Lady Barbarina Part 35

"Look at that green dress with blue flounces. Quelle toilette!" said Mrs. Westgate.

"That's the Marquis of Blackborough," the young man was able to contribute-"the one in the queer white coat. I heard him speak the other night in the House of Lords; it was something about ramrods; he called them _wamwods_. He's an awful swell."

"Did you ever see anything like the way they're pinned back?" Mrs.

Westgate resumed. "They never know where to stop."

"They do nothing but stop," said Willie Woodley. "It prevents them from walking. Here comes a great celebrity-Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She's awfully fast; see what little steps she takes."

"Well, my dear," Mrs. Westgate pursued to Bessie, "I hope you're getting some ideas for your couturiere?"

"I'm getting plenty of ideas," said Bessie, "but I don't know that my couturiere would particularly appreciate them."

Their companion presently perceived a mounted friend who drew up beside the barrier of the Row and beckoned to him. He went forward and the crowd of pedestrians closed about him, so that for some minutes he was hidden from sight. At last he reappeared, bringing a gentleman with him-a gentleman whom Bessie at first supposed to be his friend dismounted. But at a second glance she found herself looking at Lord Lambeth, who was shaking hands with her sister.

"I found him over there," said Willie Woodley, "and I told him you were here."

And then Lord Lambeth, raising his hat afresh, shook hands with Bessie-"Fancy your being here!" He was blus.h.i.+ng and smiling; he looked very handsome and he had a note of splendour he had not had in America.

The girl's free fancy, as we know, was just then in marked exercise; so that the tall young Englishman, as he stood there looking down at her, had the benefit of it. "He's handsomer and more splendid than anything I've ever seen," she said to herself. And then she remembered he was a Marquis and she thought he somehow looked a Marquis.

"Really, you know," he cried, "you ought to have let a fellow know you've come!"

"I wrote to you an hour ago," said Mrs. Westgate.

"Doesn't all the world know it?" smiled Bessie.

"I a.s.sure you I didn't know it!" he insisted. "Upon my honour I hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley now; had I, Woodley?"

"Well, I think you're rather a humbug," this gentleman brought forth.

"You don't believe that-do you, Miss Alden?" asked his lords.h.i.+p. "You don't believe I'm rather a humbug, eh?"

"No," said Bessie after an instant, but choosing and conferring a grace on the literal-"I don't."

"You're too tall to stand up, Lord Lambeth," Mrs. Westgate p.r.o.nounced.

"You approach the normal only when you sit down. Be so good as to get a chair."

He found one and placed it sidewise, close to the two ladies. "If I hadn't met Woodley I should never have found you," he went on. "Should I, Woodley?"

"Well, I guess not," said the young American.

"Not even with my letter?" asked Mrs. Westgate.

"Ah, well, I haven't got your letter yet; I suppose I shall get it this evening. It was awfully kind of you to write."

"So I said to Bessie," the elder lady observed.

"_Did_ she say so, Miss Alden?" Lord Lambeth a little pointlessly inquired. "I daresay you've been here a month."

"We've been here three," mocked Mrs. Westgate.

"_Have_ you been here three months?" the young man asked again of Bessie.

"It seems a long time," Bessie answered.

He had but a brief wonder-he found something. "I say, after that you had better not call me a humbug! I've only been in town three weeks, but you must have been hiding away. I haven't seen you anywhere."

"Where should you have seen us-where should we have gone?" Mrs. Westgate fairly put to him.

It found Willie Woodley at least ready. "You should have gone to Hurlingham."

"No, let Lord Lambeth tell us," Mrs. Westgate insisted.

"There are plenty of places to go to," he said-"each one stupider than the other. I mean people's houses. They send you cards."

"No one has sent us a sc.r.a.p of a card," Bessie laughed.

Mrs. Westgate attenuated. "We're very quiet. We're here as travellers."

"We've been to Madame Tussaud's," Bessie further mentioned.

"Oh I say!" cried Lord Lambeth.

"We thought we should find your image there," said Mrs. Westgate-"yours and Mr. Beaumont's."

"In the Chamber of Horrors?" laughed the young man.

"It did duty very well for a party," said Mrs. Westgate. "All the women were _decolletees_, and many of the figures looked as if they could almost speak."

"Upon my word," his lords.h.i.+p returned, "you see people at London parties who look a long way from that!"

"Do you think Mr. Woodley could find us Mr. Beaumont?" asked the elder of the ladies.

He stared and looked about. "I daresay he could. Percy sometimes comes here. Don't you think you could find him, Woodley? Make a dive or a dash for it."

"Thank you; I've had enough of violent movement," said Willie Woodley.

"I'll wait till Mr. Beaumont comes to the surface."

"I'll bring him to see you," said Lord Lambeth. "Where are you staying?"

"You'll find the address in my letter-Jones's Hotel."

"Oh, one of those places just out of Piccadilly? Beastly hole, isn't it?" Lord Lambeth inquired.

"I believe it's the best hotel in London," said Mrs. Westgate.

"But they give you awful rubbish to eat, don't they?" his lords.h.i.+p went on.

Mrs. Westgate practised the same serenity. "Awful."