“You used to give me rides on your back,” said Tory, in a tone that made her sisters inclined to shake her; but just then Carrie came in, trim and fashionable in blue silk, and was introduced in due form, as Sir Richard Grattan and his sister were announced.
Sir Richard was a fair, fresh-coloured man of thirty, well-dressed and well-looking. There was nothing against him in manner, character, or appearance, and his wealth was so great, that he was worthy spoil—“big game” for the beauty of the season; while it was an open secret that the beauty of the season was the prize he meant to win. He had met Amethyst at a country house in the winter, and, with the inherited energy and determination that had made his great fortune, took measures to win what, he was enough in love to know, was not to be had without trouble and pains. He had won the good will of all her family, and he did not think the lady discouraging; but he recognised that he must let her have her great success, and submit to the approach of at any rate apparent rivals.
The right of intimacy in the house was allowed both to him and to his sisters, and he took full advantage of it. He now greeted Charles, to the surprise of the girls, as an old acquaintance, with slightly patronising friendliness, and Tory, watching with her keen eyes, caught a look, under the polite response, of savage annoyance.
“We are all here but your uncle, my dear Carrie,” said Lady Haredale, glancing round.
“Perhaps he won’t come. Sometimes he doesn’t,” said Carrie, in her clear abrupt voice.
But “Mr Oliver Carisbrooke,” chimed in with the end of her sentence, and a small slight man, with a bronzed face and a little grey pointed beard, came in. There was a little greeting and introducing, and then, men being scarce, there was a difficulty as to pairing off for dinner. Lady Haredale laughed, apologised, and went in with her two little girls. Mr Carisbrooke was given to Miss Haredale, but Amethyst found herself on his other side, and when she turned away from Sir Richard Grattan to give him courteously a small share of her attention, making some trivial remark about the London season, he looked at her keenly for a moment, and said—
“You find it very delightful?”
Amethyst was suddenly seized with the most curious self-questioning, and felt as if she wanted to settle with herself, first of all the fact of her delight, and then the why and the wherefore of it, before she answered—as of course she did—
“Oh yes, I do indeed.”