CHAPTER XXXII
BY PROXY
In a surprisingly short time, Mrs. Waldershare had become one of the most interesting personalities in Marwar. Her beauty, her toilettes, her seductive manners, her air of being accustomed to the best the world could offer, went far to promote her success. She was accepted at her own valuation, and incidentally as a very old friend of the Gascoignes, and was invited, fêted, admired, and imitated. The lady's victoria was surrounded at the band, or polo; men schemed and struggled for the honour of escorting her. She had graciously accommodated herself to the deficiencies of the Imperial Hotel, and established terms of intimacy with an exploring widow, with whom she chummed, and gave charming little teas, tiffins, and suppers. Mrs. Waldershare was extremely exclusive, and desired it to be understood that she only wished to know "the nicest people." As she was a regular attendant at church, and her air and deportment were unexceptional, "the nicest people" were delightful to cultivate her acquaintance.
It is needless to mention that they knew nothing of the little games of cards, which constituted such an attractive item at Mrs. Waldershare's evening reunions, nor dreamt that it was close on sunrise when they broke up, and that one or two of her guests returned to their quarters with lighter pockets, and heavier hearts. There was never a whisper of these gatherings in society, only in the bazaar, where all is known, and where the fair widow was branded with a name that we will not set down here. Captain Hailes and Sir Capel Tudor were daily visitors at the Imperial Hotel; the former, on the strength of a distant cousinship, the latter simply because he had enjoyed the honour of being Mrs. Waldershare's fellow-passenger. He was a cheery, boyish little fellow of two-and-twenty, keenly anxious to see, and do everything. He and a friend had come out to India with the intention of indulging their mutual taste for sport and mountaineering, but Cupid had cast off his companion at Bombay, to follow the path of his enchantress.
In spite of his uproarious spirits, his round, boyish face, and curly locks, Sir Capel Tudor could be as doggedly obstinate as any commissariat mule; he was rich, he was his own master, and after a somewhat stormy scene at their hotel, the two comrades had parted, Sir Capel to come up country in order to visit Agra and Delhi and other historical places, and Mr. Hardy to coast down to Travancore, mentally cursing one particular young fool—and all widows.
Of course Mrs. Waldershare saw a good deal of the Gascoignes; she dined with them, drove with Mrs. Gascoigne, who admired her still—admired her graceful, gliding gait, her wonderful eyes, her wonderful gowns, her wonderful and irresistible ways.
Angel was always severely truthful to herself, and she drew painful comparisons between Lola's beauty, her fresh, English complexion (oh, most innocent Angel, it was pain), her attractive manners, and her own white face, her dull wit, her inability to shine, or even to attempt to shine, when Lola was present; and what a fund of friends, experiences, and memories she and Philip had in common, events that had happened when she was in her ayah's arms—yes, and before she was born.
In this period, naturally the happiest of Philip's life, she had no share; and as the pair talked, drawn on from subject to subject, undoubtedly they sometimes forgot the third person, who sat half buried in sofa cushions, aloof and silent, telling herself that she, not Lola, was the outsider. She alone stood between Philip and this beautiful woman, with whom he had so much in common—youth, dead and living friends, memories, and first love. Angel had the power of keeping her feelings to herself, but she could not keep her misery entirely out of her face. Philip's anxious inquiries invariably met with a civil rebuff.
"You are as grave as a little old owl," he said one day. "I wish I knew what is the matter."