This is a double-barrelled explosion. One barrel for the detested wife of the good Frederic, one for the sister she has befriended--to that sister's cost.

"True," says Lady Monkton, with an uncivil little upward glance at Barbara. For once--because it suits her--she has accepted her sister's argument, and determined to take no heed of her scarcely veiled insult.

"She helps you, no doubt. Is useful with the children, I hope. Moneyless girls should remember that they are born into the world to work, not to idle."

"I am afraid she is not as much help to me as you evidently think necessary," says Barbara smiling, but not pleasantly. "She is very seldom at home; in the summer at all events." It is abominable to her to think that these hateful old people should regard Joyce, her pretty Joyce, as a mere servant, a sisterly maid-of-all-work.

"And if not with you--where then?" asks Lady Monkton, indifferently, and as if more with a desire to keep up the dying conversation than from any acute thirst for knowledge.

"She stays a good deal with Lady Baltimore," says Barbara, feeling weary, and rather disgusted.

"Ah! indeed! Sort of companion--a governess, I suppose?"

A long pause. Mrs. Monkton's dark eyes grow dangerously bright, and a quick color springs into her cheeks.

"No!" begins she, in a low but indignant tone, and then suppresses herself. She can't, she mustn't quarrel with Freddy's people! "My sister is neither companion nor governess to Lady Baltimore," says she icily.

"She is only her friend."

"Friend?" repeats the old lady, as if not quite understanding.

"A great friend," repeats Barbara calmly. Lady Monkton's astonishment is even more insulting than her first question. But Barbara has made up her mind to bear all things.

"There are friends and friends," puts in Miss L'Estrange with her most offensive air.

A very embarra.s.sing silence falls on this, Barbara would say nothing more, an inborn sense of dignity forbidding her. But this does not prevent a very natural desire on her part to look at her husband, not so much to claim his support as to know if he has heard.

One glance a.s.sures her that he has. A pause in the conversation with his father has enabled him to hear everything. Barbara has just time to note that his brow is black and his lips ominously compressed before she sees him advance toward his mother.

"You seem to, be very singularly ignorant of my wife's status in society----" he is beginning is a rather terrible tone, when Barbara, with a little graceful gesture, checks him. She puts out her hand and smiles up at him, a wonderful smile under the circ.u.mstances.

"Ah! that is just it," she says, sweetly, but with determination. "She is ignorant where we are concerned--Joyce and I. If she had only spared time to ask a little question or two! But as it is----" The whole speech is purposely vague, but full of contemptuous rebuke, delicately veiled.

"It is nothing, I a.s.sure you, Freddy. Your mother is not to be blamed.

She has not understood. That is all."

"I fail even now to understand," says the old lady, with a somewhat tremulous attempt at self-a.s.sertion.

"So do I," says the antique upon the lounge near her, bristling with a wrath so warm that it has unsettled the n.o.ble structure on her head, and placed it in quite an artful situation, right over her left ear. "I see nothing to create wrath in the mind of any one, in the idea of a young--er----" She comes to a dead pause; she had plainly been going to say young person--but Frederic's glare had been too much for her. It has frightened her into good behavior, and she changes the obnoxious word into one more complaisant.

"A young what?" demands he imperiously, freezing his aunt with a stony stare.

"Young girl!" returns she, toning down a little, but still betraying malevolence of a very advanced order in her voice and expression. "I see nothing derogatory in the idea of a young girl devoid of fortune taking a----"

Again she would have said something insulting. The word "situation" is on her lips; but the venom in her is suppressed a second time by her nephew.

"Go on," says he, sternly.

"Taking a--er--position in a nice family," says she, almost spitting out the words like a bad old cat.

"She has a position in a very nice family," says Monkton readily. "In mine! As companion, friend, playfellow, in fact anything you like of the light order of servitude. We all serve, my dear aunt, though that idea doesn't seem to have come home to you. We must all be in bondage to each other in this world--the only real freedom is to be gained in the world to come. You have never thought of that? Well, think of it now. To be kind, to be sympathetic, to be even Commonly civil to people is to fulfil the law's demands."

"You go too far; she is old, Freddy," Barbara has scarcely time to whisper, when the door is thrown open, and d.i.c.ky Browne, followed by Felix Dysart, enters the room.

It is a relief to everybody. Lady Monkton rises to receive them with a smile: Miss L'Estrange looks into the teapot. Plainly she can still see some tea leaves there. Rising, she inclines the little silver kettle over them, and creates a second deluge. She has again made tea. May she be forgiven!

"Going to give us some tea, Miss L'Estrange?" says d.i.c.ky, bearing down upon her with a beaming face. She has given him some before this. "One can always depend upon you for a good cup. Ah, thanks. Dysart, I can recommend this. Have a cup; do."

"No, thank you," says Dysart, who has secured a seat next to Barbara, and is regarding her anxiously, while replying to her questions of surprise at seeing him in town at this time of year. She is surprised too, and a little shocked to see him look so ill.

d.i.c.ky is still holding a brilliant conversation with Miss L'Estrange, who, to him, is a joy for ever.

"Didn't expect to see me here again so soon, eh?" says he, with a cheerful smile.

"There you are wrong," returns that spinster, in the hoa.r.s.e croak that distinguishes her. "The fact that you were here yesterday and couldn't reasonably be supposed to come again for a week, made it at once a certainty that you would turn up immediately. The unexpected is what always happens where you are concerned."

"One of my many charms," says Mr. Browne gayly, hiding his untasted cup by a skillful movement behind the sugar bowl. "Variety, you know, is ever charming. I'm a various person, therefore I'm charming."

"Are you?" says Miss L'Estrange, grimly.

"Can you look at me and doubt it?" demands Mr. Browne, deep reproach in his eyes.

"I can," returns Miss L'Estrange, presenting an uncompromising front. "I can also suggest to you that those lumps of sugar are meant to put in the cups with the tea, not to be consumed wholesale. Sugar, plain, is ruinous to the stomach and disastrous to the teeth."

"True, true," says Mr. Browne, absently, "and both mine are so pretty."

Miss L'Estrange rises to her feet and confronts him with a stony glare.

"Both what?" demands she.

"Eh? Why, both of them," persists Mr. Browne.

"I think, Richard, that the sooner you return to your hotel, or whatever low haunt you have chosen as your present abode, the better it will be for all present."

"Why so?" demands Mr. Browne, indignantly. "What have I done now?"

"You know very well, sir," says Miss L'estrange. "Your language is disgraceful. You take an opportunity of turning an innocent remark of mine, a kindly warning, into a ribald----"

"Good heavens!" says he, uplifting brows and hands. "I never yet knew it was ribaldry to talk about one's teeth."

"You were not talking about your teeth," says Miss L'Estrange sternly.

"You said distinctly 'both of them.'"

"Just so," says d.i.c.ky. "I've only got two."

"Is that the truth, Richard?" with increasing majesty.

"Honest Injun," says Mr. Browne, unabashed. "And they are out of sight.

All you can see have been purchased, and I a.s.sure you, dear Miss L'Estrange," with anxious earnestness, "paid for. One guinea the entire set; a single tooth, two-and-six. Who'd be without 'em?"

"Well, I'm sorry to hear it," says Miss L'Estrange reseating herself and regarding him still with manifest distrust. "To lose one's teeth so early in life speaks badly for one's moral conduct. Anyhow, I shan't allow you to destroy your guinea's worth. I shall remove temptation from your path."