"It is a poet's privilege to worship the beautiful, Leo," said the Baron, with a self-satisfied smirk. "The old troubadour's right of allegiance to the loveliest--as old as chivalry."

"And as disreputable," said FitzJesse. "If I had been one of the knights of old, and had found a troubadour sneaking about my premises, that troubadour's head should have been through his guitar before he knew where he was--or he should have discovered that my idea of a common chord was a halter. But in our present age of ultra-refinement the social troubadour is a gentleman, and the worship of beauty one of the higher forms of culture."

The Baron looked at the journalist suspiciously. Bold as he was of speech and bearing, he never ventured to cross swords with Mr.

FitzJesse. He was too much afraid of seeing an article upon his Jersey antecedents or his married life in leaded type in the _Sling_.

Happily, Mr. Tregonell was not at luncheon upon this particular occasion. He had gone out shooting with Jack Vandeleur and little Monty.

It was supposed to be a great year for woodc.o.c.k, and the Squire and his friends had been after the birds in every direction, except St. Nectan's Kieve. He had refused to go there, although it was a tradition that the place was a favourite resort of the birds.

"Why don't you shoot, Mrs. Tregonell?" asked Mrs. Torrington; "it is just the one thing that makes life worth living in a country like this, where there is no great scope for hunting."

"I should like roaming about the hills, but I could never bring myself to hit a bird," answered Christabel. "I am too fond of the feathered race. I don't know why or what it is, but there is something in a bird which appeals intensely to one's pity. I have been more sorry than I can say for a dying sparrow; and I can never teach myself to remember that birds are such wretchedly cruel and unprincipled creatures in their dealings with one another that they really deserve very little compa.s.sion from man."

"Except that man has the responsibility of knowing better," said Mr.

FitzJesse. "That infernal cruelty of the animal creation is one of the problems that must perplex the gentle optimist who sums up his religion in a phrase of Pope's, and avows that whatever is, is right. Who, looking at the meek meditative countenance of a Jersey cow, those large stag-like eyes--Juno's eyes--would believe that Mrs. Cow is capable of trampling a sick sister to death--nay, would look upon the operation as a matter of course--a thing to be done for the good of society."

"Is there not a little moral trampling done by stag-eyed creatures of a higher grade?" asked Mrs. Torrington. "Let a woman once fall down in the mud, and there are plenty of her own s.e.x ready to grind her into the mire. Cows have a coa.r.s.er, more practical way of treating their fallen sisters, but the principle is the same, don't you know."

"I have always found man the more malignant animal," said FitzJesse. "At her worst a woman generally has a motive for the evil she does--some wrong to avenge--some petty slight to retaliate. A man stabs for the mere pleasure of stabbing. With him slander is one of the fine arts.

Depend upon it your Crabtree is a more malevolent creature than Mrs.

Candour--and the Candours would not kill reputations if the Crabtrees did not admire and applaud the slaughter. For my own part I believe that if there were no men in the world, women would be almost kind to each other."

The Baron did not enter into this discussion. He had no taste for any subject out of his own line, which was art and beauty. With character or morals he had nothing to do. He did not even pretend to listen to the discourse of the others, but amused himself with petting Leo, who st.u.r.dily repulsed his endearments. When he spoke it was to reply to Christabel's last remark.

"If you are fonder of roaming on the hills than of shooting, Mrs.

Tregonell, why should we not organize a rambling party? It is not too late for a picnic. Let us hold ourselves ready for the first bright day--perhaps, after this deluge, we shall have fine weather to-morrow--and organize a pilgrimage to Tintagel, with all the freedom of pedestrians, who can choose their own company, and are not obliged to sit opposite the person they least care about in the imprisonment of a barouche or a wagonette. Walking picnics are the only picnics worth having. You are a good walker, I know, Mrs. Tregonell; and you, Mrs.

Torrington, you can walk I have no doubt."

The widow smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes, I am good for half-a-dozen miles, or so," she said, wondering whether she possessed a pair of boots in which she could walk, most of her boots being made rather with a view to exhibition on a fender-stool or on the step of a carriage than to locomotion. "But I think as I am not quite so young as I was twenty years ago, I had better follow you in the pony-carriage."

"Pony-carriage, me no pony-carriages," exclaimed de Cazalet. "Ours is to be a walking picnic and nothing else. If you like to meet us as we come home you can do so--but none but pedestrians shall drink our champagne or eat our salad--that salad which I shall have the honour to make for you with my own hands, Mrs. Tregonell."

Jessie Bridgeman looked at Christabel to see if any painful memory--any thought of that other picnic at Tintagel when Angus Hamleigh was still a stranger, and the world seemed made for gladness and laughter, would disturb her smiling serenity. But there was no trace of mournful recollection in that bright beaming face which was turned in all graciousness towards the Baron, who sat caressing Leo's curls, while the boy wriggled his plump shoulders half out of his black velvet frock in palpable disgust at the caress.

"Oh! it will be too lovely--too utterly ouftish," exclaimed Dopsy, who had lately acquired this last flower of speech--a word which might be made to mean almost anything, from the motive power which impels a billiard cue to the money that pays the player's losses at pool--a word which is a substantive or adjective according to the speaker's pleasure.

"I suppose we shall be allowed to join you," said Mopsy, "we are splendid walkers."

"Of course--entry open to all weights and ages, with Mrs. Tregonell's permission."

"Let it be your picnic, Baron, since it is your idea," said Christabel; "my housekeeper shall take your orders about the luncheon, and we will all consider ourselves your guests."

"I shall expire if I am left out in the cold," said Mrs. Torrington.

"You really must allow age the privilege of a pony-carriage. That delightful cob of Mrs. Tregonell's understands me perfectly."

"Well, on second thoughts, you shall have the carriage," said de Cazalet, graciously. "The provisions can't walk. It shall be your privilege to bring them. We will have no servants. Mr. Faddie, Mr.

FitzJesse, and I will do all the fetching and carrying, cork-drawing and salad-making."

CHAPTER IX.

"THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH SNAKES."

When the shooting party came home to afternoon tea, Dopsy and Mopsy were both full of the picnic. The sun was sinking in lurid splendour; there was every chance of a fine day to-morrow. De Cazalet had interviewed the housekeeper, and ordered luncheon. Mopsy went about among the men like a recruiting sergeant, telling them of the picnic, and begging them to join in that festivity.

"It will be wretched for Dopsy and I"--her grammar was weak, and she had a fixed idea that "I" was a genteeler p.r.o.noun than "me,"--"if you don't all come," she said to Colonel Blathwayt. "Of course the Baron will devote himself exclusively to Mrs. Tregonell. FitzJesse will go in the pony-trap with Mrs. Torrington, and they'll have vivisected everybody they know before they get there. And I can't get on a little bit with Mr. Faddie, though he is awfully nice. I feel that if I were to let him talk to me an hour at a stretch I should be obliged to go and join some Protestant sisterhood and wear thick boots and too fearful bonnets for the rest of my days."

"And what would society do without Mopsy Vandeleur?" asked the Colonel, smiling at her. "I should enjoy a ramble with you above all things, but a picnic is such a confoundedly infantine business. I always feel a hundred years old when I attempt to be gay and frisky before dusk--feel as if I had been dead and come back to life again, as some of the savage tribes believe. However, if it will really please you, I'll give up the birds to-morrow, and join your sports."

"How sweet of you," exclaimed Mopsy, with a thrilling look from under her painted lashes. "The whole thing would be ghastly without you."

"What's the row?" asked Leonard, turning his head upon the cushion of the easy chair in which he lolled at full length, to look up at the speakers as they stood a little way behind him.

The master of Mount Royal was sitting by one fireplace, with a table and tea-tray all to himself; while Mrs. Tregonell and her circle were grouped about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall. Jack Vandeleur and little Monty stood in front of the fire near their host, faithful adherents to the friend who fed them; but all the rest of the party cl.u.s.tered round Christabel.

Mopsy told Mr. Tregonell all about the intended picnic.

"It is to be the Baron's affair," she said, gaily. "He organized it, and he is to play the host. There are to be no carriages--except the pony-trap for Mrs. Torrington, who pinches her feet and her waist to a degree that makes locomotion impossible. We are all to walk except her.

And I believe we are to have tea at the farm by St. Piran's well--a simple farmhouse tea in some dear old whitewashed room with a huge fireplace, hams and onions and things hanging from the rafters. Isn't it a lovely idea?"

"Very," grumbled Leonard; "but I should say you could have your tea a great deal more comfortably here, without being under an obligation to the farm people."

"Oh, but we have our tea here every afternoon," said Mopsy. "Think of the novelty of the thing."

"No doubt. And this picnic is the Baron's idea?"

"His and Mrs. Tregonell's, they planned it all between them. And they are going to get up private theatricals for your birthday."

"How kind," growled Leonard, scowling at his teacup.

"Isn't it sweet of them? They are going to play 'Delicate Ground.' He is to be Citizen Sangfroid and she Pauline--the husband and wife who quarrel and pretend to separate and are desperately fond of each other all the time, don't you know? It's a powder piece."

"A what?"

"A play in which the people wear powdered wigs and patches, and all that kind of thing. How dense you are."

"I was born so, I believe. And in this powder piece Mrs. Tregonell and Baron de Cazalet are to be husband and wife, and quarrel and make friends again--eh?"

"Yes. The reconciliation is awfully fetching. But you are not jealous, are you?"

"Jealous? Not the least bit."

"That's so nice of you; and you will come to our picnic, to-morrow?"

"I think not."