The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 4

"Oh, I am proof!" said Diana. "'Come one, come all.'"

He looked at her smilingly.

"Is it always the same? Are you still in love with all the dear old abuses?"

"And do you still hate everything that wasn't made last week?"

"Oh no! We only hate what cheats or oppresses the people."

"The people?" echoed Diana, with an involuntary lift of the eyebrows, and she looked round the immense hall, with its costly furniture, its glaring electric lights, and the band of bad fresco which ran round its lower walls.

Oliver Marsham reddened a little; then said:

"I see my cousin Miss Drake. May I introduce her?--Alicia!"

A young lady had entered, from a curtained archway dividing the hall from a pa.s.sage beyond. She paused a moment examining the company. The dark curtain behind her made an effective background for the brilliance of her hair, dress, and complexion, of which fact--such at least was Diana's instant impression--she was most composedly aware. At least she lingered a few leisurely seconds, till everybody in the hall had had the opportunity of marking her entrance. Then beckoned by Oliver Marsham, she moved toward Diana.

"How do you do? I suppose you've had a long drive? Don't you hate driving?"

And without waiting for an answer, she turned affectedly away, and took a place at the tea-table where room had been made for her by two young men. Reaching out a white hand, she chose a cake, and began to nibble it slowly, her elbows resting on the table, the ruffles of white lace falling back from her bare and rounded arms. Her look meanwhile, half absent, half audacious, seemed to wander round the persons near, as though she saw them, without taking any real account of them.

"What have you been doing, Alicia, all this time?" said Marsham, as he handed her a cup of tea.

"Dressing."

An incredulous shout from the table.

"Since lunch!"

Miss Drake nodded. Lady Lucy put in an explanatory remark about a "dressmaker from town," but was not heard. The table was engaged in watching the new-comer.

"May we congratulate you on the result?" said Mr. Ferrier, putting up his eye-gla.s.s.

"If you like," said Miss Drake, indifferently, still gently munching at her cake. Then suddenly she smiled--a glittering infectious smile, to which unconsciously all the faces near her responded. "I have been reading the book you lent me!" she said, addressing Mr. Ferrier.

"Well?"

"I'm too stupid--I can't understand it."

Mr. Ferrier laughed.

"I'm afraid that excuse won't do, Miss Alicia. You must find another."

She was silent a moment, finished her cake, then took some grapes, and began to play with them in the same conscious provocative way--till at last she turned upon her immediate neighbor, a young barrister with a broad boyish face.

"Well, I wonder whether _you'd_ mind?"

"Mind what?"

"If your father had done something shocking--forged--or murdered--or done something of that kind--supposing, of course, he were dead."

"Do you mean--if I suddenly found out?"

She nodded a.s.sent.

"Well!" he reflected; "it would be disagreeable!"

"Yes--but would it make you give up all the things you like?--golfing--and cards--and parties--and the girl you were engaged to--and take to slumming, and that kind of thing?"

The slight inflection of the last words drew smiles. Mr. Ferrier held up a finger.

"Miss Alicia, I shall lend you no more books."

"Why? Because I can't appreciate them?"

Mr. Ferrier laughed.

"I maintain that book is a book to melt the heart of a stone."

"Well, I tried to cry," said the girl, putting another grape into her mouth, and quietly nodding at her interlocutor--"I did--honor bright.

But--really--what does it matter what your father did?"

"My _dear!_" said Lady Lucy, softly. Her singularly white and finely wrinkled face, framed in a delicate capote of old lace, looked coldly at the speaker.

"By-the-way," said Mr. Ferrier, "does not the question rather concern you in this neighborhood? I hear young Brenner has just come to live at West Hill. I don't now what sort of a youth he is, but if he's a decent fellow, I don't imagine anybody will boycott him on account of his father's misdoings."

He referred to one of the worst financial scandals of the preceding generation. Lady Lucy made no answer, but any one closely observing her might have noticed a sudden and sharp stiffening of the lips, which was in truth her reply.

"Oh, you can always ask a man like that to garden-parties!" said a shrill, distant voice. The group round the table turned. The remark was made by old Lady Niton, who sat enthroned in an arm-chair near the fire, sometimes knitting, and sometimes observing her neighbors with a malicious eye.

"Anything's good enough, isn't it, for garden-parties?" said Mrs.

Fotheringham, with a little sneer.

Lady Niton's face kindled. "Let us be Radicals, my dear," she said, briskly, "but not hypocrites. Garden-parties are invaluable--for people you can't ask into the house. By-the-way, wasn't it you, Oliver, who scolded me last night, because I said somebody wasn't 'in Society'?"

"You said it of a particular hero of mine," laughed Marsham. "I naturally pitied Society."

"What is Society? Where is it?" said Sir James Chide, contemptuously. "I suppose Lady Palmerston knew."

The famous lawyer sat a little apart from the rest. Diana, who had only caught his name, and knew nothing else of him, looked with sudden interest at the man's great brow and haughty look. Lady Niton shook her head emphatically.

"We know quite as well as she did. Society is just as strong and just as exclusive as it ever was. But it is clever enough now to hide the fact from outsiders."

"I am afraid we must agree that standards have been much relaxed," said Lady Lucy.

"Not at all--not at all!" cried Lady Niton. "There were black sheep then; and there are black sheep now."

Lady Lucy held her own.