“Oh no! Mrs.—that is, the lady I allude to, said they were entire strangers, and it was needless to mention her name. Do not trouble Miss Rothesay with my idle inquiry. Many thanks for the clematis; and good morning, my dear Miss Vanbrugh.”
She ascended her carriage with the easy, smiling grace of one born to fortune, marrying fortune, and dwelling hand-in-hand with fortune all her life. Miss Meliora gazed in intense admiration after her departing wheels, and forthwith retired to plan out of the few words she had let fall a glorious future for her dear Miss Rothesay. There was certainly some unknown wealthy relative who would probably appear next week, and carry off Olive and her mother to affluence—in a carriage as grand as Mrs. Fludyer's.
She would have rushed at once to communicate the news to her friends, had it not been that she was stopped in the garden-walk by the apparition of her brother escorting two gentlemen from his studio—a rare courtesy with him. Meliora accounted for it when, from behind a sheltering espalier, she heard him address one of them as “my lord.”
But when she told this to Olive, the young paintress was of a different opinion. She had heard the name of Lord Arundale, and recognised it as that of a nobleman on whom his love of Art and science shed more honour than his title. That was why Mr. Vanbrugh showed him respect, she knew.
“Certainly, certainly!” said Meliora, a little ashamed. “But to think that such a clever man, and a nobleman, should be so ordinary in appearance. Why, he was not half so remarkable-looking as the gentleman who accompanied him.”
“What was he like?” said Olive smiling.
“You would have admired him greatly. His was just the sort of head you painted for your 'Aristides the Just'—your favourite style of beauty—dark, cold, proud, with such piercing, eagle eyes; they went right through me!”
Olive laughed merrily.
“Do you hear, mamma, how she runs on? What a bewitching young hero!”
“A hero, perhaps, but not exactly young; and as for bewitching, that he certainly might be, but it was in the fashion of a wizard or a magician. I never felt so nervous at the sight of any one in the whole course of my life.” Here there was a knock at the drawing-room door.