“Oh,” cried Lalla, “I think it hideous! You don’t mind, do you, Miss Gordon? How angry I should have been if my godfathers and godmothers had given it to me! It has such an abrupt sound, and is so very goody-goody.”
Mrs. Brande, who had hitherto refused to talk to her neighbour, even in the most ordinary way, to discuss the weather, the great diamond case, or the state of the rupee, now suddenly burst out—
“Anyway, it has a decent meaning; and if it is goody-goody, yours is not. I believe there was once a Miss Rooke, who had the same name, and was fond of play-acting and singing, and by all accounts no great shakes.”
In just alarm, Mrs. Loyd made a hasty signal, and the ladies arose as if worked by one spring, and departed into the drawing-room in a body. Mrs. Brande immediately seated herself in a large armchair, where she sat aloof and alone, looking stern and unapproachable, as she slowly turned over an album of photographs. The book was upside down, but this was evidently immaterial.
Vainly did Mrs. Loyd come and stand before her, and abase herself; vainly did she endeavour to propitiate her. Poor deluded little woman!—it was mere waste of time and breath to praise Mrs. Brande’s dress, Mrs. Brande’s niece, or even to beg for a recipe for chutney.
“I can give you a recipe for manners,” observed the outraged matron, in an awful tone; “I will send you the table of precedence, and I will write to you to-morrow.”
On hearing this terrible threat, Mrs. Loyd’s blood ran cold,—for she was a woman of peace,—and at this juncture the men appeared slouching in by twos and threes—as is their wont. They discovered the ladies scattered in couples about the room, all save one, who sat in solitary majesty.
Captain Waring sauntered over to Lalla, and remarked, as he glanced significantly at Mrs. Brande, who was motionless as a cloud on a hot summer’s day—a cloud charged with electricity, “When I look round I am inclined to say with the kind-hearted child, when he was shown Doré’s picture, ‘There is one poor lion who has got no Christian!’”
“She is by no means so badly off as you imagine,” rejoined Lalla with a demure face. “She has nearly eaten the hostess—does she not look ferocious? Whom shall we throw to her for a fresh victim? She is frightfully angry because she was not taken in to dinner first. Poor creature, she has so very little dignity, that she is always taking the greatest care of it. Hurrah! Hurrah! She is actually going. Oh, I am enormously amused.”
Yes, Mrs. Brande had already risen to depart. If not taken in first, she was firmly resolved to take this matter into her own hands, and to be the first to leave.