Sparrows Part 5

She looked regretfully at the dog, then inquiringly at Victoria, when Mrs Devitt came into the drawing-room.

Her eyes at once fell on Mavis's comeliness; looking at her step-daughter, she found herself comparing the appearance of the two girls. Before she had offered her hand to Mavis, she had decided that, beside her, Victoria appeared at a disadvantage.

Although Mavis's hair and colouring might only appeal to a certain order of taste, the girl's distinction, to which one of the Miss Mees had alluded earlier in the day, was glaringly patent to Mrs Devitt's sharp eyes; beside this indefinable personal quality, Mrs Devitt observed with a shudder, Victoria seemed middle-cla.s.s. Mavis's fate, as far as the Devitts were concerned, was decided in the twinkling of an eye. For all this decision, so suddenly arrived at, Mrs Devitt greeted Mavis kindly; indeed, the friendliness that she displayed caused the girl's hopes to rise.

"Luncheon will be ready directly. We are only waiting for my husband,"

said Mrs Devitt.

"You must be hungry after your journey," added Victoria.

"I've always a healthy appet.i.te, whatever I do," remarked Mavis, who was fondly regarding the black spaniel.

Then Montague Devitt, Lowther, and Miss Spraggs entered the drawing-room, to all of whom Mavis was introduced.

The men were quite cordial, too cordial to a girl who, after all, was seeking a dependant's place, thought Mrs Devitt.

Already she envied Mavis for her family, the while she despised her for her poverty.

The attentions that her husband and stepson were already paying her were a hint of what Mrs Devitt might expect where the eligible men of her acquaintance were concerned. She felt the necessity of striking a jarring note in the harmony of the proceedings. Jill, the spaniel, who, at that moment, sprang upon Mavis's lap, supplied the means.

"What is Jill doing here?"

"I really don't mind," exclaimed Mavis.

"She shouldn't be in the house. There's no reason for her being here at all, now Harold is ill."

"If you wish her to go," said Mavis ruefully.

Jill was ordered from the room, but refused to quit her new friend's side. Lowther approached the dog; to emphasise his wishes, he kicked her in the side.

Mavis looked up quickly.

"Come along, you brute!" cried Lowther, who seized the spaniel by the ear, and, despite its yell of agony, was carrying it by this means from the room.

Mavis felt the blood rush to her head.

"Stop!" she cried.

Lowther turned to look at her.

"Stop--, please don't," she pleaded, as she went quickly to Jill and caught her in her arms.

Lowther looked down, surprised, into Mavis's pleading, yet defiant face.

"It was all my fault: you're hurting her and she's such a dear,"

continued Mavis.

"Better let her stay," said Devitt, while Mrs Devitt, seeing the girl's flushed face, recalled the pa.s.sage in Miss Mee's letter which referred to Mavis's sudden anger.

Mrs Devitt hated a display of emotion; she put down Mavis's interference with Lowther's design to bad form. She was surprised that Lowther and her husband were so a.s.siduous in their attentions to Mavis; indeed, as Mrs Devitt afterwards remarked to Miss Spraggs:

"They hardly ever took their eyes off her face."

"Never trust a man further than you can see him," had remarked the agreeable rattle, who had never had reason to complain of want of respect on the part of any man with whom she may have been temporarily isolated.

"And did you notice how her eyes flashed when she seized Jill from Lowther? They're usually a sort of yellow. Then, as perhaps you saw, they seemed to burst into a fierce glare."

"My dear Hilda, is there anything I don't notice?" Miss Spraggs had replied, a remark which was untrue in its present application, as, at the moment when Mavis had taken Jill's part, Eva Spraggs had been looking out of the window, as she wondered if the peas, that were to accompany a roast duckling at luncheon, would be as hard and as unappetising as they had been when served two days previously.

This was later in the day. Just now, Mavis was about to be taken down to luncheon by Montague Devitt; she wondered if her defence of dear Jill had prejudiced her chance of an engagement.

"What's that picture covered with a shutter for?" asked Mavis, as her eye fell on the padlocked "Etty."

"Oh, well-it's an 'Etty': some people might think it's scarcely the thing for some young people, you know," replied Devitt, as they descended the stairs.

"Really! Is that why it's kept like that?" asked Mavis, who could scarcely conceal her amus.e.m.e.nt.

Mrs Devitt, who was immediately behind, had detected the note of merriment in Mavis's voice. "Scarcely a pure-minded girl," she said to herself, unconscious of the fact that there is nothing so improper as the thoughts implied by propriety.

It was not a very pleasant time for Mavis. Although the luncheon was a good meal, and served in a manner to which she had been unaccustomed for many years, she did not feel at home with the Devitts. Montague, the head of the house, she disliked least; no one could be long insensible to his goodness of heart. Already, she could not "stand"

Lowther, for the reason that he hardly took his eyes from her face. As for the women, she was soon conscious of the social gulf that, in reality, lay between her and them; she was, also, aware that they were inclined to patronise her, particularly Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs: the high hopes with which she had commenced the day had already suffered diminution.

"And what are your aims in life?" Miss Spraggs asked presently; she had found the peas to be as succulent as she had wished.

"To earn my own living," replied Mavis, who had seen that it was she to whom the agreeable rattle had spoken.

"But, surely, that doesn't satisfy the young women of today!" continued Miss Spraggs.

"I fear it does me; but then I don't know any young women to be influenced by," answered Mavis.

"I thought every young woman, nowadays, was thirsting with ambition,"

said Miss Spraggs.

"I suppose everyone, who isn't an idiot, has her preferences," remarked Mavis.

"I don't mean that. I thought every girl was determined on living her own life to the exclusion of everything else," continued Miss Spraggs.

"Really!" asked Mavis in some surprise, as she believed that it was only the plain and unattractive women who were of that complexion of thought.

"Despise marriage and all that," put in Lowther, his eyes on Mavis as he tossed off a gla.s.s of wine.

"But I don't despise marriage," protested Mavis.

"Really!" said Mrs Devitt, whose sensibilities were a trifle shocked by this remark.

"If two people are in love with each other, and can afford to marry, it seems a particularly natural proceeding," said Mavis simply.

"One that you would welcome?" asked Miss Spraggs, as she raised her thin eyebrows.