So in the twilight hour two days later there was a grand exhibition of human waxworks, in which Babie explained tableaux represented by the two Johns, Armine, and Cecil, supposed to be adapted to Lina’s capacity. With the timid child it was not a success, the disguises frightened her, and gave her an uncanny feeling that her friends were transformed; she sat most of the time on her aunt’s lap, with her face hidden, and barely hindered from crying by the false assurance that it was all for her pleasure.
But there was no doubt that Esther was a pleased spectator of the show, and her gratitude far more than sufficient to cover the little one’s ingratitude.
Those two drifted together. In every gathering, when strangers had departed they were found tete-a-tete. Cecil’s horses knew the way to Collingwood Street better than anywhere else, and he took to appearing there at times when he was fully aware Jock would be at the night-school or Mutual Improvement Society.
Though strongly wishing, on poor Bobus’s account, that it should not go much farther under her own auspices; day after day it was more borne in upon Mrs. Brownlow that her house held an irresistible attraction to the young officer, and she wondered over her duty to the parents who had trusted her. Acting on impulse at last, she took council with John, securing him as her companion in the gaslit walk from a concert.
“Do you see what is going on there?” she asked, indicating the pair before them.
“What do you mean? Oh, I never thought of that!”
“I don’t think! I have seen. Ever since the night of the Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught. He did his work on Essie.”
“Essie rather thinks he is after the Infanta.”
“It looks like it! What could have put it into her head? It did not originate there!”
“Something my mother said about Babie being a viscountess.”