Lady Barbarina Part 40

His friend turned on him a cold eye and for a moment said nothing, presently, however, speaking a little stiffly. "My pa.s.sion doesn't make such a show as you might suppose, considering what a demonstrative beggar I am."

"I don't want to know anything about it-anything whatever," said Beaumont. "Your mother asks me every time she sees me whether I believe you're really lost-and Lady Pimlico does the same. I prefer to be able to answer that I'm in complete ignorance, that I never go there. I stay away for consistency's sake. As I said the other day, they must look after you themselves."

"Well, you're wonderfully considerate," the young man returned. "They never question _me_."

"They're afraid of you. They're afraid of annoying you and making you worse. So they go to work very cautiously, and, somewhere or other, they get their information. They know a great deal about you. They know you've been with those ladies to the dome of Saint Paul's and-where was the other place?-to the Thames Tunnel."

"If all their knowledge is as accurate as that it must be very valuable,"

said Lord Lambeth.

"Well, at any rate, they know you've been visiting the 'sights of the metropolis.' They think-very naturally, as it seems to me-that when you take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little n.o.body of an American girl something may be supposed to be 'up.'" The young man met this remark with scornful laughter, but his companion continued after a pause: "I told you just now that I cultivate my ignorance, but I find I can no longer stand my suspense. I confess I do want to know whether you propose to marry Miss Alden."

On this point Lord Lambeth gave his questioner no prompt satisfaction; he only mused-frowningly, portentously. "By Jove they go rather too far.

They _shall_ have cause to worry-I promise them."

Percy Beaumont, however, continued to aim at lucidity. "You don't, it's true, quite redeem your threats. You said the other day you'd make your mother call."

Lord Lambeth just hung fire. "Well, I asked her to."

"And she declined?"

"Yes, but she shall do it yet."

"Upon my word," said Percy, "if she gets much more scared I verily believe she will." His friend watched him on this, and he went on.

"She'll go to the girl herself."

"How do you mean 'go' to her?"

"She'll try to get 'at' her-to square her. She won't care what she does."

Lord Lambeth turned away in silence; he took twenty steps and slowly returned. "She had better take care what she does. I've invited Mrs.

Westgate and Miss Alden to Branches, and this evening I shall name a day."

"And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to meet them?"

Lord Lambeth indulged in one of his rare discriminations. "I shall give them the opportunity."

"That will touch the d.u.c.h.ess up," said Percy Beaumont. "I 'guess' she'll come."

"She may do as she pleases."

"Then do you really propose to marry the little sister?"

"I like the way you talk about it!" the young man cried. "She won't gobble me down. Don't be afraid."

"She won't leave you on your knees," Percy declared. "What the devil's the inducement?"

"You talk about proposing-wait till I _have_ proposed," Lord Lambeth went on.

His friend looked at him harder. "That's right, my dear chap. Think of _all_ the bearings."

"She's a charming girl," pursued his lords.h.i.+p.

"Of course she's a charming girl. I don't know a girl more charming-in a very quiet way. But there are other charming girls-charming in all sorts of ways-nearer home."

"I particularly like her spirit," said Bessie's admirer-almost as on a policy of aggravation.

"What's the peculiarity of her spirit?"

"She's not afraid, and she says things out and thinks herself as good as any one. She's the only girl I've ever seen," Lord Lambeth explained, "who hasn't seemed to me dying to marry me."

Mr. Beaumont considered it. "How do you know she isn't dying if you haven't felt her pulse? I mean if you haven't asked her?"

"I don't know how; but I know it."

"I'm sure she asked _me_-over there-questions enough about your property and your t.i.tles," Percy declared.

"She has done that to me too-again and again," his friend returned. "But she wants to know about everything."

"Everything? Ah, I'll warrant she wants to know. Depend upon it she's dying to marry you just as much, and just by the same law, as all the rest of them."

It appeared to give the young man, for a moment, something rather special to think of. "I shouldn't like her to refuse me-I shouldn't like that."

"If the thing would be so disagreeable then, both to you and to her, in heaven's name leave it alone." Such was the moral drawn by Mr. Beaumont; which left him practically the last word in the discussion.

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity of the latter's visits and the non-appearance at their own door of the d.u.c.h.ess of Bayswater. She confessed, however, to taking more pleasure in this hush of symptoms than she could have taken in the most lavish attentions on the part of that great lady. "It's unmistakable,"

she said, "delightfully unmistakable; a most interesting sign that we've made them wretched. The day we dined with him I was really sorry for the poor boy." It will have been gathered that the entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth to his American friends had been graced by the presence of no near relation. He had invited several choice spirits to meet them, but the ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. Westgate's sense-a sense perhaps morbidly acute-conspicuous by their hostile absence.

"I don't want to work you up any further," Bessie at last ventured to remark, "but I don't know why you should have so many theories about Lord Lambeth's poor mother. You know a great many young men in New York without knowing their mothers."

Mrs. Westgate rested deep eyes on her sister and then turned away. "My dear Bessie, you're superb!"

"One thing's certain"-the girl continued not to blench at her irony. "If I believed I were a cause of annoyance, however unwitting, to Lord Lambeth's family I should insist-"

"Insist on my leaving England?" Mrs. Westgate broke in.

"No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again; I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathedral. But I should insist on his ceasing relations with us."

"That would be very modest and very pretty of you-but you wouldn't do it at this point."

"Why do you say 'at this point'?" Bessie asked. "Have I ceased to be modest?"

"You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at present, my dear child," said Mrs.

Westgate, "you wouldn't find it quite so simple a matter never to see Lord Lambeth again. I've watched it come on."

"You're mistaken," Bessie declared. "You don't understand."

"Ah, you poor proud thing, don't be perverse!" her companion returned.