It was in vain that meek Mrs. Loyd pleaded that it was only half-past nine, that every one was looking forward to hearing Miss Gordon play, that she had promised to bring her violin.
“Surely, Mrs. Brande, you will not be so cruel as to take her away and disappoint the whole company!” urged Mrs. Loyd pathetically. “I am told that her violin-playing is marvellous.”
“The company have seen Miss Gordon’s aunt playing second fiddle all the evening, and that must content them for the present,” retorted Mrs. Brande, who was already in the verandah, robed in a superb long cloak, the very fur of which seemed to catch something of its owner’s spirit, and to bristle up about her ears, as with a sweeping inclination, and beckoning to Honor to follow her, she swept down the steps.
All the way home, and as they rolled along side by side, Mrs. Brande gave vent to her wrath, and allowed her injured feelings fair play. “Precedence” was her hobby, her one strong point. A woman might rob her, slander her, even strike her, sooner than walk out of a room before her. She assured her awestruck niece that she would write to “P.” before she slept that night, and unless she received an ample apology, the matter should go up to the Viceroy! What was the use of people getting on in the service, and earning rewards by years of hard work in bad climates and deadly jungles, if any one who liked might kick them down the ladder, as she had been kicked that evening!
“What,” she angrily continued, with voice pitched half an octave higher, “was the value of these appointments, or was it child’s play, and a new game? It would be a dear game to some people!”
She arrived at this conclusion and her own door simultaneously, and flinging off her wrap, and snatching a lamp from a terrified khitmatghar (who saw that the Mem Sahib was “Bahout Kuffa”), she hurried into her husband’s sanctum, and returned with a book.
“What was that person’s name, Honor?” she inquired; “did you happen to hear it?—the woman who was taken in first?”
“Mrs. Ringrose, I believe.”
“Ringrose, Ringrose,” hunting through the leaves with feverish haste. “Ye-es, here it is.”
“James—Walter—Ringrose—he is a member of council in Calcutta, and just one week senior to P.!” and she gazed at her niece with a face almost devoid of colour, and the expression of a naughty child who is desperately ashamed of herself. “So I’ve been in a tantrum, and missed my dinner and a pleasant evening, all for nothing! Well, to be sure, I’ve been a fine old fool,” throwing the book on the table. “But what brings Calcutta people up here?” she demanded pettishly.