"I am afraid you think I have taken a liberty," he suggested presently. What had come to him to care what a bread-and-butter miss might think? But somehow he did care.
"Oh, no," she said, "it is very kind of you. But you must not talk of being indebted to me. Flowers are not—not presents, like other things."
By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Reade was sweeping out of the cloak-room, where she had been "settling" her hair, and putting a little powder on her face.
"Mamma is gone in," she said, taking the girl's hand kindly; "there are plenty of people here to-night, Rachel. You must look for a lady sitting on the right of the Governor's box, in a high velvet dress. She is one of our Melbourne beauties."
So they went in and took their seats; and Rachel found herself sitting in the front tier, not very much to the left of the viceregal armchairs, and her cousin Beatrice was on one side of her and Mr. Kingston on the other.
She was perfectly contented now. She smiled at her flowers; she furled and unfurled her fan; she looked round and round the house through her glasses, whispering questions and comments to Mrs. Reade, who knew everybody and everybody's history; and it made Mrs. Hardy quite uneasy to see how thoroughly and evidently she enjoyed herself. Mr. Kingston recovered his spirits which she had damped a little while ago.
He watched her face from time to time—generally when she was absorbed in watching the stage; and the more he looked, the more charming he found it. So fresh, so frank, so modest, so sweet, with those delicate womanly blushes always coming and going, and that child-like fun and brightness in her eyes. He had never been so "fetched," as he expressed it, by a pretty face before; that is to say, he did not remember that he ever had been.
It was, indeed, very seldom that he regarded a pretty face with such a serious kind of admiration. He found himself wondering how it would fare, how long it would keep its transparent innocence and candour in the atmosphere of this new world—this second-rate Hardy set, which was full of meretricious, manœuvring, gossip-loving women—with a touch of anxiety that was quite unselfish. He was sure now that she was not a coquette; he was experienced enough to know, also, that, however humble her origin and antecedents, she was a girl of thoroughly "good style;" and it would be a thousand pities, he thought, if the influence of her surroundings should spoil her.
When the curtain fell and the gas was turned up, he noticed that people all round the house were turning their glasses upon her. Certainly she made a charming study from an artistic point of view. What taste she had shown in the grouping of her white chrysanthemums, and the way she had mixed in those few velvety horns of red salvia. They were colours proper to a brunette, but they seemed to accentuate the delicacy of her milky complexion and the fine shade of her red-gold hair.
What a chin and throat she had! and what soft, yet strong, round arms!—white, but warm, like blush rose petals that had unfolded in the dews of dawn at summer time, against the black background of her dress. And her shape and her colour were nothing compared with the expression of utter content and happiness that shone out of her face, irradiating her youth and beauty with a tender light and sweetness that, like sunshine on a sleeping crater, gave no hint of the tragic trouble hidden away for future years. No wonder people looked at her. Of course they looked.