  “Alicia,” said the Countess, “it was really a most fortunate coincidence our meeting the Baron at St Egbert’s.” She paused for a reply and looked expectantly at her daughter. It was not the first time in the course of the morning that Lady Alicia had listened to similar observations, and perhaps that was why she answered somewhat listlessly, “Yes, wasn’t it?” The Countess frowned, and continued with emphasis, “I consider him one of the most agreeable and best informed young men I have ever met.” “Is he?” said Lady Alicia, absently. “I wonder, Alicia, you hadn’t noticed it,” her mother observed, severely; “you talked with him most of the afternoon. I should have thought that no observant, well-bred girl would have failed to have been struck with his air and conversation.” “I—I thought him very pleasant, mamma.” [pg 140]“I am glad you had so much sense. He is extremely pleasant.” As Lady Alicia made no reply, the Countess felt obliged to continue his list of virtues herself. “He is of most excellent family, Alicia, one of the oldest in Bavaria. I don’t remember what I heard his income was in pfennigs, or whatever they measure money by in Germany, but I know that it is more than £20,000 a-year in English money. A very large sum nowadays,” she added, as if £20,000 had grown since she was a girl. “Yes, mamma.” “He is considered, besides, an unusually promising and intelligent young nobleman, and in Germany, where noblemen are still constantly used, that says a great deal for him.” “Does it, mamma?” “Certainly it does. Education there is so severe that young Englishmen are beginning to know less than they ever did, and in most cases that isn’t saying much. Compare the Baron with the young men you meet here!” She looked at her daughter triumphantly, and Alicia could only reply, “Yes, mamma?” “Compare them and see the difference. Look at the Baron’s friend, Mr Bunker, who is a very agreeable and amusing man, I admit, but look at the difference!” “What is it?” Alicia could not help asking. “What is it, Alicia! It is—ah—it’s—er—it is, in short, the effect of a carefully cultivated mind and good blood.” [pg 141]“But don’t you think Mr Bunker cultivated, mamma—and—and—well-bred?” “He has an amusing way of saying things,—but then you must remember that the Baron is doubtless equally entertaining in his native language,—and possibly a superficial knowledge of a few of the leading questions of the day; but the Baron talked to me for half an hour on the relations of something or other in Germany to—er—something else—a very important point, I assure you.” “I always thought him very clever,” said Lady Alicia with a touch of warmth, and then instantly changed colour at the horrible slip. “You always,” said the Countess in alarmed astonishment; “you hardly spoke to him yesterday, and—had you met him before?” “I—I meant the Baron, mamma.” “But I have just been saying that he was unusually clever.” “But I thought, I mean it seemed as though you considered him only well informed.” Lady Alicia’s blushes and confusion deepened. Her mother looked at her with a softening eye. Suddenly she rose, kissed her affectionately, and said with the tenderness of triumph, “My dear girl! Of course he is; clever, well informed, and a most desirable young man. My Alicia could not do——” She stopped, as if she thought this was perhaps a little premature (though the Countess’s methods inclined to the summary and decisive), and again kissing her daughter [pg 142] Poor Lady Alicia hardly knew whether to feel more relieved at her escape or dismayed at the construction put upon her explanation. She went out to meet the Baron, determined to give no further colour to her mother’s unlucky misconception. The Countess was far too experienced and determined a general to leave it at all doubtful who should walk by whose side, and who should have the opportunity of appreciating whose merits, but Lady Alicia was quite resolved that the Baron’s blandishments should fall on stony ground. But a soft heart and an undecided mouth are treacherous companions. The Baron was so amiable and so gallant, that at the end of half an hour she was obliged to abate the strictness of her resolution. She should treat him with the friendliness of a brother. She learned that he had no sisters: her decision was confirmed. The enamoured and delighted Baron was in the seventh heaven of happy loquacity. He poured out particulars of his travels, his more recordable adventures, his opinions on various social and political matters, and at last even of the family ghost, the hereditary carpet-beatership, and the glories of Bavaria. And Lady Alicia listened with what he could not doubt was an interest touched with tenderness. [pg 143]“I wonder,” she said, artlessly, “that you find anything to admire in England—compared with Bavaria, I mean.” “Two zings I haf not zere,” replied the Baron, waving his hand round towards the horizon. “Vun is ze vet sheet of flowing sea—says not your poet so? Ze ozzer” (laying his hand on his heart) “is ze Lady Alicia À Fyre.” There are some people who catch sentiment whenever it happens to be in the air, just as others almost equally unfortunate regularly take hay-fever. Lady Alicia’s reply was much softer than she intended, especially as she could have told anybody that the Baron’s compliment was the merest figure of speech. “You needn’t have included me: I’m sure I’m not a great attraction.” “Ze sea is less, so zat leaves none,” the Baron smiled. “Didn’t you see anybody—I mean, anything in London that attracted you—that you liked?” “Zat I liked, yes, zat pairhaps for the moment attracted me; but not zat shall still attract me ven I am gone avay.” The Baron sighed this time, and she felt impelled to reply, with the most sisterly kindness, “I—we should, of course, like to think that you didn’t forget us altogether.” “You need not fear.” Then Lady Alicia began to realise that this was more like a second cousin than a brother, and with sudden sprightliness she cried, “I wonder where that steamer’s going!” [pg 144]The Baron turned his eyes towards his first-named attraction, but for a professed lover of the ocean his interest appeared slight. He only replied absently, “Ach, zo?” A little way behind them walked Mr Bunker and the Countess. The attention of Lady Grillyer was divided between the agreeable conversation of her companion and the pleasant spectacle of a fabulous number of pfennigs a-year bending its titled head over her daughter. In the middle of one of Mr Bunker’s most amusing stories she could not forbear interrupting with a complacent “they do make a very handsome couple!” Mr Bunker politely stopped his narrative, and looked critically from his friend’s gaily checked back to Lady Alicia’s trim figure. “Pray go on with your story, Mr Bunker,” said the Countess, hastily, realising that she had thought a little too loudly. “They are like,” responded Mr Bunker, replying to her first remark—“they are like a pair of gloves.” The Countess raised her brows and looked at him sharply. “I mean, of course, the best quality.” “I think,” said the Countess, suspiciously, “that you spoke a little carelessly.” “My simile was a little premature?” “I think so,” said the Countess, decisively. “Let us call them then an odd pair,” smiled Mr Bunker, unruffled; “and only hope that they’ll turn out to be the same size and different hands.” [pg 145]The Countess actually condescended to smile back. “She is a dear child,” she murmured. “His income, I think, is sufficient,” he answered. Humour was not conspicuous in the Grillyer family. The Countess replied seriously, “I am one of those out-of-date people, Mr Bunker, who consider some things come before money, but the Baron’s birth and position are fortunately unimpeachable.” “While his mental qualities,” said Mr Bunker, “are, in my experience, almost unique.” The Countess was confirmed in her opinion of Mr Bunker’s discrimination. Late that night, after they had parted with their friends, the Baron smoked in the most unwonted silence while Mr Bunker dozed on the sofa. Several times Rudolph threw restive glances at his friend, as if he had something on his mind that he needed a helping hand to unburden himself of. At last the silence grew so intolerable that he screwed up his courage and with desperate resolution exclaimed, “Bonker!” Mr Bunker opened his eyes and sat up. “Bonker, I am in loff!” Mr Bunker smiled and stretched himself out again. “I have also been in love,” he replied. “You are not now?” “Alas! no.” “Vy alas?” “Because follies without illusions get so infernally dull, Baron.” The Baron smiled a little foolishly. [pg 146]“I haf ze illusions, I fear.” Then he broke out enthusiastically, “Ach, bot is she not lofly, Bonker? If she will bot lof me back I shall be ze happiest man out of heaven!” “You have wasted no time, Baron.” The Baron shook his head in melancholy pleasure. “You are quite sure it is really love this time?” his friend pursued. “Qvite!” said the Baron, with the firmness of a martyr. “There are so many imitations.” “Not so close zat zey can deceive!” “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Mr Bunker. “These first symptoms are common to them all, and yet the varieties of the disease are almost beyond counting. I myself have suffered from it in eight different forms. There was the virulent, spotted-all-over variety, known as calf-love; there was the kind that accompanied itself by a course of the Restoration dramatists; another form I may call the strayed-Platonic, and that may be subdivided into at least two; then there was——” “Schtop! schtop!” cried the Baron. “Ha, ha, ha! Zat will do! Teufel! I most examine my heart strictly. And yet, Bonker, I zink my loff is anozzer kind—ze real!” “They are all that, Baron; but have it your own way. Anything I can do to make you worse shall be done.” “Zanks, my best of friends,” said the Baron, warmly, seizing his hand; “I knew you would stand by me!” Mr Bunker gave a little laugh, and returning the pressure, replied, “My dear fellow, I’d do anything to oblige a friend in such an interesting condition.” |
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