Spring Days Part 17

"Yes, but I am afraid--the fact is I am dreadfully tired."

"Oh, just as you like."

Then at the end of an irritating silence, "I am afraid you will have to wait, I do not think I shall be able to get your carriage yet awhile; in a few minutes this crowd will disperse. No use getting crushed to death! What became of Harding and Fletcher? Did they remain long with you?"

"No, not very, they went away just before you came. There is Mr.

Harding. How did you like the piece, Mr. Harding?"

"I always enjoy these pieces, they are so conscientiously illiterate; what I can't bear is unconscientious illiterateness. Nellie Farren has caught something of the jangle of modern life; she has something of the freshness of the music-hall about her that appeals to me very sharply."

"Do you like music-halls? I have always heard they were so vulgar."

"Vulgarity is surely preferable to popularity. The theatre is merely popular."

While Harding was thus exerting himself with epigram, Fletcher stood tall and slender, with a grey overcoat hanging over his arm, and his intense eyes fixed on Lady Seveley. His gaze troubled her, and when he withdrew his eyes she looked at him, antic.i.p.ant and fearing. He spoke to her until Frank, feeling that he was receding out of all interest and attention, said abruptly, "If you will come now, Lady Seveley, I think I shall be able to get you your carriage. May I see you home?"

he said, holding the door.

"No thank you, I will not take you out of your way. Go home at once and get rested, and come and see me one of these days; don't forget."

Lady Seveley smiled, but Frank felt that she was annoyed.

"I wonder if she wanted me to go home with her. That impertinent brute Fletcher daring to come up to speak to us! I was very nearly telling him to go and fetch the carriage."

He pushed open the swinging doors with violence, nearly upsetting the fat porter. The bar was nearly empty, and he found Lizzie disengaged.

"You look very vexed. Has any one been pinching you?"

"I am not vexed."

"What will you have to put you straight?"

"Well, that is a question. Let me see. I don't care about another brandy and soda, and if I have coffee it may keep me awake."

"Have half milk."

"Very well." He hesitated, but the inclination to speak soon overpowered him. "I call it bad form, when you are with a lady for another fellow to come up and speak to her."

"Three of Irish, miss."

"Why, didn't he know her?"

"Of course he knew her, but that doesn't give him a right to come up and enter into a long conversation when I am with her. I wish I had knocked him down."

"He might have knocked you down."

"A gla.s.s of bitter, miss."

"I should have had to take my chance of that. In London people don't seem to me to mind whom they speak to--a low-bred Irishman, who never spoke to a lady until he left his own country."

"Oh! what a rage we are in."

"No, I am not in a rage," said Frank, who at that moment felt the folly of these confidences. "I don't care a hang. It isn't as if it were a woman I cared about. Had it been you--"

"Get along, don't you tell me."

"I a.s.sure you I speak only in a general way, and you must admit that if you go out with a fellow it would not be nice of you to begin talking to some one else."

"Oh! I never do that."

"There, then you admit I was right, I was sure you would; I don't care a hang for the lady I was with, but I don't intend to allow any one to insult me. But I wonder how you can speak to soldiers."

"They are no worse than the others. Besides, in our business we have to be polite to every one."

"Polite, yes--but I wanted to speak to you, I came down from my box on purpose to speak to you, and I couldn't, you were so engaged with that soldier."

"He was here before you; you would not like it if you were talking to me, and I were to rush off to speak to some one else."

"One Scotch and three Irish, miss, and out of the bottle please, our friend here's most particular, he would like it in a thin gla.s.s, too-- wouldn't you, Ted? and if he could have a go at that pretty mouth he would like it better still. A rare one after the ladies is Teddy.

Aren't you, old chap?"

Full of scorn Frank watched this noisy group. Lizzie remained talking with them for some little time, and she did not return until he called to her twice for a cigar.

"How very impatient you are," she said, handing him the box.

"You were talking to me, and you go away to talk to those cads."

"I must serve the customers, you naughty man. You can't have me all to yourself. I believe you would like to."

"That I should. I wish you would come out with me. I wish you would come to dinner."

"And what would the lady say who you went to the theatre with to- night, and were so mad because some one spoke to her?"

"I a.s.sure you she is nothing to me, a mere acquaintance. I was angry because I thought it a piece of impertinence of the fellow to come intruding his conversation when it wasn't wanted; but as for the woman I don't care a snap for her; never did, I a.s.sure you: she is nothing to me. I suppose you don't get out much here."

"We are off duty for so many hours every day; but we must be in at a certain time."

"But you have got Sundays."

"We get Sunday in our turn."

"When will your turn come?"

"I am going out next Sunday."

"I wish you would come with me; I would take you up the river. You know the river?"

"No, I don't know even what you mean."

"You mean to say you have never been up the river, not even so far as Twickenham?" "No."