The Story Book Girls Part 39

Adelaide Maud laughed outright, and took her briskly by the arm.

"I didn't mean that. I believe you will marry a duke. But you see--you think me so extravagant, and I might have to be poor."

"That dead seagull going cost you a guinea alone," said Mabel accusingly.

"And they kept the seagull," said Adelaide Maud. "How wanton of me!"

"I've had a very nice hat for a guinea," said Mabel, with a smirk of suppressed laughter.

"And yet you won't marry a poor man," said Adelaide Maud. "How unjust the world is."

They parted in better form than they had done an hour earlier.

"Wasn't she queer," said Jean, "to go off like that?"

"Queerer that she came back," said Mabel. "Do you know what I think? I believe Adelaide Maud bought that hat simply--simply----"

"To kill time," said Jean.

"No. To stay with us a little longer," said Mabel.

"It's more than any of the Dudgeons ever thought of doing before--if it's true!" said blunt, robust Jean.

"But I don't believe it is," said she. "Let's scoot for that bus or we'll lose it."

So they scooted for the bus.

CHAPTER XXI

At Lady Emily's

Adelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily's. What had always remained difficult in Ridgetown seemed to become curiously possible at Lady Emily's, where indeed the highest in the land might be met. That she might make real friends of the two girls at last seemed to become a possibility. It was not merely the fact of Lady Emily's being a "complete dear" that const.i.tuted the difference.

It was more the absence of the Ridgetown standards. There were never upstarts to be found at Lady Emily's. Her own character sifted her circle in an automatic manner. That which was vulgar or self-seeking had no response from her. Racy people found her dull, would-be smart persons quite inanimate. She could no more help being unresponsive to them than she could help being interested in others whom she respected.

It was a distinguished circle which surrounded her, and those who never pierced it, never understood how easily it was formed, how inviolately kept. Occasionally Lady Emily's "tact" was upheld as the secret of her power.

"And I have absolutely no tact at all," she would moan. "I simply follow my impulses as a child would."

It was the unerring correctness of her impulses which made Adelaide Maud believe that she would welcome the Leightons.

Lady Emily had married a brother of Mr. Dudgeon's. Adelaide Maud's devotion to her father's memory put her uncle into the position of a kind of patron saint of her own existence. She sometimes thought that his character supplied a number of these impulses which made Lady Emily the dear she was. Lady Emily was the daughter of a Duke, and had none of the aspirations of a climber, her family having climbed so long ago, that any little beatings about a modern ladder seemed ridiculous. Her brother was the present duke of course, and "made laws in London," as Miss Grace used to describe it. This phantom of a duke, intermarried in a way into her family, had prevented Mrs. Dudgeon from knowing any of the Ridgetown people--intimately that is. Yet the duke never called, and Lady Emily wore her dull coat of reserve when in Mrs. Dudgeon's company. Lady Emily's heart went out, however, to the "golden-haired girls" who spent their seasons with her in London.

She was perfectly sweet about the Leightons, and called at the girls'

club in state. What an honour!

The girls found their ideas tumbling. Lady Emily was much more "easy"

than any one they had met.

They prepared for the dinner quite light-heartedly.

After all, it could only be a dream. London was a dream. London in the early winter with mellow air, only occasionally touched with frost, glittering lights in the evenings, and crowds of animated people. So different from the dew dripping avenues of streets at Ridgetown.

They "skimmed" along in a hansom to Lady Emily's and thought they were the most das.h.i.+ng persons in London.

"But it's only a dream, remember," said Jean.

They went in radiantly through wide portals. Footmen moved out of adjacent corners and bowed them on automatically.

Mabel loved it, but Jean for a few agonizing seconds felt over-weighted.

Then "it's only a dream!"

They dreamed through a mile of corridor and ran into Adelaide Maud.

The dream pa.s.sed and they were chatting gaily at s.h.i.+lling seat gossip, and that sort of thing.

Adelaide Maud made the maids skim about. They liked her, that was evident. Mabel and Jean were prinked up and complimented.

"You are ducks, you know," said Adelaide Maud.

They proceeded to the drawing-room.

Here the point was marked between the time when the girls had never known Mr. Dudgeon and the time when they did. Mabel never forgot that fine, spare figure, standing in a glitter of gilt panelled walls, of warm light from a fire and glimmering electric brackets, of pale colour from the rugs on the floor. He had the grey ascetic face of the scholarly man brought up in refinement, and his expression contained a great amount of placidity. He had dark, scrutinizing eyes, and a kind mouth, where lines of laughter came and went. Jean approached tremblingly, for now it suddenly dawned on her that she had never been informed why the husband of Lady Emily should only be plain "Mr.

Dudgeon." Was this right, or had she not listened properly? Then Adelaide Maud said distinctly, "Mr. Dudgeon." Jean concluded that it was their puzzle, not hers, and shook hands with him radiantly. Mabel only thought that at last she had met one more man who might be compared to her father.

They sat down on couches of curved legs and high backs, "the kind of couches that make one manage to look as magnificent as possible," as Jean described it. Mr. Dudgeon said Lady Emily was being indulged with a few moments' grace.

"It's the one thing we have always to do for Lady Emily," said he, "to give her a few minutes' grace." He began to talk to them in a quick, grave manner.

Jean again informed herself, "It is a dream."

One would have thought that Mr. Dudgeon was really interested in them both. And how could he be--he--the husband of the daughter of a duke!

He asked all about how long they had known Adelaide Maud and so on.

Mabel was not dreaming, however. She sat daintily on the high-backed couch and told Mr. Dudgeon about the Story Books.

There they were, only ten minutes in the room, and Mr. Dudgeon, who had never seen Mabel or Jean before, was hearing all about the Story Books.

And Adelaide Maud, who had begun to imagine she knew the Leightons, heard this great fable for the first time in her life.

"Uncle," she said, "uncle, isn't this sweet, isn't this fame?"

"It is," said he.

"Do you wonder that I don't go to the ball?" she asked. "And you've done this ever since you were children?" she asked. "Made fairies of us! And I'm 'Adelaide Maud,' am I? Who once called me Adelaide?" She looked puzzled. "Dear me, if only we had known. And not even Miss Grace to tell me!"