as much as he did at first. There is something so cold and cynical about his face.
"Listen, Evangeline," he said, at last. "Something must be settled for you. I cannot allow you to drift about like this. I am more or less your guardian, you know--you must feel that."
"I don't a bit," I said.
"You impossible little--witch." He came closer.
"Yes, Lady Verningham says I am a witch, and a snake, and all sorts of bad, attractive things, and I want to go somewhere where I shall be able to show these qualities. England is dull. What do you think of Paris?"
Oh, it did amuse me launching forth these remarks; they would never come into my head for any one else!
He walked across the room and back. His face was disturbed.
"You shall not go to Paris--alone. How can you even suggest such a thing?" he said.
I did not speak. He grew exasperated.
"Your father's people are all dead, you tell me, and you know nothing of your mother's relations. But who was she? What was her name? Perhaps we could discover some kith and kin for you."
"My mother was called Miss Tonkins," I said.
"_Called_ Miss Tonkins?"
"Yes."
"Then it was not her name. What do you mean?"
I hated these questions.
"I suppose it was her name. I never heard she had another."
"Tonkins," he said--"Tonkins," and he looked searchingly at me with his monk-of-the-Inquisition air.
I can be so irritating, not telling people things, when I like, and it was quite a while before he elicited the facts from me, which Mrs. Carruthers had often hurled at my head in moments of anger, that poor mamma's father had been Lord de Brandreth and her mother, Heaven knows who!
"So you see," I ended with, "I haven't any relations, after all, have I?"
He sat down upon the sofa.
"Evangeline, there is nothing for it; you must marry me," he said.
I sat down opposite him.
"Oh, you are funny!" I said. "You, a clever diplomat, to know so little of women! Who in the world would accept such an offer?" and I laughed and laughed.
"What am I to do with you?" he exclaimed, angrily.
"Nothing." I laughed still, and I looked at him with my "affair-of-the-devil" look. He came over and forcibly took my hand.
"Yes, you are a witch," he said--"a witch who casts spells and destroys resolutions and judgments. I determined to forget you, and put you out of my life--you are most unsuitable to me, you know--but as soon as I see you I am filled with only one desire. I _must_ have you for myself. I want to kiss you--to touch you. I want to prevent any other man from looking at you--do you hear me, Evangeline?"
"Yes, I hear," I said; "but it does not have any effect on me. You would be awful as a husband. Oh, I know all about them!" and I looked up. "I saw several sorts at Tryland, and Lady Verningham has told me of the rest, and I know you would be no earthly good in that role!"
He laughed, in spite of himself, but he still held my hand.
"Describe their types to me, that I may see which I should be," he said, with great seriousness.
"There is the Mackintosh kind--humble and 'titsy pootsy,' and a sort of under-nurse," I said.
"That is not my size, I fear."
"Then there is the Montgomerie--selfish and bullying, and near about money."
"But I am not Scotch."
"No--well, Lord Kestervin was English, and he fussed and worried, and looked out trains all the time."
"I will have a groom of the chambers."
"And they were all casual and indifferent to their poor wives--and boresome--and bored! And one told long stories, and one was stodgy, and one opened his wife's letters before she was down!"
"Tell me the attributes of a perfect husband, then, that I may learn them," he said.
"They have to pay all the bills----"
"Well, I could do that."
"And they have not to interfere with one's movements. And one must be able to make their hearts beat."
"Well, you could do _that_!" and he bent nearer to me. I drew back.
"And they have to take long journeys to the Rocky Mountains for months together, with men friends."
"Certainly not!" he exclaimed.
"There, you see!" I said; "the most important part you don't agree to. There is no use talking further."
"Yes, there is! You have not said half enough. Have they to make your heart beat, too?"
"You are hurting my hand."
He dropped it.
"Have they?"
"Lady Ver said no husband could do that. The fact of their being one kept your heart quite quiet, and often made you yawn; but she said it was not necessary, as long as you could make theirs so that they would do all you asked."
"Then do women's hearts never beat--did she tell you?"
"Of course they beat. How simple you are for thirty years old! They beat constantly for--oh--for people who are not husbands."
"That is the result of your observations, is it? You are probably right and I am a fool."
"Some one said at lunch yesterday that a beautiful lady in Paris had her heart beating for you," I said, looking at him again.
He changed--so very little. It was not a start, or a wince even--just enough for me to know he felt what I said.
"People are too kind," he said. "But we have got no nearer the point. When will you marry me?"
"I shall marry you--never! Mr. Carruthers," I said, "unless I get into an old maid soon and no one else asks me! Then if you go on your knees I may put out the tip of my fingers, perhaps!" and I moved towards the door, making him a sweeping and polite courtesy.
He rushed after me.
"Evangeline!" he exclaimed. "I am not a violent man as a rule; indeed, I am rather cool, but you would drive any one perfectly mad. Some day some one will strangle you--witch!"
"Then I had better run away to save my neck," I said, laughing over my shoulder as I opened the door and ran up the stairs, and I peeped at him from the landing above. He had come out into the hall. "Good-bye," I called, and, without waiting to see Lady Ver, he tramped down the stairs and away.
"Evangeline, what _have_ you been doing?" she asked, when I got into her room, where her maid was settling her veil before the glass, and trembling over it. Lady Ver is sometimes fractious with her--worse than I am with Veronique, far.
"Evangeline, you look naughtier than ever--confess at once."
"I have been as good as gold," I said.
"Then why are those two emeralds sparkling so, may one ask?"
"They are sparkling with conscious virtue," I said, demurely.
"You have quarrelled with Mr. Carruthers--go away, Welby! Stupid woman, can't you see it catches my nose!"
Welby retired meekly. (After she is cross, Lady Ver sends Welby to the theatre. Welby adores her.)
"Evangeline, how dare you! I see it all. I gathered bits from Robert. You have quarrelled with the very man you must marry!"
"What does Lord Robert know about me?" I said. That made me angry.
"Nothing; he only said Mr. Carruthers admired you at Branches."
"Oh!"
"He is too attractive--Christopher! He is one of the 'married women's pets,' as Ada Fairfax says, and has never spoken to a girl before. You ought to be grateful we have let him look at you--minx!--instead of quarrelling, as I can see you have." She rippled with laughter, while she pretended to scold me.
"Surely I may be allowed that chastened diversion!" I said. "I can't go to theatres!"
"Tell me about it," she commanded, tapping her foot.
But early in Mrs. Carruthers's days I learned that one is wiser when one keeps one's own affairs to one's self, so I fenced a little, and laughed, and we went out to drive finally, without her being any the wiser. Going into the park, we came upon a troop of the 3d Life Guards, who had been escorting the king to open something, and there rode Lord Robert in his beautiful clothes and a floating plume. He did look so lovely, and _my_ heart suddenly began to beat--I could feel it, and was ashamed, and it did not console me greatly to reflect that the emotion caused by a uniform is not confined to nursemaids.
Of course it must have been the uniform and the black horse--Lord Robert is nothing to me. But I hate to think that, mamma's mother having been nobody, I should have inherited these common instincts! _