Rossmoyne Part 59

"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely meant that----"

"Don't explain!--_don't!_" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of it." And she laughs aloud.

"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except his temper?"

"Yes, his beard. _Nothing_ would induce me to marry a man with hair all over his face. It isn't _clean_."

"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."

"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I think one thing would please me just as much as the other."

"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga--never.

"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or other,--sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."

"It is a pity you cannot be serious _sometimes_," says Mrs. Herrick, mildly.

A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation. A little face looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers brings again that wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.

"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And where have you been? I have watched in vain for you for the last half-hour, my Fay."

"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now I have come to say good-night," says the child.

"Good-night, then, and G.o.d bless you, my chick. But where is my Georgie?"

"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in a violent fas.h.i.+on, that one would have believed hateful to the calm Hermia, yet that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces the boy warmly, and lets her eyes follow him until he is out of sight. Then she turns again to the little maiden at her side.

"I must go with Georgie," says the child.

"So you shall. But first tell me, what have you got in your hand?"

"Something to go to bed with. See, mammy! It is a pretty red plum,"

opening her delicate pink fist, for her mother's admiration.

"Where did you get it, darling?"

"In the dining-room."

"From Lord Rossmoyne?"

"No. From Mr. Kelly. I would not have the one Lord Rossmoyne gave me."

Olga laughs mischievously, and Mrs. Herrick colors.

"Why?" she says.

"Because I like Mr. Kelly best."

"And what did you give him?"

"Nothing."

"Not even a kiss?" says Olga.

"No," somewhat shamefacedly.

"Her mother's own daughter!" says Olga, caressing the child tenderly, but laughing still. "A chilly mortal."

"Good-night, my own," says Hermia, and the child, having kissed them both again, runs away.

Olga follows her with wistful eyes.

"I almost wish I had a baby!" she says.

"_You?_ Why, you can't take care of yourself! You are the least fitted to have a child of any woman that I know. Leave all such charges to staid people like me. Why, you are a baby at heart, yourself, this moment."

"That would be no drawback. It would only have created sympathy between me and my baby. I would have understood all her bad moods and condoned all her crimes."

"If you had been a mother, you would have had a very naughty child."

"I should have had a very happy child, at least." Then she laughs.

"Fancy me with a dear little baby!" she says,--"a thing all my own, that would rub its soft cheek against mine and love me better than anything!"

"And rumple all your choicest Parisian gowns, and pull your hair to pieces. I couldn't fancy it at all."

Here the door opens to admit the men, the celestial half-hour after dinner having come to an end. With one consent they all converge towards the window, where Olga and Hermia are standing with Monica, who had joined them to bid good-night to little Fay. Miss Fitzgerald, who had returned to the drawing-room freshly powdered, seeing how the tide runs, crosses the room too, and mingles with the group in the window.

"How long you have been! We feared you dead and buried," she says to Kelly, with elephantine playfulness.

"We have, indeed. I thought the other men would never stir. Why did you not give me the chance of leaving them? The faintest suggestion that _you_ wanted me would have brought me here _hours_ ago."

"If I had been sure of that, I should have sent you a message; it would have saved me a lecture," says Olga, flas.h.i.+ng a smile at Hermia.

"I should disdain to send a message," says the proud Bella, "I would not _compel_ any man's presence. 'Come if you will; stay away if you won't,'

is _my_ motto; and I cannot help thinking I am right."

"You are, indeed, quite right. Coercion is of small avail in _some_ cases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity of one who plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior quality indeed.

"A woman can scarcely be too jealous of her rights nowadays," says Miss Fitzgerald. "If she has a proper knowledge of her position, she ought to guard it carefully."

"A fine idea finely expressed!" says Kelly, as though smitten into reverence by the grandeur of her manner.

"I wonder what is a man's proper position?" says Olga lazily.

"He will always find it at a woman's feet," says Miss Fitzgerald, grandly, elated by Kelly's apparent subjection.

That young man looks blankly round him. Under tables and chairs and lounges his eyes penetrate, but without the desired result.

"So sorry I can't see a footstool anywhere!" he says, lifting regretful eyes to Miss Fitzgerald; "but for that I should be at your feet from this until you bid me rise."