Rossmoyne Part 27

"No, do not stir. I will get it for you. It would be a shame to send you on any errand that might destroy your present pose, you look so like a cloud, or a thing out of one of Kate Greenaway's books."

"It is very rude to call me a thing; it is disheartening, when I believed I was looking my best," says Monica, laughing. Somehow Kit's praises always please her.

Then the carriage does come round, and they all get into it, and start for their seven-miles drive, a very slow seven miles, at the end of which they find themselves in the small town of Clonbree, mounting the steep hill that leads to the Barracks, which are placed on almost unsavory eminence,--all the narrow streets leading up to them being lined with close cabins and tiny cabins that are anything but "sweets to the sweet."

Entering the small barrack-yard and finding a door hospitably open, the Misses Blake go up a wooden staircase, and presently find themselves on the landing-place above, where they are welcomed effusively by Mr. Ryde, who is looking bigger and hotter and stouter than usual.

Captain Cobbett in the largest room--there are but two available in these rustic barracks--is trying vainly to find a comfortable corner for old Lady Rossmoyne, who is both deaf and stupid, but who, feeling it her duty to support on all occasions (both festive and otherwise) the emissaries of her queen, has accepted this invitation and is now heartily sorry for her loyalty.

She is sitting in durance vile upon a low chair, with a carpet seat and a treacherous nature, that threatens to turn upon her and double her up at any moment if she dare to give way to even the smallest amount of natural animation: so perforce the poor old woman sits still, like "patience on a monument smiling at grief," and that her own grief, too, which, of course, is harder to bear!

"_So_ glad you've come! We were quite in despair about you; but better late than never, eh?" says Mr. Ryde to Monica, with a fat smile. There is rather much of "too solid flesh" about his face.

"I daresay," says Monica, very vaguely: she is looking anxiously round her, hoping, yet dreading to see Desmond.

In the next room can be heard the sound of music. "My Queen" is being played very prettily upon a piano by somebody. Dancing is evidently going on, and Monica, who adores it, feels her toes trembling in her shoes.

"May I have the pleasure of this?" says Mr. Ryde. "I've kept it for you all along, you know. If you tell me you have already given it away, I shall feel myself aggrieved indeed."

"Was there ever so silly a young man?" thinks Monica, and then she says aloud, "No, it is not promised," and lets him place his arm round her, and reluctantly mingles with the other dancers. To do him justice, he waltzed very well, this fat young marine, so it cannot be said that she has altogether a bad time, and she certainly feels a little glow of pleasure as she pauses presently to recover her breath.

As she does so, her eyes rest on Desmond. He, too, is dancing, and with Olga Bohun. He is whispering to his partner, who is whispering back to him in a somewhat p.r.o.nounced fas.h.i.+on, and altogether he is looking radiantly happy, and anything but the disconsolate swain Monica has been picturing him to herself. He is smiling down at Olga, and is apparently murmuring all sorts of pretty things into her still prettier ear, because they both look quite at peace with each other and all the world.

A pang shoots through Monica's heart. He can be as happy, then, with one pretty woman as with another! She by no means, you will see, depreciates her own charms. All he wants is to have "t'other dear charmer away."

At this moment she encounters his eyes, and answers his glad stare of surprise with a little scornful lowering of her lids. After which, being fully aware that he is still watching her in hurt amazement, she turns a small, pale, but very encouraging face up to Ryde, and says, prettily,--

"You said I was late, just now. Was I?"

"Very. At least it seemed so to me," says Ryde with heavy adoration in his glance.

Feeling, rather than seeing, that Mr. Desmond has brought his fair companion to an anchor close behind her, Monica says, in a soft sweet voice,--

"I didn't _mean_ to be late. No, indeed! I hurried all I could; but my aunts are slow to move. I was _longing_ to be here, but they would make no haste."

"You _really_ longed to be here?" asks he, eagerly. "Well, that _was_ good of you! And now you have come you will be kind to me, won't you?

You will give me all the dances you can spare?"

"That would be a great many," says she, laughing a little. "You might tire of me if I said yes to that. The fact is, I know n.o.body here, and _certainly_ there is no one I care to dance with."

"You will have another tale to tell later on," returns he, gazing with unrepressed admiration at her charming face. "Before the avalanche of wors.h.i.+ppers descends, promise me all the waltzes."

"Are my dances, then, so necessary to you?" with a swift upward glance.

"They are, at all events, the only ones I care for," returns he, clumsily, but heartily. "All the others will lie in the scale with duty."

"'Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own,'" quotes Monica, lightly. "Why dance unless you wish it?"

"Because my soul is _not_ my own," responds he, with a sigh. "I am bound to dance with every undanceable woman here to-day, or they will go home and revile me. You _ought_ to be sorry for me if you aren't."

"Well, I am," says Monica; "and so you shall have every waltz on the programme."

With this she lets him take her in his arms again, and float away with her to the strains of the waltz then playing, and far away from Desmond's jealous ears.

"Well, I had no idea it was in her," says Mrs. Bohun, in a breathless sort of manner, when Monica has quite vanished. "All that was meant for you, you know; and how _well_ she did it!"

"But _why_ should it be meant for me? What have I done that she should so ill use me?" says Desmond, also breathless. "And you speak of her as if you admired her and she ought to be praised for her conduct when you have just heard from my own lips how devotedly I am attached to her!"

"I cannot help admiring genius when I see it," says Olga, with a gay laugh. "She made up her mind--naughty little thing!--to make you miserable a minute ago, and--she succeeded. What can compare with success! But in very truth, Brian," tapping his arm familiarly with her fan (an action Monica notes from the other side of the room), "I would see you a victor too, and in this cause. She is as worthy of you as you of her, and a fig for one's cousins and sisters and aunts, when Cupid leads the way."

She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit, when young Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling,--

"This is our dance, I think, Mrs. Bohun?"

"Is it? So far so good!" She turns again to Brian:

"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" she says, warningly.

"I cannot accuse myself of any feebleness of that sort," says Desmond, gloomily. "As you see, it all rests with her."

"Perhaps she is afraid of the family feud," says Olga, laughing. "One hears such a lot about this Blake-Desmond affair that I feel I could take the gold medal if examined about it. There!--what nonsense! Go and speak to her, and defy those dear old ladies at Moyne."

"You were talking about that pretty Miss Beresford?" says Ronayne, as Brian moves away.

"Yes. But, sir," archly, "dare you see beauty in any woman when I am by?"

"Oh that I could see you really jealous, and of _me_!" returns he, half sadly, looking at her with longing eyes. "If I thought I could make your heart ache for even one short minute, I should be the happiest man alive."

"_Boy_, you mean! Oh, traitor! And would you have me miserable for your own gratification?"

"It would be for yours later on. For that one moment you would gain a slave forever."

"And unless I am wretched for that one moment, I cannot gain my slave?"

"You know the answer to that only too well," returns he, with so much fervor that she refuses to continue the discussion.

"Talking of jealousy," she says, lightly, with a glance at him, "it is the dream of my life to make Rossmoyne jealous,--to reduce him to absolute submission. He is so cold, so precise, so English, that it would be quite a triumph to drag him at one's chariot-wheels. Shall I be able to do it?" she turns up her charming face to his, as though in question. She is looking her very sweetest, and is tenderly aware of the fact; and, indeed, so is he.

"I suppose so," he says, in answer to her, but slowly and reproachfully.

"But I must have help," says Olga. "_Some_ one must help me. You?--is it not?"

"I?" with strong emphasis. "What should I have to do with it?"

"Not much, yet I count upon you. Why, who do you think I am going to make him jealous about? Eh?"

"How should I know?"