CHAPTER I.
HOW MINNIE HESCOTT GIVES TITA A HINT; AND LEARNS THAT HINTS MAY BE THROWN AWAY; AND HOW MARGARET'S SOUL IS GRIEVED.
Minnie Hescott, during the time it takes her to go down the terrace steps behind Tita, comes to a resolution. She will give Tita a hint! It will be a gift of no mean order, and whether it be well received or not, will always be a gift to be remembered, perhaps with gratitude.
And Minnie, who is strictly practical if nothing else, sees a fair hope of return in her present plan. She likes Tita in her way—likes her perhaps better than she likes most people, and Tita may be useful to her as Sir Maurice Rylton's wife. But Tita, dismantled of her honours, would be no help at all, and therefore to keep Tita enthroned is now a very special object with her astute cousin.
In and between all this is Minnie's detestation of Mrs. Bethune, who has occasionally been rude to her in the small ways that make up the sum of life.
Minnie, who is not sensitive, takes the bull by the horns.
"Mrs. Bethune," says she, as they go by a bed of hollyhocks now hastening to their death, "is a friend of yours?"
It is a question.
"Mrs. Bethune!" says Tita, stopping and looking at her as if wondering.
What does she mean?
"Yes," says Minnie pleasantly. "A friend. An old friend!"
"Not an old friend," says Tita quietly. "She is a cousin of
Maurice's."
"Yes. But not a friend of yours?"
"No," coldly.
"I'm glad of that," says Minnie, with hilarity. "I hate old friends, don't you? They always cost one such a lot. They tell one such horrid news about one's self. They do such nasty things. Give me a stranger for choice. And as for Mrs. Bethune, now you have told me she is not a friend of yours, I suppose I may speak freely. Do you know, Tita, I'd keep my eye on her if I were you. You have given me a free hand, so I can tell you what is in my mind. That woman—she means——"
"What?" asks Tita, turning upon her with some haughtiness.
"Business!" says Minnie Hescott, with an emphatic nod. "Mischief all through. She's up to mischief of some sort. I tell you what," says Minnie, with her old young look, "you've got to keep your eye on her."
"I could never keep my eye on anyone," says Tita, with a sudden, irrepressible little laugh. "And why should I keep my eye on Mrs. Bethune? To tell you a solemn truth, Minnie, I can't bear to look at her. She's beautiful, so they say, but to me she is hideous. Therefore, why should I keep my eye on her? It," with a whimsical little glance, "would hurt me so."
"Nevertheless, you should!" says Minnie solemnly. "She's a viper!"
"Vipers are ugly."
"And dangerous."
"Then why look at them?"
"To avoid them—lest they sting you," says Minnie, feeling quite pleased with herself for this flight of fancy.
"You think," says Tita, stopping and looking at her, "that Mrs.
Bethune will sting me?"
"I think nothing," says Minnie Hescott, throwing out her hands in an airy fashion; "only, get rid of her—get rid of her, Tita, as soon as ever you can!"
"To get rid of a guest! No," says Tita. "She may stay here, and I shall make her welcome for ever——" She pauses and looks full at her cousin. There is great courage and great pride in her look. "For ever!" repeats she.
"There is always a fool somewhere!" says Minnie Hescott, with a sigh. "Well," abandoning the discussion for the present, "let us go for our walk round the garden."
As they pass beneath the balcony, Margaret, who is leaning over it, with Colonel Neilson beside her, makes a little irrepressible movement.
"What is it now?" asks he, who knows every mood of hers.
"Nothing. I was only thinking about Tita."
"A charming subject."
"Oh! too charming," says Margaret, with a sigh. "That child troubles me."
"But why? She seems to be getting on all right, in spite of your evil prognostications before her marriage. She and Rylton seem on very good terms."
"Not to-day, at all events," shaking her head.
"No? I confess I did think there was a little rift somewhere."
"Oh yes! There is something," says Margaret somewhat impatiently. "Did you see the poor child's eyes, and her whole air? Her pretty little attempts at unconcern?"
"I thought Rylton looked rather put out, too."
"I didn't look at him. I have no patience with him. It is a mad marriage for any man to make." She pauses. "I am afraid there was some disagreeableness last night." She hesitates again. Though quite determined never to marry Colonel Neilson or any other man, she permits herself the luxury of retaining Neilson as a confidential friend. "I wish her cousin, Mr. Hescott, was not quite so attentive to her. She is very young, of course, but I don't think she ought to have danced so much with him last night."
"And what of Rylton?" asks the Colonel, pulling the glass out of his eye and sticking it in again in an angry fashion. "Who did he dance with?"
"Yes. I saw," sadly.
"Well, why should he complain, then?" says Neilson, who can see the right and the wrong so much better because it is not his own case. "To tell you the truth, Margaret, I think Mrs. Bethune should not be here."
"I think that, too. But it appears it was Tita who invited her."
"My dear girl, who else? But there is such a thing as coercion."
"It was the prettiest, the most cordial letter. I read it."
"Then you think she knows nothing of that old affair?"
"Old?" She looks quickly at Neilson. "Do you think it is old—worn out, I mean?"
"No, I don't," says Neilson promptly. "And in my opinion, the sooner
Mrs. Bethune terminates her visit the better for everyone."
"What an unhappy marriage!" says Margaret, with a sigh. "All marriages are unhappy, I think."
"Not a bit of it. Most of the married people we know would not separate even were the power given them to do so."
"That is merely because they have grown necessary to each other."
"Well, what is love?" says Neilson, who is always defending his great cause against Margaret's attacks. "Was there ever a lover yet, who did not think the woman he loved necessary to him?"
"It is not the higher form of love," says Margaret, who still dreams of an ideal, born of her first attachment—an ideal that never in this practical world could have been realized, and if it could, would have been condemned at once as tiresome to the last degree.
"It is high enough for most people," says Neilson. "Don't grow pessimistic, Margaret. There is a great deal of light and joy and laughter in the world, and I know no one so framed to enjoy it as yourself, if only you would give yourself full sway. You condemn marriage, yet how can you speak of it with authority—you who have not tried it?"
"Oh, do, do stop," says Margaret, lifting her hand. "You are getting on that—that wretched old tack again."
"So I am. I know it. I shall be on that tack to the end of my life. And I think it so unfair of you to condemn anybody without even a hearing."
"Why, I must," says she, laughing in spite of herself.
"No, you needn't. Marry me, and then give judgment!"
"I shall never marry," says Margaret, with cold decision; then, as if ashamed of her tone, she looks up at him. It is rather a shy look, and makes her even more admirable in the eyes of the man watching her. "Why will you persist?" asks she.
"I must. I must."
"It sounds like a doom," says she lightly, though tears are gathering in her eyes. "Don't waste your life. Don't!"
"I am not wasting it. I am spending it on you," says the Colonel, who is really a delightful lover.
"Ah! but that is so dreadful—for me!"
"Do I worry you, then?"
"No! no! A thousand times no!" cries she eagerly. "It is only that I must always reproach myself?"
"Why always? Give in, Margaret, and let me change my place from lover to husband."
"It is often a fatal change."
"You mistrust me?"
"You! No, indeed! You least of all. I believe in you from my very soul! Don't think that, Harry. But," impatiently, "why go over it again and again?"
Colonel Neilson turns a solemn face to hers.
"Margaret!" says he. "Are you bent on dying an old maid?"
Miss Knollys flushes; she turns aside.
"What an odious word!" says she.
She walks deliberately into the drawing-room behind her. Neilson still stands leaning over the balcony—a slow and distinctly satisfied smile crosses his features.