‘I am sure one ought to reform her.’ Thus Linda would make confession among her matron friends. ‘But what is to be done as long as you keep an ayah? You must reform the ayah first. That is just the one enthusiasm of humanity which is outside my reach, to reform an ayah.’
Rahnee, I repeat, danced persistently and with effect on her mother’s cobweb furbelows, as she capered and twisted herself along the street. Linda’s expression was as little honeyed as the expression of a coquette can ever be in the presence of a man she seeks to charm. The ayah vainly gesticulated, vainly uttered expostulations in unknown Eastern tongues from the rear. Breakdown and rout of one or other of the forces seemed imminent. Suddenly, just as they were passing the hotel—perhaps it was this incident stabbed Dinah’s unreasoning heart to the quick—Gaston came to the fore as mediator. Holding out both hands, Gaston Arbuthnot offered small Rahnee a place on his shoulder. Dinah could hear his pleasant voice, indicative of a mind content with its surroundings, as he began some sage nursery talk, all-engrossing, it would seem, to Rahnee’s soul. The thin arms closed round his neck, the tiny primrose-gloved fingers played with his hair. Mrs. Linda, a restored picture of amiable maternity, trotted behind. The ayah followed after; her black orbs pantomiming unspeakable things to such portions of the Guernsey world as had been chance witnesses of the scene. Then, domestic-wise, the group of four persons went their way.
A choking, hysterical lump rose in Dinah’s throat. With a vague sense of her own worthiness, a suspicion that if Dinah Arbuthnot was out of keeping with sunshine and flowers and little children, Dinah Arbuthnot herself must be to blame, she watched Gaston and his friends until they had turned the corner towards the Arsenal. Barely was the final shimmer of Linda’s flounces lost to view, when a clatter of hoofs approached rapidly along the Petersport road. A miniature phaeton with a girl driver, and drawn by a pair of small black ponies, came in sight. A minute later, and Marjorie Bartrand, who had drawn up before the portico of the hotel, was inquiring—yes, there could be no mistake; through the open windows the sound of her own name reached Dinah distinctly—‘If Mrs. Arbuthnot was at home?’
Dinah had not received one morning visitor in Guernsey. How many morning visitors (upon Mrs., not Mr., Arbuthnot) had Dinah received since her marriage? The unexpected respectability of the event—for our Tintajeux Bartrands, mind you, with all their eccentricity, stand on the topmost rung of the social insular ladder—moved Mr. Miller’s mind. A man of tact and discrimination, the host proceeded himself to usher Marjorie in.
The Arbuthnots’ parlour door was thrown open with an air. ‘Miss Bartrand of Tintajeux’ was announced in Miller’s most professional voice. Then came the meeting to which Marjorie had looked forward with resolute conscience, perhaps with lurking doubts as to the cordiality of the reception that should await her.
‘This is very good of you.’ Dinah spoke in her usual voice. She came forward with the simplicity that draws so near to De Vere repose. ‘Geoffrey never warned me I was to look for such a pleasure. I take it very kind of you to come, Miss Bartrand.’
Dinah’s trouble had just reached that level when the smallest act of good will, from friend or stranger, may cause the cup to overflow. Her eyes suffused, her colour heightened.
‘Mr. Arbuthnot thought I should be likely to find you at home this afternoon. I wanted to see you long ago!’ cried Marjorie, her gaze fixed on the face whose delicate beauty so far overpassed her expectations. ‘But I waited—I thought,’ stammered the girl, for the first time since she could remember feeling an excuse needed for her conduct ‘I thought, of course, Mr. Arbuthnot might ask me to call.’
‘Who—Geff?’ answered Dinah, with a fleeting, shy smile. ‘No, indeed, Miss Bartrand. Geoffrey would not make so bold. He knows too well that I live retired.’
Dinah’s phrases were certainly not those of the educated world. But Marjorie, looking open-eyed at the mouth and throat and golden hair, was in no mood to be critical.