“I cannot accept your excuses, my dear madam” (waving both fat hands, like the flappers of an angry seal). “I could never trust Miss Paske again. Imagine the future Lady Sandilands, displaying her arms—and, excuse me, her legs—in ungraceful antics for the amusement of any one who chose to pay two or three rupees. At the eleventh hour, I absolutely refuse to marry her!”
“You are not afraid of a breach of promise case?” asked Mrs. Langrishe in despair. She was indeed dying in the last ditch.
“Not in the least,” was the bold reply. “No man—no gentleman is compelled to marry an amateur mountebank! Oh, if my poor dear mother had been present this night, I believe the shock would have killed her! However, I am grateful for small mercies; I am thankful that I saw Miss Paske in her true colours, before it was too late!”
“The invitations are out days ago; the trousseau is almost complete; the presents have come in shoals; the cake is actually in the house,—what am I to do?” pleaded unhappy Mrs. Langrishe, in a transport of anguish.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I wash my hands of the whole affair. I am going down to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow morning!” repeated the unfortunate lady.
“Yes, I have no personal ill-will or ill-feeling against you, Mrs. Langrishe,” he continued, as if he were offering her some superb token of generosity. “It is not your fault, though I must confess that I always thought you rather spoiled Miss Paske. However, in the present instance, I hold you entirely blameless; but noblesse oblige—and I—a—really could not ask my mother, and friends, to receive a young a—a—lady—whose proper sphere is pantomime and—all that sort of thing!” And waving his adieux, with a large tremulous hand, he stalked out, and with him Mrs. Langrishe saw depart Lalla’s brilliant prospects, her own reputation as a clever woman, and the solid embodiment of an immense outlay of forbearance—flattery—and rupees.
She sat for a long time over the dying wood fire, her face the colour of its ashes.
At three o’clock in the morning Lalla (a true rake at heart) had not returned, and her impending interview was thus postponed for twelve hours. It was past three o’clock in the afternoon when Miss Paske sauntered into her aunt’s room. Mrs. Langrishe was prostrate, from the double effect of a sleepless night and a nervous headache.
Lalla listened to her outburst incredulously. She had dressed herself with special care, collected all her bouquets, and had resolved to enact a pretty little semi-penitential scene, with her stolid, easy-going, somewhat dull fiancé. She expected him now at any moment. What was this her aunt was saying? He had come; and seen; and fled! Impossible! He had been present last night! For once, she signally failed to sneer down, laugh down, or in any way suppress or silence her relative. Oh! she had been mad to listen to Toby Joy, she was always too ready to be over-persuaded by him. He had had nothing on the hazard, whilst she had her all at stake. And her magnificent prospects, her title, her diamonds, were at that moment rapidly rumbling down hill in the rickety mail tonga.