The Hoyden Part 8

"Game and set," cries t.i.ta at the top of her young voice, from the other end the court. It would be useless to pretend she doesn't _shout_ it. She is elated--happy. She has won. She tears off the little soft round cap that, defiant of the sun, she wears, and flings it sky-high, catching it deftly as it descends upon the top of her dainty head, a _little_ sideways. Her pretty, soft, fluffy hair, cut short, and curled all over her head by Mother Nature, is flying a little wildly across her brows, her large gray eyes (that sometimes are so nearly black) are brilliant. Altogether she is just a little, a _very_ little, p.r.o.nounced in her behaviour. Her opponents, people who have come over to The Place for the day, whisper something to each other, and laugh a little. After all, they have lost--perhaps they are somewhat spiteful. Lady Rylton, sitting on the terrace above, bites her lips. What an impossible girl! and yet how rich! Things must be wrong somewhere, when Fate showers money on such a little ill-bred creature.

"How funny she is!" says Mrs. Chichester, who is sitting near Lady Rylton, a guest at The Place in this house-party, this last big entertainment, that is to make or mar its master. Lady Rylton had organized it, and Sir Maurice, who never contradicted her, and who had not the slightest idea of the real meaning of it, had shrugged his shoulders. After all, let her have her own way to the last.

There would be enough to pay the debts and a little over for her; and for him, poverty, a new life, and emanc.i.p.ation. He is tired of his mother's rule. "And how small!" goes on Mrs. Chichester, a tall young woman with light hair and queer eyes, whose husband is abroad with his regiment. "Like a doll. I love dolls; don't you, Captain Marryatt?"

"Are _you_ a doll?" asks Captain Marryatt, who is leaning over her.

He is always leaning over her!

"I never know what I am," says Mrs. Chichester frankly, her queer eyes growing a little queerer. "But Miss Bolton, how delightful she is! so natural, and Nature is always so--so----"

"Natural!" supplies Mr. Gower, who is lying on a rug watching the game below.

"Oh, get out!" says Mrs. Chichester, whose manners are not her strong point.

She is sitting on a garden chair behind him, and she gives him a little dig in the back with her foot as she speaks.

"Don't! I'm bad there!" says he.

"I believe you are bad everywhere," says she, with a pout.

"Then you believe wrong! My heart is a heart of gold," says Mr.

Gower ecstatically.

"I'd like to see it," says Mrs. Chichester, who is not above a flirtation with a man whom she knows is beyond temptation; and truly Randal Gower is hard to get at!

"Does that mean that you would gladly see me dead?" asks he. "Oh, cruel woman!"

"I'm tired of seeing you as you are, any way," says she, tilting her chin. "Why don't you fall in love with somebody, for goodness'

sake?"

"Well, I'm trying," says Mr. Gower, "I'm trying hard; but," looking at her, "I don't seem to get on. You don't encourage me, you know, and I'm very shy!"

"There, don't be stupid," says Mrs. Chichester, seeing that Marryatt is growing a little enraged. "We were talking of Miss Bolton. We were saying----"

"That she was Nature's child."

"Give me Nature!" says Captain Marryatt, breaking into the _tete-a-tete_ a little sulkily. "Nothing like it."

"Is that a proposal?" demands Mr. Gower, raising himself on his elbow, and addressing him with deep interest. "It cannot be _Mrs._ Bolton you refer to, as she is unfortunately dead. Nature's child, however, is still among us. Shall I convey your offer to her?"

"Yes, shall he?" asks Mrs. Chichester.

She casts a teasing glance at her admirer; a little amused light has come into her green-gray eyes.

"I should think _you,_ Randal, would be the fitting person to propose to her, considering how you haunt her footsteps day and night," says a strange voice.

It comes from a tall, gaunt old lady, who, with ringlets flying, advances towards the group. She is a cousin of the late Sir Maurice, and an aunt of Gower's, from whom much is to be expected by the latter at her death. There is therefore, as you see, a cousins.h.i.+p between the Gowers and the Ryltons.

"My dear aunt, is that you?" says Mr. Gower with enthusiasm. "Come and sit here; _do,_ just here _beside_ me!"

He pats the rug on which he is reclining as he speaks, beckoning her warmly to it, knowing as he well does that her bones would break if she tried to bring them to so low a level.

"Thank you, Randal, I prefer a more elevated position," replies she austerely.

"Ah, you would! you would!" says Randal, who really ought to be ashamed of himself. "You were meant for high places."

He sighs loudly, and goes back on his rug.

"Miss Gower is right," says Mrs. Bethune gaily, who has just arrived. "Why don't _you_ go in for Miss Bolton?"

"She wouldn't have me!" says Gower tragically. "I've hinted all sorts of lovely things to her during the past week, but she has been apparently blind to the brilliant prospects opened to her. It has been my unhappy lot to learn that she prefers lollipops to lovers."

"You tried her?" asks Mrs. Chichester.

"Well, I believe I _did_ do a good deal in the chocolate-cream business," says Mr. Gower mildly.

"And she preferred the creams?"

"Oh! much, _much!"_ says Gower.

"So artless of her," says Mrs. Bethune, with a shrug. "I do love the nineteenth-century child!"

"If you mean Miss Bolton, so do I," says a young man who has been listening to them, and laughing here and there--a man from the Cavalry Barracks at Ashbridge. "She's quite out-of-the-way charming."

Mrs. Bethune looks at him--he is only a boy and easily to be subdued, and she is glad of the opportunity of giving some little play to the jealous anger that is raging within her.

"She has a hundred thousand charming ways," says she, smiling, but very unpleasantly. "An heiress is always charming."

"Oh no! I didn't look at it in that way at all," says the boy, reddening furiously. "One wouldn't, you know--when looking at _her."_

"Wouldn't one?" says Mrs. Bethune. She is smiling at him always; but it is a fixed smile now, and even more bitter. "And yet one might,"

says she.

She speaks almost without knowing it. She is thinking of Rylton--might _he?_

"I think not," says the boy, stammering.

It is his first lesson in the book that tells one that to praise a woman to a woman is to bring one to confusion. It is the worst manners possible.

"I agree with you, Woodleigh," says Gower, who is case-hardened and doesn't care about his manners, and who rather dislikes Mrs.

Bethune. "She's got lovely little ways. Have _you_ noticed them?"

He looks direct at Marian.

"No," says she, shaking her head, but very sweetly. "But, then, I'm so dull."

"Well, she has," says Gower, in quite a universally conversational tone, looking round him. He turns himself on his rug, pulls a cus.h.i.+on towards him, and lies down again. "And they're all her own, too."

"What a comfort!" says Mrs. Bethune, rather nastily.