“Ah, yes, poor child! It’s a mortifying recollection if she made a failure of it. She’s a lovely creature. What on earth does she do with herself?”
“Oh, many things. Surely, Arthur, you don’t think she need be useless because she’s pretty?” and, in the little laugh that followed Flossy’s return to her natural inclination for argument, Arthur took his leave.
It was a great relief to have got this afternoon’s work over, and comfortable to find Jem at home when he got there, cheerful and chatty, and taking no apparent notice of his words or looks, yet with a little undercurrent of sympathy that he felt all the time. James amused everybody, and put them into good-humour, taking the burden of cheerfulness off their shoulders; and yet he avoided every word that could have touched painfully on his cousin or brother—or would have done so, had not some mention of a new opera recalled Violante to Arthur after dinner, when both he and Freddie demanded a description of her performances, as he stood on the hearthrug, looking round at his audience. Hugh was sitting on one side of the fire, holding up a “Quarterly Review;” the ladies looked expectant over their work; and Arthur, leaning back in a low chair in front of him, was looking right up in his face.
“Well,” said Jem, apparently measuring his beard, hair by hair; “I only saw her once. She acted badly and sang well, but it was a failure—”
“How so? She was enough applauded,” abruptly said Hugh; and then could have bitten his tongue out for speaking.
“She is pretty, you know,” said Jem.
“Lovely,” said Arthur. “There’s a sort of pathetic grace about her; but I suppose it didn’t tell at a distance.”
It would be difficult to say whether their admiration, or the careless, critical tone in which it was uttered, enraged Hugh the most.
“Since her public career has ceased,” he said, “it seems a pity to discuss it.”
“Yes. It’s hardly fair,” said Arthur; “but she interested me, poor child, and I was very glad to see her with Flossy. She is sure to be well taken care of, and, perhaps, she’ll forget her troubles.”