“Yes, he is rather a dreadful spectacle,” said Lady Leighton. “Now, one wonders he likes to exhibit himself about the world, where he once was so well known in another way. There’s nothing so strange as human vanity, Mr. Rowland. I think he rather likes to show{v.1-25454} as a sort of prize example of suffering and misery. It’s a distinction in its way. He had the distinction of being one of the handsomest men of his day, and of behaving more badly than almost anybody else, and now he’s the most deplorable sufferer—always the first, you know, whatever he’s at.”

“You are a little hard upon him, Lady Leighton.”

“Not a bit too hard. I know the man so well. We’ve always been very good friends——”

“What! Though he behaved more badly than almost anybody else?” Rowland said, with a laugh. Evelyn, who, knowing what her friend meant, and still smarting as she was from the previous encounter, felt it almost as an added injury, looked on with the gravest face, feeling herself unable to speak.

“Well!—you don’t know society as I do. You’ve spent your life in primitive countries, where men fly at each other’s throats when they disapprove of each other. We don’t do that here. We carry on our relations all the same. Sometimes, however, we speak very plainly, I am glad to say. Ned Saumarez knows exactly what I think of him, but he comes to see me as if we were the dearest of friends.”

“I don’t understand society,” said Rowland, “and I don’t think I should ever know that part of it. How is anybody to know which you prefer, the good or the bad, if you treat them just the same?”

“Oh, everybody knows what I think of him, including himself,” said Madeline, lightly; “that’s one of our refinements. And so you are going to have Rose and Eddy to visit you in the country. You are a couple{v.1-25555} of bold people—with a boy and a girl of your own. Of course there will be fallings in love.”

Rowland laughed again, opening his mouth in simple enjoyment of the joke, as he took it. “I think I can answer for my two,” he said.

“Oh, you can’t answer for anybody!” said Lady Leighton, somewhat sharply, “Rose is a girl of the period, and scorns that kind of thing—so does my Mabel, save the mark! They are both going to do all sorts of things as soon as they are out—walk the hospitals! I don’t know what absurd projects they have. But Eddy, I warn you, is a mauvais sujet, Evelyn. He is like his father. He makes love to everybody. I don’t know what age Miss Rowland is——”

“Eighteen,” said her father.

Lady Leighton threw up her hands. “His natural prey! And she has been brought up in the country, I suppose, and believes anything that is said to her——”

“She has been brought up,” said Rowland, a little displeased with the turn the conversation was taking, “in Glasgow, which is a very different thing from the country, and perhaps not so much given to the innocence of faith.”

“Oh!” said Lady Leighton, making a dead pause. She had not the least idea how a girl could be brought up in Glasgow, any more than if it had been Timbuctoo. The country she comprehended: town she comprehended—but Glasgow! A “smart” lady’s information stops long before it comes to such a point as that.

“Perhaps,” said Evelyn, troubled by all this, “I have been imprudent. It is awkward, anyhow, to have{v.1-25656} these young people coming to us so soon, when we are scarcely settled; but it is hard to say no, when one is appealed to, for the good of others.”

“I hope,” said Rowland, “it is an appeal you never will refuse. It shocks me rather to hear you now discussing your future guests. Don’t they become sacred as soon as you invite them, like the strangers in a Bedouin’s tent? That’s our old Scotch way.”

“Mr. Rowland, you are a darling,” said Lady Leighton, “quite too great a darling, Evelyn, for this wicked world. I am so glad you have invited me! But is it not the Scotch way to tear one into little pieces after one is gone? The balance must be kept straight somehow.”

“It is not the way in my house,” he said, with a certain severity, not liking that little scoff at the Scotch way, though he had brought it on himself. Rowland had no objection to have his fling at his fellow-Scot when occasion served. He had vituperated the Glasgow tradesman largely for being slow, for being behind the time. He had thought everything “provincial”—the hardest word to be applied to such a huge and important place; but he felt offended when any one else followed his example. Evelyn had begun to know the look in his face.

That afternoon when they had completed all their last emplettes, chosen everything, ordered everything they wanted, and were seated together over the little tea-table which has once more become, though under changed circumstances from those of the eighteenth century, one of the confidential centres of life in Eng{v.1-25757}land, a visitor appeared who disturbed their talk, and gave to the astonished Rowland another new sensation. He was tired with much movement, declaring that London fatigued him more than the hottest of the plains, and that the shops made a greater call on his energies than any railway or canal he had ever had to do with; and the rest and comparative coolness of the room was pleasant to them both, the beginning of the day having been unlucky, and a disagreeable turn given, as sometimes happens, to all its occurrences. There is something in luck after all, and perhaps the primitive people who turn back from the day’s adventure at sea and labour on land, because they have met an ill-omened passenger—an evil eye—have more reason in their superstition than is generally supposed. That morning’s encounter with the invalid in his chair had been bad for the Rowlands. They had found nothing they wanted. The persons they desired to see had been out of the way. The commissions they had given were not executed to their mind. Everybody knows that sometimes, without any apparent cause, this will be the case to the trial of one’s temper and the confusion of all one’s arrangements. Some one else had snapped up the picture which they had selected at the picture-dealer’s. There had been nothing successful that they had done that day. Rowland, of course, was too enlightened and modern to think of anything like an evil eye. But Evelyn was old-fashioned, and not without a touch of natural and womanish superstition. She set it down to the score of Saumarez and that meeting which she had wished so much to avoid; and the thought op{v.1-25858}pressed her more than the contrarieties of the day. “It was all our unlucky meeting with that man,” she even went so far as to say, when she came in, jaded and disappointed, feeling the unsuccessful day all the more that everything hitherto had been so very much the reverse. “Do you think he threw a spell upon us?” Rowland said with a laugh. “He doesn’t look at all unlike an old magician, to say the truth.” Evelyn’s little outburst of temper somehow soothed her husband. And though he grumbled a little at the heat, which was worse than Indian, and declared that the English were asses never to have introduced the punkah, yet he soon recovered his elasticity of mind. And when the door opened and Miss Saumarez was announced, he was lounging in the easiest way upon a sofa, and discoursing to his wife, as he loved to discourse, upon the beautiful country to which he was about to take her, and the views from the colonnade which encircled Rosmore.

“Miss Saumarez.” There walked in a tall girl in the simplest of dresses, but without a soil or sign of dust, or crease, or crumple of any description, perfectly self-possessed, yet perfectly unpretending, with that air of being and knowing that she was the best of her kind, which is born with some people, and to others is utterly beyond the possibility of being acquired. Rosamond would not have been fluttered, she would have known perfectly what to do and how to behave herself, had she walked into the presence of the Queen instead of into that of James Rowland, who, very much flustered, and conscious that he had loosed his necktie{v.1-25959} a little, and that his collar was not so stiff as it ought to be, got up in much surprise and discomfiture. Evelyn rose slowly from her low chair, with a feeling more wretched still. A sort of sick loathing of the very name, and of the connection she had so foolishly allowed herself to be drawn into, overwhelmed her; and it was all she could do to keep this sensation out of her face as Rosamond came forward and offered a peachy cheek to her kiss. The young lady took in the aspect of things in a moment.

“I am afraid I have disturbed you,” she said, “just when you are tired and resting. I asked the man if it was a good time, but he did not know. They never know anything, those servants in a hotel. But I will go away directly, as soon as I have asked one little question. Thank you very much, but I don’t think I had better sit down.”

She had a high-bred voice, soft but perfectly clear, with the finest low intonation. She spoke very quietly, but Rosamond always had the gift of being heard.

“Yes, yes, you must sit down,” said Rowland, awakening to a more agreeable sentiment as he handed her a chair.

“We have just come in,” said Evelyn. “You must forgive me: we have had a very tiring day.”

“It is so hot and dusty, I do not wonder. One feels as if one were breathing dust and noise and people, anything but air. But you have it hotter in India,” she said, turning her face towards Rowland, with a little gracious acknowledgment of his presence, and of what and who he was.{v.1-26060}

“It is hotter, but there are more appliances. I was saying to my wife we should have had a punkah.”

“Something that the poor natives pull and pull to give you air? I have heard of that—but who punkahs them?” said Rosamond, with a sweet severity, as if calling upon him to give an account of tyranny and selfish misgovernment, presumably, yet perhaps not inexcusably his fault.

“I am afraid we don’t think much on that subject,” said Rowland; “they are natives, you know, and like it, not the punkah, but the heat.”

“Ah! there is, of course, always something to be said on both sides of a question. Dear Mrs. Rowland, I came to you from my father, who gets a great fidget with his illness. Since he cannot move himself, he likes to keep some one always in motion. It was to ask when we were to go to you, Eddy and I. I thought it would be better to wait until you let us know, but father thinks those who are to be obliged should take all the trouble, which of course is just, too. So will you please think it was not wanton intrusion, but to save you the trouble of writing a note.”

“I’ll answer for my wife, that she could not be otherwise than glad to see you,” said Rowland, astonished to see that Evelyn hesitated.

Miss Rosamond gave him a pretty bow and smile, but it was evident that she considered his judgment an exceedingly small matter, and did not at all accept his answering for his wife, as he ignorantly thought himself quite qualified to do.

“Indeed, you must not think I take your coming{v.1-26161} as intrusion. And, of course, you must arrange your visits beforehand.”

“It is scarcely that,” said Rosamond. “We have not many visits to arrange: people don’t ask a girl who is not out, except it is for charity, like you. And Eddy is rather a pickle: I have not concealed that from you. Nor is it to tell us the very day, as if I were putting a pistol to your head. Indeed, I only came because I was sent. Father is often exceedingly tiresome, but it is easier to do what he tells one than to argue with him that it is not what one ought to do.”

“We have scarcely had time yet to consider what we shall be doing. Our house, you know, is scarcely in order yet. I hardly know what accommodation there is, or how we shall arrange matters. I know nothing yet but what I have been told. But as soon as we are quite settled,” said Evelyn, “you may be sure that I will let you know.”

“To be sure,” said Rosamond; “I knew my instinct was right. Now, that is just what I wanted. I shall be able to satisfy father.”

“But, my dear,” cried Rowland in horror, “of course you will be delighted to see this young lady whenever she pleases. There is plenty of accommodation, and we could be doing nothing in which we should not be glad to have the pleasure of her company.”

“Let me settle, please, James,” said Evelyn, a little crossly. “These things want arranging, as Rosamond quite knows.”

Consternation filled the mind of the man who did not know the ways of society. To allow an intending{v.1-26262} guest to feel as if by any possibility she might not be welcome at any time, overwhelmed him with dismay. He got up and walked to the window to free himself at least from responsibility—to be no party to such an astounding act of inhospitableness. Certainly that was not “our Scotch way.” He stood there a little, with his back to them, listening to the soft voices running on. He was very susceptible to the music of these mellow, well-bred voices. And the girl’s had no sound of offence in it, neither had Evelyn’s any hardness. He stood looking at the street, while they had it out between them, calculating the times and seasons. Not for about a month did the Saumarez family leave London. Miss Rosamond had to go to her grandmother’s, and it was the time of Eddy’s examination; so that arrangement was necessary on both sides. He stood there feeling more and more every moment what an ignoramus he was. He would have bidden the young people to come at once, to accompany him through all the difficulties of settling down, had he had his way; and to accept such an invitation would have disturbed all their plans as well as Evelyn’s. Well, well! in this respect it was evident that the calm society way was the best. And yet, middle-aged as he was, and acquainted with the world as he believed himself to be, he felt that he would not have liked to have a proposed visit from himself discussed and regulated like this.

“I hope you have settled,” he said, coming back from the window, when the soft ripple of the voices came to a little pause.

“Oh, yes, the 5th of October; thank you very much,{v.1-26363}” said Rosamond. “That will suit us quite, extremely well. Father will still be at Aix, and Eddy’s exam. will be over, and I shall have finished with grandmamma. Thank you so very much, dear Mrs. Rowland. Now I see father was right in making me come—though I did disturb you at the first.”

“Only because I was a little cross, my dear, and tried—”

“I don’t believe she is ever cross—is she?” said Rosamond, appealing to Rowland. “We shall see how you put up with Eddy. Eddy is enough to make any one cross. Of course he will break down in his exam.: he always has done it, and he always will. There are some boys who seem to go on like that on purpose that everybody may see they will not take the trouble. There seems some pride among boys as to not taking trouble. They are ashamed to say they have worked for anything. And father seems to understand it, but I do not.”

“Neither do I, Miss Rosamond,” said Rowland; “you and I will agree. I think a young fellow should be flogged that goes on like that.”

“I should not like Eddy to be flogged,” said Rosamond, in her cool, even, sweet voice. “Of course he was flogged at Eton—swished, as they call it—and he did not mind one bit. They rather like it. They are proud of what is a shame, and ashamed of things they ought to be proud of. That’s one of the things Eddy says ‘that no girl can understand.’”

Rowland approached the table where the tea still stood, and where the young lady was eating bread and{v.1-26464} butter in her composed and reasonable way. “Do you go to a great many balls?” he said, in the tone which he might have applied to a child.

Rosamond regarded him from top to toe with her calm luminous eyes. She paused a moment as if wondering at such extreme fatuity. Then she said, “I am not out yet,” with great seriousness. A few minutes later she unbent. “I do not wonder you are surprised. I am eighteen, but father’s condition stops him from doing many things—that he does not care to do. Grandmother is too old to go to Court, and nobody has cared very much to take me. I shall perhaps be presented next year.”

“By-the-bye,” said Rowland, looking with eagerness at his wife.

“What is it, James?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, going off again to the window. Both of the ladies divined at once what he wanted to say; Evelyn with a faint regretful sense of the excitement which he betrayed; Rosamond with a much more prosaic feeling that here was something which they wanted to consult each other about. She would have liked to stay to hear what it was, but a better instinct persuaded her that it was time to go away.

“You have some one with you?” said Evelyn, as she rose to go.

“I have Champion: he always takes care of me. I do not often bring him out at this hour; but he is quite sufficient for a protector. Ah, might I bring Champion? He does nothing wrong, never misbehaves,{v.1-26565} nor attempts to lie on sofas. He is a gentleman. Might I bring him? It would be such a favour, for the house will be shut up, and grandmamma cannot bear dogs.”

“Is it a dog?—to be sure!” said Rowland, “I suppose that’s in my department, Evelyn. My son Archie and you will get on very well, if you are fond of dogs.”

“Oh!” said Rosamond. There was something in that monosyllable which implied a good deal more. “Oh,” it seemed to say, “you have a son Archie, and he is fond of dogs? I don’t make much account of your son Archie—still—” There was all this in the varying of her tone; but she did not ask any questions. She presented her peachlike cheek once more to Evelyn to be kissed, and she offered her hand with a little inclination of a curtsey to Rowland. He went downstairs with her, though she remonstrated, and watched her untie her dog from the railings with a sense of wondering, wistful admiration. “Oh,” he breathed in his heart, “if Marion was but like that!” He burst into words when he got upstairs. “Oh, if I could but see Marion like that!” This exclamation was quite unintentional and involuntary: he was startled into it, and almost regretted he had said it the moment the words were out.

“Why!” said Evelyn, wondering. Then she added, “I hope Marion will end by being something much better than that.”

“Better!” he paused a little. “I wish I saw her at all like that. The voice, and the manner, and the dress. That girl talks almost like you: how composed{v.1-26666} she is—taking everything just as it ought to be taken: understanding—You have something about you, people in your class—you are more philosophical—you seem to know what things mean, even a child like that: while Marion—poor little Marion—she is ready to cry or fly into a passion about anything—nothing—and to say little impertinent senseless things—Even the very dress—”

“Dear James, I say what I mean. Probably dear little Marion is far better in her naturalness than this. I mean nothing against Rosamond. She is made up of so many things. She is natural too, but it is a nature which is full of art. You would not like Marion to understand as she does, poor child. As for the dress—”

He had received this with much shaking of his head. Marion’s naturalness! If only Evelyn might find it so. He thought Rosamond much more natural for his part, and he was very grateful to his wife for the “dear little Marion,” which indeed was more the fruit of opposition in Evelyn than of an affection which she could scarcely have been expected to feel for a girl whom she had never seen. He caught at the last words as something to which he could reply—“The dress?”

“I have been thinking about that. It is a great pity you did not bring them both up with you to town, James, for that purpose. It was almost certain there would be deficiencies in dress.”

He smote upon his thigh in disgust with himself. “If I had only thought of that! Indeed I did think of it; but I thought—in short I got out of heart a{v.1-26767} little with the whole concern. I thought—I would keep you from disappointment as long as I could; keep you from seeing what they are; what little, common, foolish—Evelyn, I have had a terrible disappointment, a hideous sort of undeception. It is all my own fault—that I should have been such a heartless fool as to leave them there all these years!”

Evelyn got up to support him in this sudden break-down. She put her arm round the big shoulders, which it would not half encircle. “James, dear James! what nonsense you are talking. Your children and your Mary’s—no, no, my good man! you are excited; you are over-anxious; you have judged the poor dear children too hardly. Shall we stay another week and have them down here, and set the clothes to rights? Fancy you, of all people in the world, being so much influenced by a question of clothes!”

“If it were only that!” he said, holding her close to him, almost weeping on her shoulder. It was safer not to investigate what it was that made the strong man’s eyes so wet and sore. Evelyn did not attempt any such prying, but let him hide himself—he so much stronger than she was—in her soft hold, and swallow the sob that was in his capacious heart. No one ever guessed but in that moment, what it was to James Rowland to have lost his ideal children, the little things with all their sweetness whom he remembered, and to have found the common-place young man and woman whom he now knew. Evelyn’s tender sympathy, compassion, and presently the tremulous laugh with which she began to jest and tease him about his devotion to{v.1-26868} externals, his fancy for fine clothes, brought him at last to himself. He was a little ashamed to feel his eyes red, to know that he must look almost like a woman who had been crying when he raised his head to the light. But all that Evelyn did to betray her knowledge was a little kiss upon his eyes, which she gave him heartily, as if in spite of herself. And then they sat down to consider the question, which was decided at last in favour of “going home,” as Evelyn called it, there to take such steps for a complete renewal of Marion’s wardrobe as her taste and knowledge would suggest. It was easy to talk of the clothes, to which she had playfully directed the conversation—too serious and too emotional to be otherwise discussed: but both of them were very well aware that a great deal more was meant.

It was some time after that, when the gravity of the situation had been dissipated, and lighter thoughts and talk came in, that he asked her with a little shamefacedness, whether she had gone through that ceremonial to which Rosamond Saumarez had referred. “I suppose you have been—presented, as they call it,” he said with a laugh.

“Oh, yes—at the proper time, when I was a girl. I was only at one drawing-room after that. We were too poor to afford the dress.”

“You are not too poor now to afford—whatever you please in that way—Evelyn:” he laughed, abashed and shy, but eager, “should you think it right to—go again.{v.1-26969}”

“Oh, yes,” she said by no means so earnestly. “I hope you would not dislike it, James.”

“Dislike it!—to show one’s reverence and homage to the Queen? Good heavens, no! if a man felt good enough—It seems as if it should be a kind of duty, Evelyn.”

“Yes,” she said, not so fervent even now; “but not this year. I can take Marion next spring.”

He laughed so that he almost cried. “And I suppose I shall have to get myself up in some ridiculous costume or other to go with you—me and little Mey—a pair of guys—before the Queen!”