“Ah, and I dare say you are a little homesick.”
“It is not so bad as being sea-sick,” remarked her husband, unsympathetically. “She has never experienced that yet.”
“Oh yes, once—long ago on the Clyde—I was awfully sick,” she protested.
Now that I came to look closely at Mrs. Raymond, and to hear her speak, I was aware that, although she was a strikingly beautiful girl, she was not quite a lady; something in her voice and her carriage was wanting. She held herself badly; her hands were large, though adorned by superb diamond rings. Yes, I, Louisa Paulet, who rather prided myself on my diamond rings, had not one that could compare with the least of those on this girl’s ugly fingers.
“Do you think it will be like this all the way?” she asked, nervously twisting these fingers.
“I hope so, for my own sake and yours; but at any rate, let us make the best of the present moment. There is the breakfast bell at last!”
As cheerful, hungry crowds came flocking to the different tables (where they had previously placed their visiting cards), I was rather surprised to see the Raymonds take seats almost opposite to me. He had been beforehand with Major and Mrs. Barker, of the Nizam’s horse, and the Barkers had to go among the Americans at table number two—outcasts from the congenial society of their Anglo-Indian friends.
I considered Mr. Raymond’s manœuvre was rather pushing. Surely he might have seen that we had made up a party, and that he would be de trop. And all tables were alike to him—so I thought then. This was the humdrum married people’s table; number two was American and French; number three was surrounded by gay bachelors, grass widows, and brides and bridegrooms. There was more “go” about it than the other two put together. Why had not Mr. Raymond established himself there?
I received his advances with mustard, sugar, butter, and salt with marked coldness, and in my most freezing “Burra mem Sahib” manner. But who could be stiff with a pair of piteous forget-me-not blue eyes wistfully appealing to them? The Raymonds were a strikingly handsome couple; he with his dark resolute face, she with her wonderful fair beauty. She had already been noted, for many heads were bent forward, and glances sent in her direction, and whispered comments made. They both joined in conversation, he particularly, and showed himself to be a clever, agreeable, well-informed man. There was apparently no topic on which he had not formed an opinion—from the Irish question, and the new magazine rifle, down to the last style of dressing the hair. She did not talk much, and seemed perplexed at the ménu, especially the “anti-pasto.” I saw her skin an olive and taste it, and make a face; she scraped her plate with her knife, and drank with her spoon in her cup. No, no, no, she was not a lady. I noticed that she looked behind her, and up and down the table rather furtively, and seemed transparently pleased to be one of such a large and lively community. Possibly she had never been in such good society in all her life.