The child's hair, by the way, is extraordinarily vital. It spouts up in two thick, bright billows over her white forehead, like the beginning of a strong fountain--a very agreeable foundation for a hat.
Seeing that I had gone mad, the wily codfishes took advantage of my state, and flourished things before my eyes, at which Emily instantly forbade me to look. It is true that they were objects not often seen by bachelor man, except in shop windows and on the advertising pages of women's magazines; but silk petticoats and cobwebby lace frills have no Gorgon qualities, and I was not turned to stone by the sight of them. I even found courage to ask of the company at large if they were the sort of thing that young ladies ought to have in their wardrobes. The answer was emphatically in the affirmative.
"Have you already got all you want of them, or could you make use of more?" I inquired of my ward.
"I shouldn't know myself in such miracles," said she, with a kind of gasp, her eyes very bright, and her cheeks pinker than they had been when she was suspected of bridehood. She was still suspected of it; indeed, I think that in the minds of the black satin codfishes circumstantial evidence had tinkered suspicion into certainty. But Ellaline was deaf to the "madam." They might have turned her from wife into widow without her noticing. She was burning with the desire to possess those embroidered cobwebs and those frilled petticoats. I don't know why she should have been more excited about garments which few, if any, save herself, would see after she'd put them on, than she was about those on which cats and kings might gaze; but so it was. I should like to ask an expert if this is the case with all females, or if it is exceptional.
"Send the lot with the hats and dresses," said I. And when she widened her eyes and gasped, I assured her that I knew her income better than she did. Anything she cared to have in the way of pretty clothes she could afford.
Strange to say, even then she didn't seem comfortable. She opened her lips as if to speak; shut them hastily at the first word, swallowed it with difficulty, sighed, and looked anxious. I should rather have liked to know what was in her mind.
We ended up by the purchase of costumes suitable to the automobile, both for Emily and Ellaline. I think women ought to be as "well found" for motoring, as for yachting, don't you? And I am looking forward to the trip I intend to take. It will be interesting to study the impressions made upon this young girl by England, land of history and beauty----
... this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea-- ... this England.
You will laugh at me, perhaps, for my long "harping" on my ward; but anyhow, don't misunderstand. It's not because she is pretty and engaging (one would say that of a kitten), but because of the startling contrast between the real girl and the girl of my imagination. I can't help thinking about her a good deal for this reason, and what I think of I have generally talked of or written of fully to you, my best and oldest friend. It's a habit nearly a quarter of a century old, and I don't mean to break it now, particularly as you have made rather a point of my continuing it on my return "home" after all these years.
London has got hold of me. I am fascinated by it. Either it has improved as it has grown, or I am in a mood to be pleased with anything English. Do you remember dear old Ennis's Rooms, which you and I used to think the height of luxury and gaiety? I've promised myself to go there again, and I mean to take Ellaline and Emily to supper after the theatre to-night. I think I shall keep this letter open to tell you how the old place impresses me.
Midnight and a half.
I've had a shock. Ennis's is dead as a doornail. We entered, after the theatre, and galvanized the Rooms into a kind of dreadful life. They "don't serve many suppers now, sir," it seems. "It's mostly luncheons and dinners."
The waiters resented us as intruders. We were the only ones, too, which made it worse, as all their rancour was visited on us; but we hadn't been for many minutes at our old favourite table (the one thing unchanged), trying to keep up a spurious gaiety, when another party of two ventured in.
They were young Dick Burden and his aunt, Mrs. Senter.
Now, you mayn't see it, but this was rather odd. It wouldn't have been odd in the past, to meet your most intimate friend from round the corner, and the Shah of Persia, at Ennis's. But evidently the "people who amuse themselves" don't come now. It's not "the thing." Why, therefore, should this couple choose Ennis's for supper? _They_ haven't been out of England for fifteen years, like me. If Mrs. Senter occasionally spends Saturday to Monday in India, or visits the Sphinx when the Sphinx is in season, she always returns to London when "everybody is in town," and there does as everybody does.
I immediately suspected that Burden had brought her with an object: that object, to gain an introduction to Ellaline. The suspicion may seem far-fetched; but you wouldn't pronounce it so if you could have seen the young man's face, in the railway station at Paris, the other day. I had that privilege; and I observed at the time his wish to know my ward, without feeling a responsive one to gratify it. I don't know why I didn't feel it, but I didn't, though the desire was both pardonable and natural in the young fellow. He has a determined jaw; therefore perhaps it's equally natural that, when disappointed, he should persist--even follow, and adopt strong measures (in other words, an aunt) to obtain his object. You see, Ellaline is an extremely pretty girl, and I'm not alone in thinking so.
My idea is that, having found us in the newspapers, staying at the Ritz, the boy must have somehow informed himself as to our movements, awaiting his opportunity--or his aunt. I bought my theatre tickets in the hotel. He may have got his information from there; and the rest was easy--as far as Ennis's. I'm afraid the rest was, too, because Mrs. Senter selected the table nearest ours, and after we had exchanged greetings proposed that we join parties. The tables were placed together, and introductions all round were a matter of course. Young England expects that every aunt will do her duty!
They still give you very good food at Ennis's, but it's rather like eating "funeral baked meats."
Mrs. Senter is exactly what she was some years ago. Perhaps it would be ungallant to recall to your memory just _how_ many years ago. She is, if anything, younger. I believe there's a maxim, "Once a duchess, always a duchess." I think women of to-day have another: "Once thirty, always thirty"; or, "Once thirty, always twenty-nine." But, joking apart, she is a very agreeable and rather witty woman, sympathetic too, apparently, though I believe you used to think, when she was out smiting hearts at our Back o' Beyond, that in nature she somewhat resembled a certain animal worshipped by the Egyptians and feared by mice. She seems very fond of her nephew Dick, with whom she says she goes about a good deal. "We chaperon each other," she expressed it. She pities me for my fire at Graylees, but envies me my motoring trip.
We shall be off in a few days, now, I hope, as soon as Ellaline has been shown a few "features" of London. I went to see the car to-day, and she is a beauty. I shall try her for the first time to-morrow.
Ever Yours,
Pen.
VII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Ritz Hotel, London_, _July 9th_
One and Only Compleat Mother: Things have happened. I felt them coming in my bones--_not_ my funny-bones this time. For the things may turn out to be not at all funny.
Mr. Richard Burden has been introduced to the alleged Miss Lethbridge. I wonder if he _can_ know she is merely "the alleged"? He is certainly changed, somehow, both in his manner, and in his _way of looking at one_. I thought in Paris he hadn't at all a bad face, though rather impudent--and besides, even Man is a fellow being! But last night, for a minute, he really had an incredibly wicked expression; or else he was suppressing a sneeze. I couldn't be quite sure which--as you said about Aubrey Beardsley's weird black-and-white women.
It was at a restaurant--a piteous restaurant, where the waiters looked like enchanted waiters in the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He--Mr. Dicky Burden--came in, with an aunt. Such an aunt! I could never be at home with her as an aunt if I were a grown-up man, though she might make a bewitching cousin. She's quite beautiful, dear, and graceful; but I don't like her at all. I think Sir Lionel does, though. They knew each other in Bengal, and she kept saying to him in a cooing voice, "_Do_ you remember?"
You can see she's too clever to be _always_ clever, because that bores people; but she says witty, sharp things which sound as if they came out of plays, or books, and you think back to see whether she deliberately led up to them. For instance, she asked Sir Lionel, apropos of woman's suffrage, whether, on the whole, he preferred a man's woman, or a woman's woman?