When the Birds Begin to Sing Part 14

Philip feels left out. A jealous pang shoots through him like the stab of a knife, or the burning of iron red-hot on his flesh. Yet Eleanor, unconscious of the evil feelings she arouses, takes but little notice of her husband, and hangs upon Carol's words with eager interest, agrees with all he says, prevents him leaving twice when he rises to go, and hopes he will "look in again" soon.

"You might have asked him to stay and dine, Philip," she declares, when they are again alone. "He is so chatty and amusing. Why, what are you looking so black about?"

"I can't bear the fellow," mutters Philip. "I should like to knock him down when he looks at you out of those loathsome eyes, and talks rot enough to make one sick. The worst of it is you _like_ him. I shudder for your taste."

"You are prejudiced," replies Eleanor hotly, "you can't bear me to have a friend that is not of your own choosing! My taste wasn't a thing to be shuddered at when I married _you_, was it? A selfish, egotistical----"

"Hush, Eleanor," he says, laying his hands firmly but not unkindly on her shoulders. "Don't let us quarrel, you will be sorry afterwards."

"I don't care _that_" (with a snap of her fingers) "whether we quarrel or not. It is better, though, to speak out than bottle it up inside.

There! now you have got your reproachful look again, like the day you said I was vulgar! Let me go," wriggling herself free.

She stifles a sob, bangs through the door, and runs upstairs whistling.

The refrain of the "Miller's" song is wafted down to the hall in Eleanor's clear, rich voice:

I care for n.o.body, no, not I If n.o.body cares for me.

Philip walks slowly back to the sofa, gazes a moment at the cus.h.i.+ons, then buries his face in their midst, grinding his teeth.

CHAPTER VIII.

KIND HEARTS ARE MORE THAN CORONETS.

Giddy Mounteagle's face is wreathed in smiles as she talks animatedly to Eleanor.

"Yes, my dear," she says triumphantly, "Lady MacDonald comes to me to-morrow. She is one of the smartest women in town and moves in the best circles. She will stay the night and be the belle of my 'At home'

the following day. I long to introduce her to you. Such a stately, aristocratic-looking woman, a little 'difficult' sometimes, but usually charming. She takes offence if you introduce her to any one not _quite_ up to the mark, and, since her marriage, is very particular whom she knows. I used to see a great deal of her before she was Lady MacDonald, but lately we have drifted apart."

"Is she stuck up?" asks Eleanor bluntly.

"No, that is hardly the word. 'Proud,' shall we say? 'dignified.'"

"Because she has married an old lord? How amusing! I shall like to see her."

"I will bring her to tea with you, Eleanor," replies Mrs. Mounteagle, feeling she is conferring an immense honour on Mrs. Roche. "Mind you use that duck of a service, and wear your heliotrope gown. You look so _distingue_ in it, and dear Lady MacDonald notices clothes."

"Any more orders?" asks Eleanor, laughing.

Giddy's glance sweeps over the room.

"Yes. Remove that awful photograph, the one of the old people outside a farmhouse. It is not ornamental, and quite spoils the beauty of that corner. Lady MacDonald is so critical it might catch her eye."

"Then she will have to sit with her back to it or suffer," replies Eleanor staunchly. "It is my favourite picture, and I don't mean to take it down."

Giddy sighs, puts on a martyred expression, and kicks the footstool.

"Your taste is as terrible as ever," she declares sadly, shaking her head. "What would you have been, Eleanor, if I hadn't taken you in hand?"

"I don't know, dear," she cries, feeling she has been ungrateful. "You have done me no end of good turns! But I love that portrait, it is sentiment."

"An old nurse of yours and her husband?" asks Giddy.

Eleanor flushes rosy red.

She would like to say "my parents," but dreads Giddy's cynical smile.

She could not bear to hear them scoffed at, even in their absence.

Instead she murmurs:

"That woman nursed me in her arms as a baby, tended me in childhood--loved me always."

Eleanor, on tiptoe, kisses the two faces in the photo.

"They are good," she says, "generous, kind-hearted; they might grace the grandest palace----"

"And smile at the claims of long descent," quotes the widow. "What a true little woman you are, Eleanor! Sometimes I half envy you, _gaucheries_ and all!"

"I can't help being stupid, Giddy; I was not born wise, like you."

"Yet you really have developed marvellously under my training. The way you kept up the conversation at that dull luncheon party last week was admirable. I could not have done it better myself. As it was, a wretched sore throat condemned me to silence. How your badinage with Quinton astonished our hostess! She sat up so straight in her chair, I thought her fringe curls would reach the ceiling. She will never invite you there again, but it was simply splendid.

"'What do you think of Mrs. Roche?' I asked her afterwards, when Carol was bending over you in the window seat. She drew in her thin lips, and muttered: '_Most_ refres.h.i.+ng!' in a tone that meant something very different."

"What did it mean?" cries Eleanor, with a gasp.

"I am in too great a hurry now to interpret," answers Giddy, kissing her effusively. "Ta-ta, beloved--and mind you adopt your best Society airs for Lady MacDonald to-morrow. She will swallow any amount, and may be very useful to us in town. _Comprenez-vous?_"

Eleanor is quite in a flutter the following afternoon. Her room looks bright with flowers purchased that morning in the town, her Crown Derby tea-service is set out on a new and dainty cloth, which had been laid by for an occasion. The curtains are drawn to shut away the dreary fog, and fire-light mingles with the rosy rays from a tall lamp.

Eleanor is still quite in a tremble lest the oil should smell, as Sarah frequently fails over the art of wick tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"How does my heliotrope go with this chair?" she asks, settling her sleeves, and critically contrasting the yellow brocade furniture with the shade of her gown.

Sarah a.s.sures her the effect is most desirable, as she places a pink iced cake by the tray.

"Don't keep Lady MacDonald waiting on the doorstep; you might be in the hall ready to answer the bell."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And if the fog gets denser light the gas outside."

Eleanor draws her chair to the fire, and pretends to read a Society paper, but her thoughts are far from the fas.h.i.+on article.