It became clear as daylight to Lord Rex Basire that his society was duly valued.
CHAPTER XV A LOVE-LETTER
When Gaston and Marjorie approached the refreshment stall they saw a picture which many a genre artist, in ink or oils, might have been glad to study.
For there outside the tent stood Dinah Arbuthnot, fair and flushed. She and Lord Rex were eating ices, as Gaston, the materialist, predicted. The western light shone on Dinah’s bright hair. It touched the rose she wore, and the outline of her lips and chin. Lord Rex, dutifully attentive, held her sunshade. An Archdeaconess with surroundings of inferior female clergy loomed large on the horizon. Nearer at hand was Linda Thorne, patiently enduring long stories of the tiger-slaying Major’s, while her eyes and ears were elsewhere. Sarnian society generally, in dubious groups of twos and threes, looked on. It was Dinah’s first step across the border of a new world.
Gaston Arbuthnot seized the points of the situation at a glance. He played the part that fell to him with acumen. Towards Dinah his manner was simply irreproachable. So thought Marjorie, no over-lenient judge; so, from afar, thought Linda Thorne. It were premature to hint at any forecasting of storm in Dinah’s own hot heart! He insisted upon supporting his wife’s plate while she finished her ice. He contrived to bring her and Linda so far into friendly juxtaposition that at parting a chilly handshake was exchanged between these ladies. But he also was true to his colours. He had come to the rose-show in Mrs. Thorne’s society; in her society he remained. The last glimpse Marjorie got of her new friends revealed a perspective of Linda with sprightly energy pointing out distant roses to Mr. Arbuthnot, while Dinah walked slowly homeward from the Arsenal gates, Lord Rex at her side.
Had the afternoon been one of unmixed good? Had her interference with the Arbuthnot trio brought about good at all? Marjorie asked herself these questions as she urged her ponies to a gallop along the Tintajeux high road. That she had discovered a foolish error appositely might be matter for congratulation so far as pride went! Had she performed a very generous or delicate action in bringing untaught Dinah from her cross-stitch, pushing her into the glare of public notice, obliging her to tolerate the attention of a man like Rex Basire? If, unprompted by the Bartrand thirst for governing, she had left destiny to itself, had been content, as in old times, to help in the hayfield, or the dairy at home, might not her day’s work have been fruitfuller?
Dinner had waited long when she reached Tintajeux, and the Seigneur was in the disposition most dreaded of Marjorie throughout the meal. He talked more than his custom, displayed a genial and grandpaternal interest in her doings at the Arsenal. Tintajeux had taken a first prize, of course. And how did the Duc de Rohan look among the baser herd? Was he well placed? In sun or in shadow? Marjorie, the Seigneur supposed, had scarce found time, among her numerous friends, to give a glance that way.
‘I looked more at our roses than at any in the show,’ said Marjorie truthfully. Were not her eyes fixed downcast on the Duc de Rohan when Gaston Arbuthnot talked to her of Geff? ‘Would you believe, sir, that the Hauterive Corbies have taken a prize? I think the Archdeaconess would sooner have been cut out by any farmer in the island than by her husband’s cousin.’