"No; he is in Scotland. Lady Alicia came by herself. She is an old friend of mine, darling, and I am very fond of her. I want you, therefore, to be particularly charming to her."
"How can you expect me to be that—under the circumstances?" I ask, lightly, glancing up at him from under my lashes with a sudden and altogether new touch of coquetry born of the hour and my gay attire. "How can I be amiable, when you tell me in that bare-faced fashion of your adoration for her? Of course I shall be desperately jealous and desperately disagreeable during the entire interview."
Marmaduke's face betrays the intense delight all men feel when receiving flattery from the beloved one. Perhaps, indeed, he appears a trifle sillier than the generality of them, incense coming from me being so totally unexpected. I know by his eyes he would give anything to kiss me, were it not for shame sake and the gaping crowd.
"Is your Lady Alicia very terrific?" I ask, fearfully and then, almost before he has time to answer my question, we are standing before a tall, benevolent-looking woman of forty-five, with a hooked nose, and a scarlet feather in her bonnet, and I am bowing and smirking at Lady Alicia Slate-Gore.
She is more than civil—she is radiant. She taps me on the cheek with her fan, and calls me "my dear," and asks me a hundred questions in a breath. She taps Marmaduke on the arm and asks him what he means by making love to a child who ought to be in her nursery dreaming fairy-tales.
At this Marmaduke laughs, and says I am older than I look—for which I am grateful to him.
"Old!" says my lady, with a rapid bird like glance at me. "The world will soon be upside down. Am I to consider fourteen old?"
"Phyllis will soon be nineteen," says Marmaduke; for which I feel still more grateful, as it was only two months ago I attained my eighteenth year.
"Indeed! indeed! You should give your friends your receipt, child. You have stolen a good five years from Father Time, and just when you least want it. Now, if you could only give us old people a written prescription," etc., etc.
Marmaduke leaves us to go and receive some other guests, and her ladyship still chatters on to me; while I, catching the infection of her spirits, chatter back again to her, until she declares me vastly amusing, and is persuaded Marmaduke has gained a prize in the life-lottery.