The perfect unconcern and freedom of the remark took Routh by surprise, and disconcerted him as completely as its undeniable truth. He kept silence; and Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, amused at the blank expression of his countenance, burst into a hearty fit of laughter this time.
"I tell you I don't care about public opinion. All the men admire me, no matter what I do; and all the women hate me, and would hate me all the same, for my beauty--which I entirely appreciate, you know--if I made my life as dull and decorous, as miserable, squalid, and canting, as I make it pleasant, and joyous, and 'not the thing.' Neither men nor women dare to insult me; and if they did, I should know how to meet the emergency, I assure you, though I am not at all clever. I am only courageous--'plucky,' your English ladies call it, I think, in the last new style of stable and barrack-room talk. I am that; I don't think that I could be afraid of anything or any one."
"Not of a man who really loved you with all the force and passion of his heart?" said Routh, in a hoarse whisper, and bending a fierce dark look upon her.
"Certainly not," she replied, lightly; but the colour rose in her cheek, and her breath came a little quicker. "I don't believe in people loving with passion and force, and all that sort of thing. It is pretty to talk about on balconies, and it looks well on paper, in a scrawly hand, running crookedly up into the corner, and with plenty of dashes, and no date--" And here she laughed again, and touched up the grays. Routh still kept silence, and still his dark look was bent upon her.
"No, no," she went on, as the rapid trot of the ponies began again to sound pleasantly on the level road, and she turned them out of the forest boundaries towards the town, "I know nothing about all that, except pour rire, as they say in Paris, about everything under the sun, I do believe. To return to Arthur Felton; he is the last person in the world with whom I could imagine any woman could get up anything more serious than the flimsiest flirtation."
"You did 'get up' that, however, I imagine?" said Routh.
"Of course we did. We spouted very trite poetry, and he sent me bouquets--very cheap ones they were, too, and generally came late in the evening, when they may, being warranted not to keep, be had at literally a dead bargain; and we even exchanged photographs--I don't say portraits, you will observe. His is like enough; but that is really nothing, even among the most prudish of the blonde misses. I wonder the haberdashers don't send their likenesses with their bills, and I shall certainly give mine to the postman here; I am always grateful to the postman everywhere, and I like this one--he has nice eyes, his name is Hermann, and he does not smoke."
"What a degenerate German!" said Routh. "And so Mr. Arthur Felton has your likeness?"
"Had---had, you mean. How can I tell where it is now?--thrown in the fire, probably, and that of the reigning sovereign of his affections comfortably installed in the locket which contained it, which is handsome, I confess: but he does not so much mind spending money on himself, you see. It is exactly like this."
She placed her whip across the reins, and held all with the left hand, whilst she fumbled with the right among the satin and lace in which she was wrapped, and drew out a short gold chain, to which a richly-chased golden ball, as large as an egg, was attached. Turning slightly towards him, and gently checking her ponies, she touched a spring, and the golden egg opened lengthways, and disclosed two small finely-executed photographs.