"Well then, Miss Deleah, don't you think by mentioning the matter to him, you'll spoil all that? His intention, his beautiful thought, and the rest of it."

"Perhaps!" Deleah acquiesced seriously. "I must think about what you say."

"You've done me a great honour to mention it, Miss Deleah. You won't think I'm taking upon myself in any way to give you my opinion?"

"Oh, Mr. Gibbon! How could I ever think such a thing!" Deleah said, but began at once to be a little ashamed of the confidence she had made. With a man who could ask if he was "taking upon himself" she ought to have been more reserved, she thought.

CHAPTER XIII

The Gay, Gilded Scene

Mrs. Day, being told that her daughters proposed to go unchaperoned to the a.s.sembly Rooms that night, declared that for them to do so was unheard-of and not to be sanctioned. But, under the strain of adversity the poor woman's will, never a strong one, had weakened. She was painfully conscious of her own helplessness in the grip of circ.u.mstances, and was always troubled with doubts as to the wisdom of her own judgment. By the time her day's work was over she was too tired to stand up against any power she came into collision with. In all that concerned Bessie she was absolutely feeble. Bessie was victor always, not by reason of superior strength but through fractiousness, through stubbornness, through a hysterical determination to talk the opposing voices down, through her habit of crying like a baby when contradicted, and flinging things about.

So, on this particular occasion, the elder daughter avowing in a high, excited voice that not many pleasures came in her way, and that when one did come she meant to take it, let her mother be pleased or let her be teased, the objections were speedily silenced.

Leaving the shop for once in the care of Mr. Pretty, Mrs. Day went upstairs for the pleasure of seeing her girls once more in gala attire.

"I have taken the liberty of ordering a fly for the young ladies," Mr.

Gibbon said as he and the mother sat awaiting the appearance of the pair.

"Oh, Mr. Gibbon, if you would go with them, and see them safe to the a.s.sembly Rooms I should be so much obliged."

Mr. Gibbon, with great solemnity of mien, thoroughly realising the responsibility of the office, undertook to do so. He, for his part, was going to take his chance of hearing the great singer with the expenditure of a shilling only. He would be in the Promenade, but his eyes should be on the Miss Days, and if protection were required by them he would be at hand.

Mrs. Day was by no means sure in her anxious heart that her daughters might not need the strong arm of the male to defend them. She thought as she surveyed them while they awaited the arrival of the fly that no mother had ever possessed such treasures to guard. Bessie was always especially comely in evening dress. Her plump, clearly pale cheeks were now pink with excitement. Her white skin against the black ribbon round her throat and threaded through the lace over her ample young bosom was dazzlingly fair.

"Mama, I'm afraid my frock is dreadfully short; even now that Emily has let down the hem," Deleah said, looking anxiously toward her extremities.

"It shows _all_ my feet!"

It showed the ankles too, truth to say; but what did that _matter_ when the feet were so small and pretty, and the ankles so elegantly slim?

The wonder to the mother was to see how, since that white silk dress had been worn before, the girl's beauty had grown to perfection.

"Do you think it looks ridiculous, mama?" referring anxiously to the scantiness of the skirt and the unblushing exposure of the feet.

"Not at all ridiculous, my dear." What did any imperfection of raiment matter with a face and head like Deleah's; as exquisitely moulded, as delicately poised on her slender throat as a flower on its stalk? "There's a tiny bit of hair awry," the mother said, caught the girl's little chin in her hand and pa.s.sed her fingers over the shadowy black hair for the mere pleasure of caressing it.

When Mr. Gibbon came in presently it was seen he had changed into dress-clothes, in which attire he had never before appeared.

"But, Mr. Gibbon, you need not have taken the trouble to dress for the shilling places!" Mrs. Day told him.

"I am to have the honour of escorting the two young ladies," he said.

He was red in the face, and appeared bashful and ill at ease in the costume which they saw was a new one.

"To think of his a-gettin' hisself up like that!" Emily said with an amused scorn of the poor man as the cab containing the three drove off.

"There's no doubt what he've set his mind on, 'm. But Miss Bessie ain't for such as him. She'll look higher."

When Mr. Reginald Forcus came into the a.s.sembly Rooms with his brother and the sister who since the death of Lady Forcus kept house at Cashelthorpe, and made his way to seats not very far removed from those the sisters occupied, Bessie impulsively seized a bit of Deleah's bare arm in her finger and thumb. She pinched it unconsciously but with such painful emphasis that in the morning Deleah discovered the place to be black and blue.

"There he is! Quite close to us! _Now_ perhaps you will believe! I always knew it was he who sent the tickets, and sent all the flowers and things!

and he sent them for me--only you always took them to yourself, Deda."

She was very smiling, very happy and excited and flushed, through the concert. She looked so pretty, so like the Bessie of the "party" days of old, that Deleah thought not only Reginald Forcus but every man who saw her must admire her pretty sister.

When the "half" arrived, and the ten minutes in which the audience is permitted to stretch its legs and crane its neck, and acknowledge the presence of its acquaintance, behold the younger Forcus eagerly recognising the sisters, and bowing in response to Miss Bessie's delighted smiles and nods.

"Oh, what a pretty girl!" a woman's voice said. There had come a sudden lull in the buzz of talk, and the exclamation reached the ears of many more than his for whom it was intended.

Deleah felt sure it was Bessie who was being admired. She looked quickly at the speaker. It was that middle-aged sister with the pleasant, kind face who had come to take the place of Sir Francis Forcus's dead wife. It was to Sir Francis she had spoken, but she might have been proclaiming the fact of her discovery of a pretty girl, for the general benefit; so complete had been the temporary calm into which her speech had broken.

Heads were turned, and several pairs of eyes were fixed upon Deleah.

By a good many present the sisters were recognised, and here and there a smile was turned on them, and here and there a cool, discreet little bow was made. And more often the people who knew them, having involuntarily looked, looked away again; for them the girls' presence there, in a fashionable company and the most expensive seats, was an offence.

"People we were asked a little time ago to keep from starving!" they said to themselves. "If Mrs. Day's daughters can afford this sort of thing, we might as well have kept our guineas in our pockets."

When the audience resumed their seats Bessie kept her eyes pretty constantly directed upon the smooth fair head of Reggie Forcus. Perhaps he was conscious of her gaze and found it a compelling one, for again and again he turned round to look at the sisters, and always Bessie's eyes caught and held his.

Except to the accompaniment of the singing of her own heart the poor girl was unconscious of the music. If it was to the evening's nightingale she listened or to the twittering of the inferior songstresses of the grove who lifted up their voices when the queen was silent she could hardly have said; the melody her heart was chanting triumphantly drowned every note of theirs.

"It has been heavenly," she said, when it was all over, and they stood up for the singing of "G.o.d Save the Queen." "In all my life, Deleah, I have never enjoyed a concert so much before."

While she said it she was lingering in her place, stopping the gangway for people anxious to make their way out, pretending to arrange her own cloak and her sister's, in the endeavour to time their exit to that of the Forcus family. She did manage it too; and in the crush as they all approached the door Bessie's happy shoulder was rubbing against the shoulder of the attractive Reggie.

"It's been first-rate, hasn't it?" he said, as if the two years in which he had had no speech with the girl were as nothing, and they had parted yesterday. "Wasn't _She_ fine! Glad I came. I wouldn't have missed her for anything."

"Heavenly!" Bessie acquiesced, then quickly introduced the personal note.

"I wonder you knew me! I thought I was quite forgotten, and was surprised when you bowed."

"Ages since we met, isn't it? I did think about coming to call, but I suppose Mrs. Day is busy?"

"I'm not busy. And I'm always at home. Do come."

"Rather! Shall I call your carriage?"

"Will you?"

So the words "Miss Days' carriage" were pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth; men yelled it in the street, the officials in the porch of the Hall bawled it to one another, a man in the crowd nearer the door turned his head and shouted "Miss Days' carriage" into the concert room. The air was reverberating with the cry, it seemed to poor Deleah. How could Bessie have made them conspicuous in that way!

Sir Francis Forcus had been looking with some curiosity at the girl to whom his brother was speaking, wedged into the crowd just in front of him; the younger girl at her sister's back was by his side. He glanced at her now, and saw it was she to whose loveliness his sister had called public attention. The Days, of course! He remembered when he heard the name called; remembered all about them.

"Good-evening. How do you do?" he said, looking down upon Deleah.

And Deleah, recalling the last occasion on which she had heard his voice, lifted a pale and speechless face to him, for all her answer.