Molly Bawn Part 42

"Better, I should say. He is a particular friend of mine."

"Indeed! I shouldn't have thought him your style. Like Ca.s.sius, he used to have a 'lean and hungry look.'"

"Used he? I think him quite good-looking."

"He must have developed, then, in body as in intellect. Three years ago he was a very gaunt youth indeed."

"Of course, Stafford," breaks in Mr. Amherst's rasping voice, "we can all make allowances for your joy on seeing your wife again after such a long absence. But you must not monopolize her. Remember she is the life of our party."

"Thank you, Mr. Amherst. What a delightful compliment!" says Cecil, with considerable _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "Sir Penthony was just telling me what an enjoyable voyage he had; and I was congratulating him. There is nothing on earth so depressing or so humiliating as sea-sickness.

Don't you agree with me?"

Mr. Amherst mutters something in which the word "brazen" is distinctly heard; while Cecil, turning to her companion, says hastily, holding out her hand, with a soft, graceful movement:

"We are friends?"

"Forever, I trust," he replies, taking the little plump white hand within his own, and giving it a hearty squeeze.

To some the evening is a long one,--to Luttrell and Molly, for instance, who are at daggers drawn and maintain a dignified silence toward each other.

Tedcastle, indeed, holds his head so high that if by chance his gaze should rest in Molly's direction, it must perforce pa.s.s over her without fear of descending to her face. (This is wise, because to look at Molly is to find one's self disarmed.) There is an air of settled hostility about him that angers her beyond all words.

"What does he mean by glowering like that, and looking as though he could devour somebody? How different he used to be in dear old Brooklyn! Who could have thought he would turn out such a Tartar? Well, there is no knowing any man; and yet---- It is a pity not to give him something to glower about," thinks Miss Ma.s.sereene, in an access of rage, and forthwith deliberately sets herself out to encourage Shadwell and Mr. Potts.

She has a brilliant success, and, although secretly sore at heart, manages to pa.s.s her time agreeably, and, let us hope, profitably.

Marcia, whose hatred toward her rival grows with every glance cast at her from Philip's eyes, turns to Tedcastle and takes him in hand. Her voice is low, her manner subdued, but designing. Whatever she may be saying is hardly likely to act as cure to Teddy's heart-ache; at least so thinks Cecil, and, coming to the rescue, sends Sir Penthony across to talk to him, and drawing him from Marcia's side, leads him into a lengthened history of all those who have come and gone in the old regiment since he sold out.

The _ruse_ is successful, but leaves Cecil still indignant with Molly. "What a wretched little flirt she is!" She turns an enraged glance upon where Miss Ma.s.sereene is sitting deep in a discussion with Mr. Potts.

"Have you any Christian name?" Molly is asking, with a beaming smile, fixing her liquid Irish eyes upon the enslaved Potts. "I hear you addressed as Mr. Potts,--as Potts even--but never by anything that might be mistaken for a first name."

"Yes," replies Mr. Potts, proudly. "I was christened Plantagenet. Good sound, hasn't it? Something to do with the Dark Ages and Pinnock, only I never remember clearly what. Our fellows have rather a low way of abbreviating it and bringing it down to 'Planty.' And--would you believe it?--on one or two occasions they have so far forgotten themselves as to call me 'the regular Plant.'"

"What a shame!" says Miss Ma.s.sereene, with deep sympathy.

"Let 'em," says Mr. Potts, heroic, if vulgar, shaking his crimson head.

"It's fun to them, and it's by no means 'death' to me. It does no harm.

But it's a nuisance to have one's mother put to the trouble of concocting a fine name, if one doesn't get the benefit of it."

"I agree with you. Were I a man, and rejoiced in such a name as Plantagenet, I would insist upon having every syllable of it distinctly sounded, or I'd know the reason why. 'All or nothing' should be my motto."

"I never think of it, I don't see my wife's cards," says Mr. Potts, who has had a good deal of champagne, and is rather moist about the eyes.

"'Mrs. Plantagenet Potts' would look well, wouldn't it?"

"Very aristocratic," says false Molly, with an admiring nod. "I almost think,--I am not quite sure,--but I almost think I would marry a man to bear a name like that."

"Would you?" cries Mr. Potts, his tongue growing freer, while enthusiasm sparkles in every feature. "If I only thought that, Miss Molly----"

"How pretty Mrs. Darley is looking to-night!" interrupts Molly, adroitly; "what a clear complexion she has!--just like a child's."

"Not a bit of it," says Mr. Potts. "Children don't require 'cream of roses' and 'Hebe bloom' and--and all that sort of thing, you know--to get 'emselves up."

"Ah! my princ.i.p.al pity for her is that she doesn't seem to have anything to say."

"Englishwomen never have, as a rule; they are dull to the last degree.

Now, you are a singular exception."

"Englis.h.!.+ I am not English," says Molly, with exaggerated disgust. "Do not offend me. I am Irish--altogether, thoroughly Irish,--heart and mind a Paddy."

"No! are you, by Jove?" says Mr. Potts. "So am I--at least, partly so.

My mother is Irish."

So she had been English, Welsh, and Scotch on various occasions; there is scarcely anything Mrs. Potts had _not_ been. There was even one memorable occasion on which she had had Spanish blood in her veins, and (according to Plantagenet's account) never went out without a lace mantilla flowing from her foxy head. It would, indeed, be rash to fix on any nationality to which the venerable lady might not lay claim, when her son's interests so willed it.

"She came from--er--Galway," he says now; "good old family too--but--out at elbows and--and--that."

"Yes?" Molly says, interested. "And her name?"

"Blake," replies he, unblus.h.i.+ngly, knowing there never was a Blake that did not come out of Galway.

"I feel quite as though I had known you forever," says Molly, much pleased. "You know my princ.i.p.al crime is my Hibernian extraction, which perhaps makes me cling to the fact more and more. Mr. Amherst cannot forgive me--my father."

"Yet he was of good family, I believe, and all that?" questioningly.

"Beyond all doubt. What a question for you to ask! Did you ever hear of an Irishman who wasn't of good family? My father"--with a mischievous smile--"was a direct descendant of King O'Toole or Brian Boru,--I don't know which; and if the king had only got his own, my dear brother would at this moment be dispensing hospitality in a palace."

"You terrify me," said Mr. Potts, profoundly serious. "Why, the blood of all the Howards would be weak as water next to yours. Not that there is anything to be surprised at; for if over there was any one in the world who ought to be a princess it is----"

"Molly, will you sing us something?" Lady Stafford breaks in, impatiently, at this juncture, putting a stop to Mr. Potts's half-finished compliment.

"Molly, I want to speak to you for a moment," Luttrell says next day, coming upon her suddenly in the garden.

"Yes?" coldly. "Well, hurry, then; they are waiting for me in the tennis-ground."

"It seems to me that some one is always waiting for you now when I want to speak to you," says the young man, bitterly.

"For me?" with a would-be-astonished uplifting of her straight brows.

"Oh, no, I am not in such request at Herst. I am ready to listen to you at any time; although I must confess I do not take kindly to lecturing."

"Do I lecture you?"

"Do not let us waste time going into details: ask me this all-important question and let me be gone."

"I want to know"--severely, yet anxiously--"whether you really meant all you said yesterday morning?"