Connie Sleek's eyes sparkled like coals of fire. Visions of herself as Lady Spunyarn presented at Court on her marriage, and patronizing her elder sister, flitted through her young and innocent but giddy brain. But his lordship's next remark rather damped her hopes; the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous is at times a little too sudden.
"By Jove!" said Spunyarn, "I should like to be one of these plants, and never move out of my pot, with nothing to think of but to look forward to the time when the gardener would come and syringe me. I wish he'd come and syringe me now, don't you? They seem to be enjoying themselves, don't they? Uncommonly, by Jove!" he added, looking towards the farther end of the conservatory.
The guileless Connie saw a pink mass in the dim shadows opposite her. The pink mass was evidently her sister. A small incandescent speck, which sparkled about a foot from where that sister's head would be, indicated her partner in enjoyment, also that the gentleman was smoking a cigarette.
"Why, it's Lottie. I wouldn't have her see me here for the world, Lord Spunyarn. She's a dreadful tease, and I should never hear the last of it," and here the young lady, exactly upon the principle of the ostrich, who is said to bury its head in the sand when it wishes to escape observation, unfolded an enormous blue fan which effectually screened both herself and her fellow criminal. If Spunyarn had sought a tête-à-tête, he had now got it with a vengeance.
Precisely the same feelings evidently animated the young lady in pink. She, too, unfurled a big fan. The conversation of both couples for the next five minutes must have been interesting, for both fans, which were originally used merely as screens, were frequently violently agitated.
No doubt, the conversation of both pairs was instructive as well as amusing. Both ladies evidently enjoyed the unhoped-for but well-deserved rest. Had it not been for an unfortunate disturbing influence, who can tell but that Connie Sleek might have risen from the settee Lord Spunyarn's affianced bride. When even a worldly-wise young peer occupies the half of a seat only intended for one person for fully five minutes, behind a big fan, beside a becomingly-dressed young woman of undoubted crispness, and who is not troubled with bashfulness, who can say of what folly he may not be guilty?
But Providence willed it otherwise; for Mr. Sleek suddenly entered his conservatory in a state of considerable excitement.
"Gals," he said—when excited, Sleek père always addressed his daughters as "gals"—"where on earth is Mr. Haggard? I've been looking for him everywhere."
The two men rose to their feet; the one behind the pink fan, not much to Lord Spunyarn's surprise, turned out to be Haggard. But neither young lady moved; their dresses wouldn't let them, poor things.
"It's pa!" they both exclaimed in a sort of astonished chorus. "Oh, pa, it's so hot," said the elder girl, regaining her aplomb at once. But Connie, more indignant, only sighed; she felt, poor girl, that she had had her chance and lost it. There are moments in girls' lives when even a father is de trop.