Mrs. Hardy had dropped a bracelet, for which she and her son-in-law were hunting in the bottom of the brougham, and Mrs. Reade was chatting to an acquaintance, whose hansom had just deposited him beside her—a bearded young squatter, enjoying his season in town after selling his wool high, who stared very hard at Rachel through a pair of good glasses, as soon as he had a favourable opportunity.
Mr. Kingston stood by the girl's side, staring at her without disguise. The shadow of the street fell soft upon her gauzy raiment and her white arms and the lustre of her auburn hair, but her face was turned towards the gaslight—she was looking wistfully up the long passage which had something very like fairy land at the end of it—and he thought he had never seen any face so fresh and sweet.
"You like this kind of thing, don't you?" he said, gently, as if speaking to a child, when in turning to look for her aunt she caught his eye.
"Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "I do, indeed! I like the whole thing; not the singing and the acting only, but the place, and the people, and the ladies' dresses, and the noise, and the moving about, and the lights—everything. I should like to come to the opera every night—except the nights when there are balls."
Mr. Kingston laughed, and said he should never have guessed from what he had seen of her that she was such a very gay young lady.
"You don't understand," she responded quickly, looking up at him with earnest, candid eyes; "it is not that I am gay—oh, no, I don't think it is that! though perhaps I do enjoy a spectacle more than many people. But it is all so new and strange. I have never had any sightseeing—any pleasure like what I am having now, that is why I find it so delightful."
"Come, my dear!" cried Mrs. Hardy sharply (she had found her bracelet and overheard a part of this little dialogue), "don't stand about in the wind with nothing over you. What have you done with your shawl?"
"It is here, aunt," replied Rachel meekly, lifting it from her arm.
Her cavalier hastened to take it from her and adjust it carefully over her shoulders. During this operation Mrs. Hardy swept into the lobby, taking the arm of her big son-in-law; and Mrs. Reade, having parted from her friend, glanced round quickly, followed her husband, and put herself also under his protection. Mr. Kingston, smiling to himself like Mephistopheles under his waxed moustache, was left with Rachel in the doorway.
"How does it go?" he said, fumbling with a quantity of woolly fringe. "All right—there's no hurry. It is not eight o'clock yet. Pray let me do it for you."