The Lunatic at Large Part 26

"Why, how did you know her?" asked the Countess.

"I-I did see her last night at dinnair," explained the Baron, turning red.

"Ah, of course, I remember," replied the Countess, in a matter-of-fact tone; but her motherly eye was sharp, and already it began to look on the highly eligible Rudolph with more approval than ever.

"My daughter Alicia, the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, Mr Bunker," she said the next moment.

The Baron went nearly double as he bowed, and the flourish of his hat stirred the dust on the esplanade. Mr Bunker's salutation was less profound, but his face expressed an almost equal degree of interested respect. Her mother thought that when one of the gentlemen was a n.o.bleman with an indefinite number of thousands a-year and the other a person of so much discrimination, Lady Alicia's own bow might have been a trifle less reserved. But then even the most astute mother cannot know the reasons for everything.

CHAPTER III.

"Alicia," said the Countess, "it was really a most fortunate coincidence our meeting the Baron at St Egbert's."

She paused for a reply and looked expectantly at her daughter. It was not the first time in the course of the morning that Lady Alicia had listened to similar observations, and perhaps that was why she answered somewhat listlessly, "Yes, wasn't it?"

The Countess frowned, and continued with emphasis, "I consider him one of the most agreeable and best informed young men I have ever met."

"Is he?" said Lady Alicia, absently.

"I wonder, Alicia, you hadn't noticed it," her mother observed, severely; "you talked with him most of the afternoon. I should have thought that no observant, well-bred girl would have failed to have been struck with his air and conversation."

"I-I thought him very pleasant, mamma."

"I am glad you had so much sense. He is _extremely_ pleasant."

As Lady Alicia made no reply, the Countess felt obliged to continue his list of virtues herself.

"He is of most excellent family, Alicia, one of the oldest in Bavaria. I don't remember what I heard his income was in pfennigs, or whatever they measure money by in Germany, but I know that it is more than 20,000 a-year in English money. A very large sum nowadays," she added, as if 20,000 had grown since she was a girl.

"Yes, mamma."

"He is considered, besides, an unusually promising and intelligent young n.o.bleman, and in Germany, where n.o.blemen are still constantly used, that says a great deal for him."

"Does it, mamma?"

"Certainly it does. Education there is so severe that young Englishmen are beginning to know less than they ever did, and in most cases that isn't saying much. Compare the Baron with the young men you meet here!"

She looked at her daughter triumphantly, and Alicia could only reply, "Yes, mamma?"

"Compare them and see the difference. Look at the Baron's friend, Mr Bunker, who is a very agreeable and amusing man, I admit, but look at the difference!"

"What is it?" Alicia could not help asking.

"_What_ is it, Alicia! It is-ah-it's-er-it is, in short, the effect of a carefully cultivated mind and good blood."

"But don't you think Mr Bunker cultivated, mamma-and-and-well-bred?"

"He has an amusing way of saying things,-but then you must remember that the Baron is doubtless equally entertaining in his native language,-and possibly a superficial knowledge of a few of the leading questions of the day; but the Baron talked to me for half an hour on the relations of something or other in Germany to-er-something else-a very important point, I a.s.sure you."

"I always thought him very clever," said Lady Alicia with a touch of warmth, and then instantly changed colour at the horrible slip.

"You always," said the Countess in alarmed astonishment; "you hardly spoke to him yesterday, and-had you met him before?"

"I-I meant the Baron, mamma."

"But I have just been saying that he was _unusually_ clever."

"But I thought, I mean it seemed as though you considered him only well informed."

Lady Alicia's blushes and confusion deepened. Her mother looked at her with a softening eye. Suddenly she rose, kissed her affectionately, and said with the tenderness of triumph, "My _dear_ girl! Of course he is; clever, well informed, and a most _desirable_ young man. My Alicia could not do--"

She stopped, as if she thought this was perhaps a little premature (though the Countess's methods inclined to the summary and decisive), and again kissing her daughter affectionately, remarked gaily, "Let me see, why, it's almost time we went for our little walk! We mustn't really disappoint those young men. I am in the middle of such an amusing discussion with Mr Bunker, who is really a very sensible man and quite worthy of the Baron's judgment."

Poor Lady Alicia hardly knew whether to feel more relieved at her escape or dismayed at the construction put upon her explanation. She went out to meet the Baron, determined to give no further colour to her mother's unlucky misconception. The Countess was far too experienced and determined a general to leave it at all doubtful who should walk by whose side, and who should have the opportunity of appreciating whose merits, but Lady Alicia was quite resolved that the Baron's blandishments should fall on stony ground.

But a soft heart and an undecided mouth are treacherous companions. The Baron was so amiable and so gallant, that at the end of half an hour she was obliged to abate the strictness of her resolution. She should treat him with the friendliness of a brother. She learned that he had no sisters: her decision was confirmed.

The enamoured and delighted Baron was in the seventh heaven of happy loquacity. He poured out particulars of his travels, his more recordable adventures, his opinions on various social and political matters, and at last even of the family ghost, the hereditary carpet-beaters.h.i.+p, and the glories of Bavaria. And Lady Alicia listened with what he could not doubt was an interest touched with tenderness.

"I wonder," she said, artlessly, "that you find anything to admire in England-compared with Bavaria, I mean."

"Two zings I haf not zere," replied the Baron, waving his hand round towards the horizon. "Vun is ze vet sheet of flowing sea-says not your poet so? Ze ozzer" (laying his hand on his heart) "is ze Lady Alicia a Fyre."

There are some people who catch sentiment whenever it happens to be in the air, just as others almost equally unfortunate regularly take hay-fever.

Lady Alicia's reply was much softer than she intended, especially as she could have told anybody that the Baron's compliment was the merest figure of speech.

"You needn't have included me: I'm sure _I'm_ not a great attraction."

"Ze sea is less, so zat leaves none," the Baron smiled.

"Didn't you see anybody-I mean, anything in London that attracted you-that you liked?"

"Zat I liked, yes, zat pairhaps for the moment attracted me; but not zat shall still attract me ven I am gone avay."

The Baron sighed this time, and she felt impelled to reply, with the most sisterly kindness, "I-we should, of course, like to think that you didn't forget us _altogether_."

"You need not fear."

Then Lady Alicia began to realise that this was more like a second cousin than a brother, and with sudden sprightliness she cried, "I wonder where that steamer's going!"

The Baron turned his eyes towards his first-named attraction, but for a professed lover of the ocean his interest appeared slight. He only replied absently, "Ach, zo?"

A little way behind them walked Mr Bunker and the Countess. The attention of Lady Grillyer was divided between the agreeable conversation of her companion and the pleasant spectacle of a fabulous number of pfennigs a-year bending its t.i.tled head over her daughter. In the middle of one of Mr Bunker's most amusing stories she could not forbear interrupting with a complacent "they _do_ make a very handsome couple!"