Airy Fairy Lilian. Duchess
is intolerable. The inference is quite distinct. Guy flushes crimson and opens his mouth to give way to some of the thoughts that are oppressing him, but his mother's voice breaking in checks him.
"Don't have any lovers for a long time, child," she says: "you are too young for such unsatisfactory toys. The longer you are without them, the happier you will be. They are more trouble than gratification."
"I don't mean to have one," says Lilian, with a wise shake of her blonde head, "for years and years. I was merely admiring Miss Beauchamp's taste."
"Wise child!" says Cyril, admiringly. "Why didn't you arrive by moonlight, Lilian? I'm never in luck."
"It didn't occur to me: in future I shall be more considerate. Are you fretting because you can't go to-night to meet your cousin? You see how insignificant you are: you would not be trusted on so important a mission. It is only bad little wards you are sent to welcome."
She laughs gayly as she says this; but Guy, who is listening, feels it is meant as a reproach to him.
"There are worse things than bad little wards," says Cyril, "if you are a specimen."
"Do you think so? It's a pity every one doesn't agree with you. No, Martin," to the elderly servitor behind her chair, who she knows has a decided weakness for her: "don't take away the ice pudding yet: I am very fond of it."
"So is Florence. You and she, I foresee, will have a stand-up fight for it at least once a week. Poor cook! I suppose she will have to make two ice puddings instead of one for the future."
"If there is anything on earth I love, it is an ice pudding."
"Not better than me, I trust."
"Far, far better."
"Take it away instantly, Martin; Miss Chesney mustn't have any more: it don't agree with her."
At this Martin smiles demurely and deferentially, and presents the coveted pudding to Miss Chesney; whereat Miss Chesney makes a little triumphant grimace at Cyril and helps herself as she loves herself.
Dinner is over. The servants, – oh, joy! – have withdrawn: everybody has eaten as much fruit as they feel is good for them. Lady Chetwoode looks at Lilian and half rises from her seat.
"It is hardly worth while your leaving us this evening, mother," Guy says, hastily: "I must so soon be running away if I wish to catch the train coming in."
"Very well," – re-seating herself: "we shall break through rules, and stay with you for this one night. You won't have your coffee until your return?"
"No, thank you." He is a little distrait, and is following Lilian's movements with his eyes, who has risen, thrown up the window, and is now standing upon the balcony outside, gazing upon the slumbering flowers, and upon the rippling, singing brooks in the distance, the only things in all creation that never seem to sleep.
After a while, tiring of inanimate nature, she turns her face inward and leans against the window-frame, and being in an idle mood, begins to pluck to pieces the flower that has rested during dinner upon her bosom.
Standing thus in the half light, she looks particularly fair, and slight, and childish, —
"A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded."
Some thought crossing Lady Chetwoode's mind, born of the long and loving glance she has been bestowing upon Lilian, she says:
"How I detest fat people. They make me feel positively ill. Mrs. Boileau, when she called to-day, raised within me the keenest pity."
"She is a very distressing woman," says Guy, absently. "One feels thankful she has no daughter."
"Yes, indeed; the same thought occurred to me. Though perhaps not fat now, she would undoubtedly show fatal symptoms of a tendency toward it later on. Now you, my dear Lilian, have happily escaped such a fate: you will never be fat."
"I'm sure I hope not, if you dislike the idea so much," says Lilian, amused, letting the ghastly remains of her ill-treated flower fall to the ground.
"If you only knew the misery I felt on hearing you were coming to us," goes on Lady Chetwoode, "dreading lest you might be inclined that way; not of course but that I was very pleased to have you, my dear child, but I fancied you large and healthy-looking, with a country air, red cheeks, black hair, and unbounded gaucherie. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I beheld you slim and self-possessed, and with your pretty yellow hair!"
"You make me blush, you cover me with confusion," says Miss Chesney, hiding her face in her hands.
"Yes, yellow hair is my admiration," goes on Lady Chetwoode, modestly: "I had golden hair myself in my youth."
"My dearest mother, we all know you were, and are, the loveliest lady in creation," says Guy, whose tenderness toward his mother is at times a thing to be admired.
"My dear Guy, how you flatter!" says she, blushing a faint, sweet old blush that shows how mightily pleased she is.
"Do you know," says Lilian, "in spite of being thought horrid, I like comfortable-looking people? I wish I had more flesh upon my poor bones. I think," going deliberately up to a glass and surveying herself with a distasteful shrug, – "I think thin people have a meagre, gawky, hard look about them, eminently unbecoming. I rather admire Mrs. Mount-George, for instance."
"Hateful woman!" says Lady Chetwoode, who cherishes for her an old spite.
"I rather admire her, too," says Sir Guy, unwisely, – though he only gives way to this opinion through a wild desire to help out Lilian's judgment.
"Do you?" says that young lady, with exaggerated emphasis. "I shouldn't have thought she was a man's beauty. She is a little too – too – demonstrative, too prononcée."
"Oh, Guy adores fat women," says Cyril, the incorrigible; "wait till you see Florence: there is nothing of the 'meagre, gawky, hard' sort about her. She has a decided leaning toward embonpoint."
"And I imagined her quite slight," says Lilian.
"You must begin then and imagine her all over again. The only flesh there isn't about Florence is fool's flesh. It is hardly worth while, however, your creating a fresh portrait, as the original," glancing at his watch, "will so soon be before you. Guy, my friend, you should hurry."
Lilian returns to the balcony, whither Chetwoode's eyes follow her longingly. He rises reluctantly to his feet, and says to Cyril, with some hesitation:
"You would not care to go to meet Florence?"
"I thank you kindly, – no," says Cyril, with an expressive shrug; "not for Joe! I shall infinitely prefer a cigar at home, and Miss Chesney's society, – if she will graciously accord it to me." This with a smile at Lilian, who has again come in and up to the table, where she is now eating daintily a showy peach, that has been lying neglected on its dish since dinner, crying vainly, "Who'll eat me? who'll eat me?"
She nods and smiles sweetly at Cyril as he speaks.
"I am always glad to be with those who want me," she says, carefully removing the skin from her fruit; "specially you, because you always amuse me. Come out and smoke your cigar, and I will talk to you all the time. Won't that be a treat for you?" with a little low, soft laugh, and a swift glance at him from under her curling lashes that, to say the truth, is rather coquettish.
"There, Guy, don't you envy me, with such a charming time before me?" says Cyril, returning her glance with interest.
"No, indeed," says Lilian, raising her head and gazing full at Chetwoode, who returns her glance steadily, although he is enduring grinding torments all this time, and almost —almost begins to hate his brother. "The last thing Sir Guy would dream of would be to envy you my graceless society. Fancy a guardian finding pleasure in the frivolous conversation of his ward! How could you suspect him of such a weakness?"
Here she lets her small white teeth meet in her fruit with all the airs of a little gourmande, and a most evident enjoyment of its flavor.
There is a pause.
Cyril