"It is possible," she said presently. "It is quite possible. All the men are saying that she is the prettiest girl in Melbourne just now. An elderly club man, who has seen much of the world, is very likely to admire that kind of childish, simple creature. If it should be so," she continued, musingly, "I wonder how Rachel will take it."

"Rachel," said Mrs. Hardy, with sudden energy, "is not so simple as she seems. You mark my words, she will be as keen to make a good marriage as anybody as soon as she gets the chance."

"Do you think so?" her daughter responded, looking up with her bright, quick eyes. "Now that is not at all my notion of her."

"Nor was it mine at first, but I am getting new lights. It never does to trust to that demure kind of shy manner. I a.s.sure you she made such use of her opportunities this afternoon as surprised me, who am not easily surprised. In about ten minutes--I could not have been in Alston's more than ten minutes--they were on the most frank and friendly terms possible, and she had given him a rose to wear in his b.u.t.ton-hole."

"Nonsense!"

"I a.s.sure you, yes. And I know, by the look of him, that he never saw through it. It is wonderful how even the cleverest men can be taken in by that _ingenue_ manner. He evidently thought her a sweet and unsophisticated child. Sweet she is--the most amiable little creature I ever knew; but she knows what she is about perfectly well."

Mrs. Reade gazed into the fire again with thoughtful eyes; then after a pause she said:

"I think you don't understand her, mamma. I think she really saw no more in Mr. Kingston than she would have seen in any poor young man without a penny."

"No, Beatrice. She talked about his new house, and all the money he was going to spend on it, in a ridiculous way. She was completely fascinated by the subject."

"I can't imagine little Rachel scheming to catch a rich husband," the young lady exclaimed, with a mocking, but pleasant laugh.

"You don't see as much of her as I do, my dear Beatrice," her mother replied, with dignity. "If you did, you would know that she is as fond of money and luxury as any hardened woman of the world could be. She quite fondles the ornaments I have put in her room. She goes into raptures over the silver and china. A new dress sends her into ecstacies. She annoys me sometimes--showing people so plainly that she has never been used to anything nice. However, it will make it easier for me to settle her than I at first thought it would be. It will be all plain sailing with Mr. Kingston, you will see."

"Mother," said Mrs. Reade--she only said "mother" when she was very much in earnest--"let me give you a word of advice. If you want to marry Rachel to Mr. Kingston--and I hope you will, for it would be a capital match--don't let her know anything about it; don't do anything to help it on; don't let her see what is coming--leave them both alone. I think I know her better than you do, and I have a pretty good idea of Mr.

Kingston; and any sort of interference with either of them would be most injudicious--most dangerous. I shall see to-night--I'm sure I shall see in a moment----"

There was a ring at the door-bell, and the stir of an arrival in the hall, and the little woman did not finish what she wanted to say. She rose from her chair, and shook out her pink train; and the mother to whom she had laid down the law rose also, looking very majestic.

"Mr. Kingston," said the servant, throwing the drawing-room door open.

The great man entered with a springing step, bowing elaborately. His glossy hair (some people said it was a wig, but it was not) was curled to perfection; his moustaches were waxed to the finest needle-points; he wore flashing diamond studs on an embroidered shirt front; and there was a Marshal Neil rose in his b.u.t.ton-hole, not very fresh, and too much blown to be any ornament to a fine gentleman's evening toilet, hanging its yellow head heavily from a weak and flabby stalk.

CHAPTER III.

MR. KINGSTON'S QUESTION.

While her aunt and cousin were discussing her downstairs, Miss Fetherstonhaugh was dressing herself for dinner in her little chamber at the top of the house. This was a part of the daily ceremonial of her new life, in which she took a deep and delighted interest. The whole thing, in fact, was charming to her. To come sweeping down the big staircase in dainty raiment, all in the s.p.a.cious light and warmth--to have the doors held open for her as she pa.s.sed in and out--to go into the dining-room on her uncle's arm, and sit at dinner with flowers before her--seeing and feeling nothing but softness and colour, and polish and order everywhere--was at this time to realise her highest conception of earthly enjoyment.

Her bedroom was not magnificent, but it had everything in it that she most desired--the whitest linen, the freshest chintz and muslin, a fire to dress by, an easy chair, and above all, a cheval gla.s.s, in which she could survey her pretty figure from head to foot. She stood before this cheval gla.s.s to-night a thoroughly happy little person. Hitherto, with a mirror twelve inches by nine, that had a crack across it, she had seen that her face was fair and fresh, and that her hair had a wonderful red-gold l.u.s.tre where the light fell upon it; but she was only now coming to understand what perfection of shape and grace had developed with her recent growth into womanhood, to make the _tout ensemble_ charming.

She looked at herself with deep content--no doubt with a stronger interest than she would have looked at any other lovely woman, but in much the same spirit, enjoying her beauty more for its own sake than for what it would do for her--more because it harmonised herself to her tastes and circ.u.mstances, than because it was a great a.r.s.enal of ammunition for social warfare and conquest.

She was still in mourning for her father, and had put on a simple black evening dress. Her natural sense of the becoming dictated simple costumes, but education demanded that they should be made in the latest fashion; and she regarded the tightness of her skirt in front, and the fan of her train behind, with something more than complacency.

As yet the l.u.s.t for jewels had not awakened in her, which was very fortunate, for she had none. The tender, milky throat and the round white arms were bare; and all the ornament that she wore, or wanted, was a bouquet of white chrysanthemum and scarlet salvia on her bosom, and another in her hair.

Pretty Rachel Fetherstonhaugh! If Roden Dalrymple could have seen her that night, only for five minutes, what a deal of trouble she might have been spared!

The dinner bell rang, and she blew out her candles hurriedly, and flitted downstairs. On the landing below her she joined her uncle--a small, thin, sharp-faced person, with wiry grey hair, and "man of business" written in every line of his face--as he left his own apartment; and they descended in haste together to the drawing-room, where four people were solemnly awaiting them.

The first thing that Rachel saw when she entered was her Marshal Neil rose. She glanced from that to its wearer's face, eagerly turned to meet her, full of admiring interest; and, as a matter of course, she blushed to a hue that put her scarlet salvias to shame.

Why she blushed she would have been at a loss to say; certainly not for any of the reasons that the a.s.sembled spectators supposed. It was merely from the vaguest sense of embarra.s.sment at being in a position which she had not been trained to understand.

An hour or two before, her aunt had made that rose the text of a discourse in which many strange things had been suggested, but nothing explained; and now they all looked at her, evidently with reference to it, yet with painful ambiguity that perplexed her and made her uneasy; and she could only feel, in a general way, that she was young and ignorant and not equal to the situation. Much less than that was amply sufficient to cover her with a veil of blushes.

At dinner she sat between Mr. Reade and her uncle, and, being on the best of terms with both of them, she confined her conversation to her own corner of the table, and scarcely lifted her eyes; but when dinner was over--dinner and coffee, and the drive to the opera-house--then Mr.

Kingston, deeply interested in his supposed discovery of a new kind of woman, and piqued by her shy reception of his generally much-appreciated attentions, set himself to improve his acquaintance with her, and found the task easy. They were standing on the pavement, in the glare of the gaslight, with a lounging crowd about them.

Mrs. Hardy had dropped a bracelet, for which she and her son-in-law were hunting in the bottom of the brougham, and Mrs. Reade was chatting to an acquaintance, whose hansom had just deposited him beside her--a bearded young squatter, enjoying his season in town after selling his wool high, who stared very hard at Rachel through a pair of good gla.s.ses, as soon as he had a favourable opportunity.

Mr. Kingston stood by the girl's side, staring at her without disguise.

The shadow of the street fell soft upon her gauzy raiment and her white arms and the l.u.s.tre of her auburn hair, but her face was turned towards the gaslight--she was looking wistfully up the long pa.s.sage which had something very like fairy land at the end of it--and he thought he had never seen any face so fresh and sweet.

"You like this kind of thing, don't you?" he said, gently, as if speaking to a child, when in turning to look for her aunt she caught his eye.

"Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "I do, indeed! I like the whole thing; not the singing and the acting only, but the place, and the people, and the ladies' dresses, and the noise, and the moving about, and the lights--everything. I should like to come to the opera every night--except the nights when there are b.a.l.l.s."

Mr. Kingston laughed, and said he should never have guessed from what he had seen of her that she was such a very gay young lady.

"You don't understand," she responded quickly, looking up at him with earnest, candid eyes; "it is not that I am gay--oh, no, I don't think it is that! though perhaps I do enjoy a spectacle more than many people.

But it is all so new and strange. I have never had any sightseeing--any pleasure like what I am having now, that is why I find it so delightful."

"Come, my dear!" cried Mrs. Hardy sharply (she had found her bracelet and overheard a part of this little dialogue), "don't stand about in the wind with nothing over you. What have you done with your shawl?"

"It is here, aunt," replied Rachel meekly, lifting it from her arm.

Her cavalier hastened to take it from her and adjust it carefully over her shoulders. During this operation Mrs. Hardy swept into the lobby, taking the arm of her big son-in-law; and Mrs. Reade, having parted from her friend, glanced round quickly, followed her husband, and put herself also under his protection. Mr. Kingston, smiling to himself like Mephistopheles under his waxed moustache, was left with Rachel in the doorway.

"How _does_ it go?" he said, fumbling with a quant.i.ty of woolly fringe.

"All right--there's no hurry. It is not eight o'clock yet. Pray let me do it for you."

She stood still, while he dawdled as long as he could over the arrangement of her wrap, but she cast anxious looks after the three receding figures, and she was the colour of an oleander blossom. He was a little disconcerted at her embarra.s.sment; it amused him, but it touched him too.

Poor little timid child! Who would be so mean as to take advantage of her inexperience? Not he, certainly. He gave her his arm and led her into the house, with a deferential attentiveness that did not usually mark his deportment towards young girls. On their way they were accosted by a boy holding a couple of bouquets in each hand.

"Buy a bouquet for the opera, Sir?" said he, in his sing-song voice.

Mr. Kingston paused and put his gla.s.s in his eye. They were bright little nosegays, and one of them, much superior to the other, had a fringe of maiden hair fern and a rich red rose in the middle of it. He took this from the boy's hand, and offered it to Rachel with his elaborate bow.

"Permit me," he said, "to make a poor acknowledgment of my deep indebtedness to you for _this_."

And he touched the drooping petals of the Marshal Neil bud, and imagined he was paying her a delicate sentimental compliment.

If Rachel had been the most finished fine lady she could not have undeceived him more gracefully.