“I expect it is,” he answered, with a droll look in his handsome eyes. “I should be sorry to go about the world crippled by my clothes as you women do.”
“Oh, we don’t mind it, as a rule. One would rather suffer anything, you know, than be quite out of the fashion.”
“Would one, indeed?” he returned, in a tone of grave commiseration. “It seems to me that fashion is the greatest despot the world ever knew; but I am thankful to say it is only women who yield so servilely to its exactions.”
“Of course. One never hears, for instance, of men putting their necks into a vise, and having to turn their heads painfully for fear of accidents to the machinery. Still, if we did hear of such things, we should know it was only done for comfort, and respect them vastly for consulting their own ease before appearances.”
“I can’t argue with a lady so high above me,” retorted Colonel Dacre; and then he added, more seriously: “Indeed, Lady Gwendolyn, you ought to come down. I can see the Handley drag in the distance, and you know Sir Charles would tease your life out of you if he caught you in such a predicament as this.”
“I suppose he would, and therefore I must return to conventional life again. But you have no idea how pleasant it is up here; the air is so pure, and the leaves smell so sweet. I’ll get Teignmouth to arrange me a little place in one of his big trees, à la Robinson, so that I may retire there for contemplation and self-examination occasionally.”
“Or, rather, say to read your billets doux, and keep a close calculation as to the number of hearts you have broken,” said Colonel Dacre, with a sternness in his voice that showed this trifling, butterfly nature—as he believed it to be—angered as well as charmed him. “I fancy that would be nearer the truth.”
Without answering him, Lady Gwendolyn began to work her way slowly along the bough on which she had been seated. She found it a very different performance in cold blood from what it had been under the excitement of fear, and felt herself tremble nervously.
She was terribly incommoded by her dress into the bargain. If Colonel Dacre had not been there she would have gathered her train over her arm, and let her ankles take their chance; but under the circumstances this would not have done, and she had to proceed circumspectly, as became the daughter of a hundred earls.
Knowing nothing of her difficulties, and seeing the Handley drag draw nearer and nearer, Colonel Dacre kept urging her on eagerly. Sir Charles was a great gossip, and it was quite as well he should not have an opportunity of making mischief out of Lady Gwendolyn’s escapade.