In no sense of the word was she a companion to Beatrix. Her narrow and insular point of view, her characteristic English method of clinging to shibboleths and rococo ideas, and her complete and triumphant ignorance of all fundamental things made her, to Beatrix, more of a curiosity, like an early Victorian stuffed canary in a glass case, than a useful and helpful person. Beatrix had been born sophisticated. As a child and a young girl her arresting and palpable beauty had made her an irresistible mark for boys and young men, and one or two only of her early episodes, nearly all of which began well enough but ended in sometimes very rough attempts at seduction, would have crowded out of Mrs. Lester Keene's whole humdrum, drone-like life every incident that she could recall. Beatrix at once became her companion's guide, philosopher, friend and guardian, and derived constant amusement from the little garrulous, plump, hen-like woman, who knew no more about life than the average dramatist knows about people, and who, though completely dazzled by the hard, almost casual magnificence of her present surroundings, delighted to live in the past, telling long and pointless stories of "my house in Clanricarde Gardens, you know," "Mrs. Billings, my cook," "The summer when Algernon and I took the Edward Jones's house at Bognor," "My drawing-room was always crowded every second and fourth Thursday, quite a Salon, in fact," and so on, in a glorification of the commonplace that was as pathetic as it was tiresome.
Before Mrs. Keene had waded through the first few pages of her favorite weekly paper, a maid disturbed her. "Miss Vanderdyke would be glad to see you," she said, conveying the kindly but nevertheless royal command with full appreciation.
Mrs. Lester Keene was glad to obey. Even if dear Beatrix had nothing exciting to tell her, she had a very curious piece of news to impart to dear Beatrix. So she gathered herself together, rather in the same way as her prototype, the barnyard hen rising from a bath of sun-baked earth, and made her way along a wide passage hung with the priceless old prints which had overflowed from the lower rooms, to the bedroom of the daughter of the house.
Beatrix was sitting on the edge of a four-post bed, in a pink, transparent nightgown, her little feet in heelless slippers. On a table at her elbow there was a just placed breakfast tray and a new copy of Town and Country. Fresh from sleep, with her fair hair all about her shoulders, Beatrix, the one alive and exquisite thing in that too-large, too-lofty, pompous room, looked like a single rosebud in a geometrically designed garden.
"Come along, Brownie," she said, stretching herself with catlike grace, "and talk to me while I feed."
"You'll put something on, dear, won't you?"
"No, dear Brownie, I won't. No one can spy into the room and there isn't a single portrait of a man on the walls. So please don't fuss. It's far too hot for a dressing-gown and in my case why should I hide my charms from you?" She laughed at her wholly justified conceit, gave herself a very friendly nod in a pier-glass in the distance and poured out a cup of coffee.
Amelia Keene could never at any time, even in her isolated spinster days in the heart of the country, have brought herself to wear such an excuse for a nightgown. Flannel was her wear. She was, as usual, more than a little uneasy at the all-conquering individualism and supreme naturalness of the girl to whom she utterly subjected herself. With the slightest shrug of her shoulders,—she dared to do nothing further,—she put the dressing-gown that she had offered back in its place, and sat down. At any rate she could assure herself that she had endeavored to do her duty.
"You came in earlier than I expected last night, dear," she said, throwing the obvious bait of her insatiable curiosity.
Beatrix laughed again. "Why don't you say that you're dying to know what happened and lay awake all night making up exciting stories, Brownie?"