Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 45

"He sat--like a man who meant to win--by the girl herself."

"Oh, then it is that sing-song captain you fear, sir?" drawled Talboys.

"No, sir, no more than I dread the _epergne._ Try the other side."

"What, Mr. Hardie? Why, he is a banker."

"And a rich one."

"She would never marry a banker."

"Perhaps not, if she were uninfluenced; but we are not at Talboys Court or Font Abbey now. We have fallen into a den of _parvenues._ That Hardie is a great catch, according to their views, and all Mrs.

Bazalgette's influence with Lucy will be used in his favor.

"I think not. She spoke quite slightingly of him to me."

"Did she? Then that puts the matter quite beyond doubt. Why should she speak slightingly of him? Bazalgette spoke to me of him with grave veneration. He is handsome, well behaved, and the girl talked to him nineteen to the dozen. Mrs. Bazalgette could not be sincere in underrating him. She undervalued him to throw dust in your eyes."

"It is not so easy to throw dust in my eyes."

"I don't say it is; but this woman will do it; she is as artful as a fox. She hoodwinked even me for a moment. I really did not see through her feigned politeness in letting you take her down to dinner."

"You mistake her character entirely. She is coquettish, and not so well-bred as her niece, but artful she is not. In fact, there is almost a childish frankness about her."

At this stroke of observation Fountain burst out laughing bitterly.

Talboys turned pale with suppressed ire, and went on doggedly: "You are mistaken in every particular. Mrs. Bazalgette has no fixed views for her niece, and I by no means despair of winning her to my side.

She is anything but discouraging."

Fountain groaned.

"Mr. Hardie is a new acquaintance, and Miss Fountain told me herself she preferred old friends to new. She looked quite conscious as she said it. In a word, Mr. Dodd is the only rival I have to fear--good-night;" and he went out with a stately wave of the hand, like royalty declining farther conference. Mr. Fountain sank into an armchair, and muttered feebly, "Good-night." There he sat collapsed till his friend's retiring steps were heard no more; then, springing wildly to his feet, he relieved his swelling mind with a long, loud, articulated roar of Anglo-Saxon, "Fool! dolt! c.o.xcomb! noodle! puppy!

a.s.s!!!!"

Did ye ever read "Tully 'de Amicitia'?"

David Dodd was saved from misery by want of vanity. His reception at the gate by Miss Fountain was cool and constrained, but it did not wound him. For the last month life had been a blank to him. She was his sun. He saw her once more, and the bare sight filled him with life and joy. His was naturally a sanguine, contented mind. Some lovers equally ardent would have seen more to repine at than to enjoy in the whole situation; not so David. She sat between Kenealy and Hardie, but her presence filled the whole room, and he who loved her better than any other had the best right to be happy in the place that held her.

He had only to turn his eyes, and he could see her. What a blessing, after a month of vacancy and darkness. This simple idolatry made him so happy that his heart overflowed on all within reach. He gave Mrs.

Bazalgette answers full of kindness and arch gayety combined. He charmed an old married lady on his right. His was the gay, the merry end of the table, and others wished themselves up at it.

After the ladies had retired, his narrative powers, _bonhomie_ and manly frankness soon told upon the men, and peals of genuine laughter echoed up to the very drawing-room, bringing a deputation from the kitchen to the keyhole, and irritating the ladies overhead, who sat trickling faint monosyllables about their three little topics.

Lucy took it philosophically. "Now those are the good creatures that are said to be so unhappy without us. It was a weight off their minds when the door closed on our retiring forms--ha! ha!"

"It was a restraint taken off them, my dear," said Mrs. Mordan, a starched dowager, stiffening to the naked eye as she spoke. "When they laugh like that, they are always saying something improper."

"Oh, the wicked things," replied Lucy, mighty calmly.

"I wish I knew what they are saying," said eagerly another young lady; then added, "Oh!" and blushed, observing her error mirrored in all eyes.

Lucy the Clement instructed her out of the depths of her own experience in impropriety. "They swear. That is what Mrs. Mordan means," and so to the piano with dignity.

Presently in came Messrs. Fountain and Talboys. Mrs. Bazalgette asked the former a little crossly how he could make up his mind to leave the gay party downstairs.

"Oh, it was only that fellow Dodd. The dog is certainly very amusing, but 'there's metal more attractive here.'"

Coffee and tea were fired down at the other gentlemen by way of hints; but Dodd prevailed over all, and it was nearly bedtime when they joined the ladies.

Mr. Talboys had an hour with Lucy, and no rival by to ruffle him.

Next day a riding-party was organized. Mr. Talboys decided in his mind that Kenealy was even less dangerous than Hardie, so lent him the quieter of his two nags, and rode a hot, rampageous brute, whose very name was Lucifer, so that will give you an idea. The grooms had driven him with a kicking-strap and two pair of reins, and even so were reluctant to drive him at all, but his steady companion had balanced him a bit. Lucy was to ride her old pony, and Mrs. Bazalgette the new.

The horses came to the door; one of the grooms offered to put Lucy up.

Talboys waved him loftily back, and then, strange as it may appear, David, for the first time in his life, saw a gentleman lift a lady into the saddle.

Lucy laid her right hand on the pommel and resigned her left foot; Mr.

Talboys put his hand under that foot and heaved her smoothly into the saddle. "That is clever," thought simple David; "that chap has got more pith in his arm than one would think." They cantered away, and left him looking sadly after them. It seemed so hard that another man should have her sweet foot in his hand, should lift her whole glorious person, and smooth her sacred dress, and he stand by helpless; and then the indifference with which that man had done it all. To him it had been no sacred pleasure, no great privilege. A sense of loneliness struck chill on David as the clatter of her pony's hoofs died away. He was in the house; but in that house was a sort of inner circle, of which she was the center, and he was to be outside it altogether.

Liable to great wrath upon great occasions, he had little of that small irritability that goes with an egotistical mind and feminine fiber, so he merely hung his head, blamed n.o.body, and was sad in a manly way. While he leaned against the portico in this dejected mood, a little hand pulled his coat-tail. It was Master Reginald, who looked up in his face, and said timidly, "Will you play with me?" The fact is, Mr. Reginald's natural audacity had received a momentary check. He had just put this same question to Mr. Hardie in the library, and had been rejected with ignominy, and recommended to go out of doors for his own health and the comfort of such as desired peaceable study of British and foreign intelligence.

"That I will, my little gentleman," said David, "if I know the game."

"Oh, I don't care what it is, so that it is fun. What is your name?"

"David Dodd."

"Oh."

"And what is yours?"

"What, don't--you--know??? Why, Reginald George Bazalgette. I am seven. I am the eldest. I am to have more money than the others when papa dies, Jane says. I wonder when he will die."

"When he does you will lose his love, and that is worth more than his money; so you take my advice and love him dearly while you have got him."

"Oh, I like papa very well. He is good-natured all day long. Mamma is so ill-tempered till dinner, and then they won't let me dine with her; and then, as soon as mamma has begun to be good-tempered upstairs in the drawing-room, my bedtime comes directly; it's abominable!!" The last word rose into a squeak under his sense of wrong.

David smiled kindly: "So it seems we all have our troubles," said he.

"What! have you any troubles?" and Reginald opened his eyes in wonder.

He thought size was an armor against care.

"Not so many as most folk, thank G.o.d, but I have some," and David sighed.

"Why, if I was as big as you, I'd have no troubles. I'd beat everybody that troubled me, and I would marry Lucy directly"; and at that beloved name my lord falls into a reverie ten seconds long.

David gave a start, and an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n rose to his lips. He looked down with comical horror upon the little chubby imp who had divined his thought.

Mr. Reginald soon undeceived him. "She is to be my wife, you know.

Don't you think she will make a capital one?" Before David could decide this point for him, the kaleidoscopic mind of the terrible infant had taken another turn. "Come into the stable-yard; I'll show you Tom," cried young master, enthusiastically. Finally, David had to make the boy a kite. When made it took two hours for the paste to dry; and as every ten minutes spent in waiting seemed an hour to one of Mr.