Instead of the dainty little Tanagra figure in smart French frills, which I expected, there was a tall, beautiful young person, with the bearing of an Atalanta, and the clothes of a Quakeress. She tacked my name on to the wrong man, or I should have let her go, in spite of the rose, so different was she from what I expected. And you'll be amused to hear that her idea of Lionel Pendragon was embodied by old "Hannibal" Jones, who got into my train at Marseilles. He's taken to parting his name in the middle now, and is General Wellington-Jones. She ought to have known my age approximately, or could have learned it if she cared to bother; but I suppose to nineteen, forty might as well be sixty. That's a thing to remember, if one feels the sap pulsing in one's branches, just to remind one that after all it's not spring, but autumn. And at the present moment, by the way, I'm not sure that I shan't need this kind of taking down a peg, for I am feeling so young that I think I must be growing old. I have begun to value what's left me of youth; to take it out and look at it in all lights, like a fruit which must be gloated over before it decays--and that's a fatal sign, eh? I have the most extraordinary interest in life, which I attribute to the new motor-car which will be finished and ready to use in a few days; also to the thought that Graylees is my own.
But I'm wandering away from the girl.
She is as unlike Ellaline de Nesville as one beautifully bound first volume of a human document can be from another equally attractive. "First volume of a human document" isn't inexpressive of a young girl, is it? Heaven knows what this one may be by the time the second and third volumes are ready for publication; but at present one turns over the leaves with pleased surprise. There's something original and charming in each new page.
Her first hair must have been shed, for the present lot--and there is a lot!--is of a bright, yellowy brown; looks like a child's hair, somehow. There are little rings and kinks about it which I take to have been put there by the curling-tongs of nature, though I may be mistaken. And I suppose I must have deceived myself about the child's eyes, for they are not black, but of a grayish hazel, which can look brown or violet at night. She is a tall young thing, slim and straight as a sapling, with frank, honest manners, which are singularly engaging. I look at her in amazement and interest, and find her looking at me with an expression which I am not able to make out. I hardly dare let myself go in liking her, for fear of disappointment. She seems too good to be true, too good to last. I keep wondering what ancestress of Ellaline de Nesville's, or Fred Lethbridge's, is gazing out of those azure windows which are this girl's eyes. If Fred's soul, or Ellaline's, peeps from behind the clear, bright panes, it contrives to keep itself well hidden--so far. But I expect anything.
I had no notion until now that a young woman could be a delightful "pal" for a man, especially a man of my age. Perhaps this is my ignorance of the sex (for I admit I locked up the book of Woman, and never opened it again, since the chapter of Ellaline), or it may be that girls have changed since the "brave days when we were twenty-one." At that remote epoch, as far as I can discover by blowing off the dust from faded souvenirs, one either made love to girls, or one didn't. They were there to dance with and flirt with, and go on the river with, not to talk politics to, or exchange opinions of the universe. They--the prettiest ones--would have thought that valuable time was being wasted in such discussions. Yet here is this girl, not twenty, a child fresh from school--a French school, at that--radiant with the power of her youth, her beauty, her femininity; yet she seems actually interested in problems of life unconnected with love affairs. She appears to like talking sense, and she has humour, far more subtle than the mere, kittenish sense of fun which belongs to her years--or lack of them. I dreaded the responsibility of her, but I dreaded much more being bored by her, flirted with by her. I'm hanged if I could have stood that from the kind of girl I was prepared to see; but as I said, I've found a "pal"--if I dared believe in her. Instead of avoiding my ward's society, and shoving it on to Emily, as I intended, I excuse myself to myself for contriving pretexts to bask in it.
To-day, for instance, what do you think I did? A shopping expedition was in question. Emily, who never had much taste in dress, and now clothes herself as if in punishment for sin, seems to know when other women are badly turned out. She thinks it right that young girls should be simply dressed, but considers that in the case of Ellaline simplicity has been carried too far. You see, she doesn't know what you and I know about that wretched fellow Lethbridge's end, and she believes his daughter has plenty of money, or will have, on coming of age. Naturally, I don't undeceive her. Emily is a good soul, but over-conscientious in questions of money, and if she knew the truth she might be inclined to hold the purse-strings tight. She might even be tempted to hint something distressing to this poor girl, if the child vexed her by any thoughtless little extravagance; whereas I wouldn't for a good deal have Ellaline's daughter guess she owes anything to me.
Emily offered to choose frocks for Miss Lethbridge; whereupon that young lady cast such a comical glance of despair at me--a glance which I think was involuntary--that it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I saw so well what was in her mind! And if you will believe me, O'Hagan, I volunteered to go with them.
Having committed myself, I had all the sensations of a fly caught on a sheet of "Tanglefoot," or a prisoner of war chained to a Roman chariot; but in the end I enjoyed myself hugely. Nothing better has happened to me since I used to be taken to look at the toyshops the day before Christmas. No, not even my first pantomime could beat this as an experience!
Emily's economical soul clamoured for Oxford Street. I stood out for Bond, and got my way. (You will grin here. You say I always do get my way.) My idea was to make of myself a kind of Last Resort, or Court of Appeal. I meant to let Emily advise, but to sweep her aside if she perpetrated atrocities. The first shop, however, went to my head. It was one of those where you walk into a kind of drawing-room with figurines, or whatever you call them--slender, headless ladies in model dresses--grouped about, and other equally slender, but long-headed ladies in black satin trains, showing off their dummy sisters.
It was the figurines that intoxicated me. I saw Ellaline's head--in imagination--coming out at the top of all the prettiest dresses. They were wonderfully simple, too, the most attractive ones; seemed just the thing for a young girl. Emily walked past them as if they were vulgar acquaintances trying to catch her eye at a duchess's ball, but they trapped me. There was a white thing for the street, that looked as if it had been made for Ellaline, and a blue fluff, cut low in the neck, exactly the right colour to show up her hair. Then there was a film of pink, with wreaths of little rosebuds dotted about--made me think of spring. (I told you I'd lost my head, didn't I?)
I stopped my ward, pointed out these things to her, and asked her if she liked them. She said she did, but they would be horribly expensive. She wouldn't think of buying such dreams. With that, up swam one of the satin ladies (whose back view was precisely like that of a wet, black codfish with a long tail; I believe she was "Directoire"); and hovering near on a sea of pale-green carpet she volunteered the information that these "little frocks" were "poems," singularly suited to the style of--I expected her to say my "daughter." Instead of which, however, she finished her sentence with a "madam" that brought a blush to my weather-beaten face. I was the only one concerned who did blush, however, I assure you! The girl smiled into my eyes, with a mischievous twinkle, and minded not at all. A former generation would have simpered, but this young person hasn't a simper in her.
I said "Nonsense," she could well afford the dresses. She argued, and Emily returned to help her form up a hollow square. They were both against me, but I insisted, and the codfish was a powerful ally.
"Would they fit you?" I asked the girl.
"Yes, they would fit me, I dare say. But----"
That settled it.
"We'll take them," said I. And after that, being beside myself, I reconnoitred the place, pointing my stick at other things which took my fancy. The codfish backed me up at every step, and other codfishes swam the green sea, with hats doubtless brought from unseen coral caves. Most of them were enormous hats, but remarkably attractive, in one way or another, with large drooping brims that dripped roses or frothed with ostrich plumes. I made Ellaline take off a small, round butter plate she had on, which was ugly in itself, though somehow it looked like a saint's halo on her; and murmuring compliments on "madam's" hair, the siren codfishes tried on one hat after another. I bought all, without asking the prices, because each one was more becoming to the girl than its predecessor, and not to have all, would have been like deliberately destroying so many original Gainsboroughs or Sir Joshuas.