'She must have a heart, with those eyes and such a smile,' objected Maud.

'Not the least atom, I a.s.sure you,' said the other. 'Nature, in lavishing every other grace and charm upon her, made this single omission, much, no doubt, to the lady's own peace of mind. It is all right in the present instance, because Beau does not happen to have any heart either.'

'I don't believe you in the least,' said Maud, 'and I shall get my cousin to take me to call upon her.'

'You are fascinated, you see, already,' said Desvoeux, 'though you are a woman. You will find her a perfect Circe. Her drawing-room is an enchanted cell hung round with votive offerings from former victims. She lives on the gifts of worshippers, and will accept everything, from a sealskin jacket to a pair of gloves. I used to be an adorer once, but I could not afford it. Now I will introduce you.' Thereupon he presented Maud in due form.

General Beau arched his handsome brow, and said, 'Ah! how dy'e do, Miss Vernon?' in his inscrutable way; and Mrs. Vereker, who, as a reigning beauty, felt an especial interest in one who seemed likely to endanger her ascendency, was bent on being polite. She gave Maud the sweetest of smiles, scolded Desvoeux with the prettiest little pout for not having been to see her for an age; and, if she felt jealous, was determined, at any rate, not to show it. She observed, however, with the eye of a connoisseur, how Maud's hair was done, and took a mental note of a little mystery of lace and feathers, just then the fashionable head-dress, which she thought would be immensely becoming to herself.

She pressed Maud affectionately to come some day to lunch and inwardly resolved to spoil the pretty _ingenue_ of her novelty.

Mrs. Vereker was a type of character which Indian life brings into especial prominence and develops into fuller perfection than is to be found in less artificial communities. Herself the child of Indian parents, whom she had scarcely ever seen, with the slenderest possible stock of home a.s.sociations, accustomed from the outset to have to look out for herself, she had come to India while still almost a child, and in a few months, long before thought or feeling had approached maturity, had found herself the belle of a Station, and presently a bride. Then circ.u.mstances separated her frequently from her husband, and she learnt to bear separation heroically. The sweet incense of flattery was for ever rising about her, and she learnt to love it better every day. Any number of men were for ever ready to throw themselves at her feet and proclaim her adorable, and she came to feel it right that they should do so. She found that she could conjure with her eyes and mouth and exercise a little despotism by simply using them as Nature told her.

The coldness of her heart enabled her to venture with impunity into dangers where an ardent temperament could scarcely but have gone astray: she, however, was content so long as she lived in a stream of flattery and half-a-dozen men declared themselves heartbroken about her; strict people called her a flirt, but friends and foes alike declared her innocence itself.

Beau was devoting himself to her partly because her good looks gave him a slight sense of gratification, partly because he considered it the proper thing to be seen on confidential terms with the handsomest woman in the room, partly to have the pleasure of holding his own against the younger men.

Desvoeux, delighted with his new-found treasure, was only too happy to leave a quondam rival in possession of the field, and to have a decent excuse for abandoning a shrine at which it was no longer convenient to worship.

CHAPTER X.

THE WOES OF A CHAPERON.

The time is out of joint--O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

Felicia came home from the ball in far less high spirits than her _protegee_. Things had not gone as she wished, nor had Maud behaved at all in the manner which Felicia had pictured to herself as natural and appropriate to a young lady making her _debut_ in polite society.

Instead of displaying an interesting timidity and clinging to her chaperon for guidance and protection, Maud had taken wing boldly at once, as in a congenial atmosphere, had been far too excited to be in the least degree shy and had lent herself with indiscreet facility to a very p.r.o.nounced flirtation. Felicia began to realise how hard it is to make the people about one be what one wants them to be, and how full of disappointment is the task of managing mankind, even though the fraction operated upon be no larger than a wayward school-girl's heart. Maud, whose rapidly-increasing devotion to Sutton had for days past been a theme of secret congratulation in Felicia's thoughts, had been behaving all the evening just in the way which Sutton would, she knew, most dislike, and showing the most transparent liking for the person of whom, of all others, he especially disapproved. Sutton, too, Felicia considered, was not comporting himself at all as she would have had him: he lavished every possible kindness on Maud, but then it was less for Maud's sake than her own; he would have done, she felt an annoying conviction, exactly the same for either of her little girls; and though he agreed with her in thinking Maud decidedly picturesque, and in being amused and interested in the fresh, eager, childlike impulsiveness of her character, his thoughts about her, alas! appeared to go no further.

'Why that profound sigh, Felicia?' her husband asked, when Maud had gone away to bed, leaving the two together for the first time during the evening. 'Does it mean that some one has been boring you or what?'

'It means,' said Felicia, 'that I am very cross and that Mr. Desvoeux is a very odious person.'

'And Maud a very silly one, _n'est-ce pas_? Did not I tell you what a deal of trouble our good-nature in having her out would be sure to give us? Never let us do a good-natured act again! I tell you Maud is already a finished coquette and, I believe, would be quite prepared to flirt with me.'

'I am sure I wish she would,' said Felicia in a despairing tone. 'Do you know, George, I do not like these b.a.l.l.s at all?'

'Come, come, Felicia, how many valses did you dance to-night?' her husband asked incredulously, for Felicia was an enthusiastic Terpsich.o.r.ean.

'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'All the people should be nice, and so many people are not nice at all. It is too close quarters.

There are some men whose very politeness one resents.'

'Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it,' said her husband, 'for instance?'

'For instance, General Beau,' said Felicia. 'He looks up in the pauses of his devotions to Mrs. Vereker and turns his eyes upon one as if to say, "Poor victim! your turn will be the next."'

'I saw you playing "Lady Disdain" to him with great success to-night,'

her husband answered. And indeed it must be confessed that Beau's advances to Felicia, with whom he was always anxious to stand well, were received by that lady with a slightly contemptuous dignity, very unlike her usual joyous cordiality.

'Yes,' said Felicia; 'General Beau's compliments are more than I can stand. But, George, what can I do with Maud? Is not Mr. Desvoeux insufferable?'

'Well,' said her husband, 'if a man's ambition is to be thought a _mauvais sujet_, and to dress like a s...o...b..y _endimanche_, it does not hurt us.'

'But it may hurt Maud,' said Felicia, 'if, indeed, it has not hurt her already. Oh dear, how I wish she was safely married!'

From the above conversation it may be inferred that the responsibilities of her new charge were beginning to weigh upon Felicia's spirits. Sutton too slow, and Desvoeux too prompt, and Maud's fickle fancies inclining now this way, now that--what benevolent custodian of other people's happiness had ever more hara.s.sing task upon her hands?

It is probable, however, that had Felicia's insight or experience been greater, the position of affairs would have seemed less fraught with anxiety. Maud's liking for Desvoeux was a sentiment of the lightest possible texture; its very lightness was, perhaps, its charm. With him she was completely at her ease and experienced the high spirits which being at one's ease engenders. She was certain of pleasing him, but careless whether she did so or not. His extravagant protestations amused her and were flattering in a pleasant sort of way, and his high spirits made him an excellent companion; but nothing about him touched her with the keen deep interest that every word or look of Sutton's inspired, or with the same strong anxiety to retain his friendship. Desvoeux might come and go, and Maud would have treated either event with the same indifference; but if Sutton should ever begin to neglect her, she was already conscious of a sort of pang which the very idea inflicted.

Upon the whole it is probable that Felicia's apprehensions were groundless. Not the less, however, did she feel disconcerted and aggrieved when the very next morning after the ball Desvoeux made his appearance, in the highest possible spirits, evidently on the best terms with Maud and politely ignoring all Felicia's attempts to put him down.

He was, as it seemed to her, in his very most objectionable mood, and she felt glad that, at any rate, her husband was at home and that she was not left to do battle by herself. She resolved to be as unconciliatory as possible. As for Maud it never occurred to her to conceal the pleasure which Desvoeux's arrival gave her, and she soon let out the secret that his visit had been prearranged.

'I did not think that you really would come, Mr. Desvoeux; it is so nice of you, because we are both of us far too tired to do anything but be idle, and you can amuse us.'

'You forget, Maud,' said Vernon, 'that Desvoeux may be too tired to be amusing.'

'And I,' said Felicia, with a slight shade of contempt in her tones, 'am too tired even to be amused. I feel that Mr. Desvoeux's witticisms would only fatigue me. I intend to give up b.a.l.l.s.'

'Then,' said Desvoeux, with an air of admiring deference which Felicia felt especially irritating, 'b.a.l.l.s will have to give up me. I should not think it in the least worth while to be a steward and to do all the horrid things one has to do--polish the floor and audit the accounts and dance official quadrilles with Mrs. Blunt--if our chief patroness chose to patronise no more. A ball without Mrs. Vernon would be a May morning without the sunshine.'

'Or a moonlight night without the moon,' said Felicia: 'Allow me to help you to a simile.'

'You see he _is_ tired,' said Vernon, 'poor fellow, and for the first time in his life in need of a pretty phrase.'

'Not at all,' said Desvoeux, with imperturbable good-nature; 'I am constantly at a loss, like the rest of the world, for words to tell Mrs.

Vernon how much we all admire her. It is only fair that the person who inspires the sentiment should a.s.sist us to express it.'

'But,' cried Maud, 'you are forgetting poor me. Who is to take care of me, if you please, in the b.a.l.l.s of the future?'

'Yes, Felicia,' said Vernon, 'you cannot abdicate just yet, I fear. As for me, I feel already far too old.'

'Then,' cried Desvoeux, 'you must look at General Beau and learn that youth is eternal. How nice it is to see him adoring Mrs. Vereker, and to remember that we, too, may be adored some thirty years to come!'

'Beau's manner is very compromising,' said Vernon; 'it is a curious trick. His first object, when he likes a lady, is to endanger her reputation.'

'Yes,' answered Desvoeux, 'he leads her with a serious air to a sofa or hides himself with her in a balcony; looks gravely into her eyes and says, "How hot it has been this afternoon!" or something equally interesting; and all the world thinks that he is asking her to elope at least.'

'His manners appear to me to be insufferable,' Felicia said, in her loftiest style; 'just the sort of familiarity that breeds contempt.'

'Poor fellow!' said Desvoeux, who knew perfectly that Felicia's observations were half-intended for himself, 'it is all his enthusiasm.

He is as proud of every fresh flirtation as if it were a new experience--like a young hen that has just laid its first egg. He always seems to me to be chuckling and crowing to the universe, "Behold!

heaven and earth! I have hatched another scandal." Now,' he added, 'Miss Vernon, if ever you and I had a flirtation we should not wish all the world to "a.s.sist," as the French people say, should we? People might suspect our devotion, and guess and gossip; but there would not be this revolting matter-of-fact publicity; and we should be for ever putting people off the scent: I should still look into the Misses Blunt's eyes, still dance a state quadrille with their mamma, still talk to Mrs.

Vereker about the stars, still feel the poetry of Miss Fotheringham's new Paris dresses: you would continue to fascinate mankind at large; only we two between ourselves should know how mutually broken-hearted we had become.'

'That is a contingency,' Felicia said, in a manner which Desvoeux understood as a command to abandon the topic, which, happily, there is no need to discuss.' The conversation turned to something else; but Felicia made up her mind more than ever that their visitor was a very impertinent fellow, and more than ever resolved to guard Maud's heart from every form of attack which he could bring to bear against it. No protection could, she felt, be half so satisfactory as the counter-attraction of a lover who would be everything that Desvoeux was not, and whom all the world acknowledged to be alike _sans peur_ and _sans reproche_.