WHEN Mrs. Fox-Darriel descended to the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later, she found Lady Paton and Mary alone with Mrs. Jedsley, who as yet showed no intention of departing. Mrs. Jedsley was very stout, but of a vigorous bearing. Her firm, wide face was dashed with rather choleric notes of red on cheeks, chin, and eyebrows. Her eyes were witty and humorous. Mrs. Fox-Darriel, very indifferently, felt these quickly travelling eyes taking in every gleam and glitter of her tea-gown. Mrs. Fox-Darriel always jingled a little as she walked; she was one of those women who dangle lorgnettes at the ends of swaying neck-chains, and circle their wrists with a multitude of bangles, and now, as she sank into a chair beside Lady Paton, and smiled a languid acceptance of tea, the infinity of pendent jewels and the linked gold that draped her person, chimed out quite a harmonious clatter. Mrs. Fox-Darriel always gave Lady Paton a fluttered look, the look of a child shrinking from a too persistently obtrusive rattle, and she handed her the tea and bread and butter with gently scared glances.

“What delicious tea,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel affably, “and the pouring of tea is an art in its decadence. Really, dear Lady Paton, you have spoiled me for all cups poured by other hands. Your aunt’s hands add a distinct charm, do they not?” she added, looking at Mary,—“and her cap.” Indeed Lady Paton’s caps and hands resembled one another in blanched delicacy.

“Oh yes,” Mary replied hastily; she was not accustomed to this suave mode of address from Mrs. Fox-Darriel.

“I saw you walking in the garden just now,” pursued that glittering personage; “you made quite a picture in your pretty dress, I assure you.”

“Oh! do you like it?” Mary’s face was transfused by a blush of surprised pleasure.

“It is really charming,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel unblinkingly, while Mrs. Jedsley’s eyes travelled up and down poor Mary’s ungainliness.

“Against the deeper shades of green, you know, and with your golden hair, you looked quite—quite like an Albert Moore. Has your friend, Mr. Perior, gone? I saw him with you.” There was a subtly delightful intimation in this question that filled Mary with a half painful, half delicious embarrassment.

“Mr. Perior is with Camelia,” she said, the crude fact hardly jarring on the dulcet echo of Mrs. Fox-Darriel’s question. He was her friend, Mary knew, felt it with a wave of gratitude that quieted many aches, but was it then so evident—so noticeable?

“Ah yes! Camelia is rather fond of teasing him, I am afraid,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, observing Mary’s flush, and noting as an unkindness of nature that her hair, the only grace she possessed, should grow so thickly at the back and with such unbecoming scantiness around the high brow. Mary’s whole being had been quivering with the pain of her dispossession, but a grateful warmth now stole through the chill of bereavement.

Her flush had not died when Camelia came in, Perior following her. Camelia’s face was imperturbably gay, but from a certain severity and tension in Perior’s expression, Mrs. Fox-Darriel surmised that the pastoral promenade had not been altogether peaceful.

It was hardly possible, of course, that the indifference of this stiff provincial should pique Camelia into an attitude that might compromise real interests; no, hardly possible; yet Mrs. Fox-Darriel, with some acuteness, determined that all her efforts should tend to make such an absurdity impossible indeed.

Ugly Mary was evidently in love with the unattractive Diogenes; but Camelia need not know that. Mrs. Fox-Darriel almost laughed at herself while she meditated; Camelia could hardly intend more than the purposeless capturing of Diogenes; Camelia’s head was perfectly sound when it came to decisive extremes. Only—well—women, all women, were such fools sometimes. That bounding, pursuing step across the lawn had given Mrs. Fox-Darriel a new impression of Camelia.

“Look, Mamma, is not this beautiful? Look, Frances.” Camelia held out a branch of white roses, buds and leaves climbing on lovely curves to a heavy, swaying flower;—“it is such a perfect spray that I am going to attempt a Japanese arrangement with this bit of pine. Mary, will you fetch me that bronze vase out of the morning room—with its little stand, you know—and have it filled with water; and, Mary,—” Mary was departing obediently, “a pair of scissors—don’t forget. If there is anything I dislike,” Camelia went on, hers was always a temperate manner of speech, “it is a heavy mass of flowers bunched together with all the individuality, all the form and vitality, of line quite lost.”

She smiled at Mrs. Jedsley as she spoke, skimming caressing finger-tips over her rose branch, and adding, “You may see me at your place to-morrow, Mrs. Jedsley. Mr. Perior has been giving me a dreadful scolding on my neighborly deficiencies. To-morrow I make a conscientious round of calls—and pour balm into all the wounded bosoms.” Mrs. Fox-Darriel glanced quickly at Perior to see how he relished this offensive obedience; Perior, as he stood before the fireplace, was looking at his boots. Mrs. Jedsley’s eyebrows grew very red.

“I won’t be at home to-morrow,” she said decidedly, “and if I were conscious of wounds I’d keep at a good distance from you, Camelia.” Lady Paton looked from her daughter to Perior, an alarmed appeal, but he did not raise his eyes nor seem to notice Camelia’s graceful promises.

“Mrs. Jedsley, why are you always so unkind to me?” Camelia asked, laughing. “I assure you that you may trust my balms. Mrs. Jedsley, I will wager you—do you ever bet?—that by to-morrow night the whole county-side will be singing my praises. I like people to sing my praises—I like to feel affection and sympathy about me; now Mr. Perior has been telling me that there is a distinct absence of these elements in my atmosphere. I begin to feel the vacuum myself. Won’t you help me to fill it—help my regeneration?—No, Mary, that is the wrong vase—how could I arrange flowers in that? On the stand, was it? The house-maid’s stupidity, then; and I bought together the stand and the proper vase to go with it. No; don’t take the stand back with you, you goosie! put it here. Now, Mrs. Jedsley,” she added, when Mary had once more departed, Perior having relieved her of the stand and carried it, not at all graciously, to Camelia, “tell me how I can best please every one most? You know them all so well—their pet pursuits, their pet hobbies. Mrs. Harley has orchids, of course; I shall immediately ask her to take me to the conservatory. And Mrs. Grier—that pensive little woman with the long, long nose—has she not a son at Oxford, a boy she dotes on? Isn’t she very fond of music?”

Mrs. Jedsley was stirring her third cup of tea with an entirely recovered composure. “Yes, Mrs. Grier plays the violin, and has a son she dotes on; if you flatter her nicely enough, she will certainly join in the ‘Hallelujah.’”

“Well, that is nice to know.” Mary had now brought the correct Japanese vase, and Camelia neatly trimmed from her branch while she spoke a few superfluous leaves and twigs.

“Is not Mrs. Grier a dear friend of Lady Henge’s?” Mrs. Fox-Darriel asked in an aside to Lady Paton—to the latter a very welcome aside, as in murmured acquiescence she found a momentary refuge from the bewildered sensations her daughter’s projects gave her.

Yes, Lady Henge and Mrs. Grier were great friends, both musical, both deeply interested in charitable work. Mrs. Grier, a sweet woman,—“and you know,” said Lady Paton, bending gently towards her guest, “her nose is not so long. That is only Camelia’s droll way of putting things, you know.”

“Oh, yes,”—Mrs. Fox-Darriel’s smile was very reassuring—“you and I understand Camelia, Lady Paton. It doesn’t do to take her au grand sÉrieux.” Indeed, Mrs. Fox-Darriel smiled inwardly, feeling that all disquiet on Camelia’s account was very unnecessary, and convinced that she knew her very thoroughly.

“You won’t be at home to-morrow, then?” asked Camelia, looking around from her vase as Mrs. Jedsley rose to go.

“No, my dear; and I’m afraid you won’t find me of use at any time. I haven’t any particular foibles. You won’t discover a handle about me by which to wind me up to the required musical pitch.”

“You traduce yourself, Mrs. Jedsley; with your charitable heart, do you mean to tell me that, were I to wrap Clievesbury in red flannel, fill it with buns and broth, you wouldn’t think me charming, and make sweet music in my ears?”

“I never denied that you were charming, balefully charming, you naughty girl,” said Mrs. Jedsley with a good humor that implied no submission.

“Here is a rose for you. May it give you kind thoughts of me.” Camelia fastened one of the rejected buds in the lady’s portly bosom, and when she was gone, Lady Paton, leaving the room with her, she added, “Mary, is the piano tuned?”

Mary went to the Steinway. “Lady Henge is a composer, as you know.” She turned a face sparkling with mischief to Perior, who maintained his silence beside the mantelpiece.

“You have heard her? Yes? Well, you shall hear her again. That’s enough, Mary,” she added, lightly; “we hear that the piano needs tuning.”

Now Mary had a certain little pride in the neat execution of Beethoven’s Sonatas, that many hours of faithful practice had seemed to justify, and while Camelia stood back to admire her flower arrangement, both Perior and Mrs. Fox-Darriel noticed the flush that swept over Mary’s face.