At nineteen she was presented, made her coup, and now for two seasons had been a reigning belle. Offers she had had in plenty,--youthful peers with slender incomes; middle-aged commoners, solemn, wealthy, and dull; smug widowers, hoping to renew the sweets of matrimony, and trusting to bygone experience to keep clear of its bitters. But Barbara refused them all; played with them, landed them,--giving them all the time the most pleasurable sensations of encouragement, as old Izaak used to tickle trout,--and then flung them back, bruised and gasping, into that muddy stream the world. She told her aunt she was playing for a high stake; that she did not care for any of these men; that she did not think she ever should care for any one; under which circumstances she had better make the best bargain of herself, and go at a high price. There are plenty of women like this. We rave against cruel parents and sordid Mammon-matches; but very often the parents are merely passive in the matter. There are plenty of girls who have walnuts, or peach stones, or something equally impressible, where their hearts should be, who have never experienced the smallest glimmer of love, and who look upon the possession of a carriage and an Opera-box, and admission into high society, as the acme of human enjoyment.
Sitting next to Barbara is Fred Lyster, a slim, dark man, with small regular features and a splendid flowing black beard. He was educated at Addiscombe, and was out in India under Gough and Outram; did good service, was highly thought of, and was thoroughly happy; when his old godfather died, and left him heir to a property of three thousand a year. He returned at once to England, and became the most idle, purposeless, dreamiest of men. He had tried every thing, and found it all hollow. He had travelled on the Continent, been on the turf, gambled in stocks and railways, kept a yacht, and was bored by each and all. He had thought of going into Parliament, and went for two nights into the Speaker's Gallery; but did not pursue the idea, because he found that "the fellows talked so much." His plaintive moans against life were sources of intense amusement to his friends; and when he discovered this--which he did at once, being a very long way from a fool--he was not in the least annoyed, but rather lent himself to the idea, and heightened his expressions of ennui and despondency. He liked to be with Sir Marmaduke; for the old gentleman's brusque manners and general intolerance afforded him real amusement, and he laid himself open to attack by always being more than ever drawling and inane when in his company. The baronet, who had a quick perception of character, knew Lyster's real worth, and often talked to him seriously about having some purpose in life; and when he only got vague and dreamy replies, he would burst out into a torrent of invective, in the middle of which Lyster would run, shrieking with laughter, from the room.
Next to Captain Lyster sits Miss Lexden, Barbara's aunt; a fat, placid-looking old lady, in a flaxen front, which, with a cap covered with ribbons and flowers, seemed skewered on to her skull by a couple of large pins, the knobs of which presented themselves like bosses on her temples. She was a cousin of Sir Marmaduke's, and the elder sister of the old man's one love, so that there was a great link of confidence between them; and she liked coming to Bissett, where the living was always so good, and where she met people who amused her. That pretty girl talking to her is Miss Townshend,--a delicious creature in a country-house, who can ride across country, and play croquet and billiards, and sing little French chansons, and dance, and who even has been known on occasions to drive a dog-cart and smoke a cigarette. To secure her, entails inviting her father, an intensely respectable, dreary old gentleman--that is he, in the starched check cravat and the high coat-collar; a City magnate, who confines his reading to the City article, and has to be promptly extinguished when he attempts to talk about the "policy of Rooshia." He is endeavouring just now to strike up a conversation with his neighbour Mr. Vincent, the member for Wessex, and Chairman of the Dinner-Committee of the House of Commons; but Mr. Vincent is deep in the discussion of a cheese-omelette, and is telegraphing recommendation thereof to Mrs. Vincent, a merry, red-faced looking little woman, who, with her husband, passed her whole life in thinking about good eating. Sir Marmaduke's solicitor, Mr. Russell, a quiet old gentleman, clad in professional black, who was always trying to hide his soft wrinkled hands under his ample coat-cuffs; and Sir Marmaduke's factotum, Major Stone, otherwise Twenty Stone, a big, broad-chested, jovial, bushy-whiskered, moneyless freelance,--completed the party.
[CHAPTER III.]
STARTING THE GAME.
"Halloa!" suddenly shouted Sir Marmaduke from his vantage-ground on the rug.
Every body looked up.
"Halloo!" shouted the old gentleman again, plunging his hands over the wrists in his trousers-pockets, and bringing to the surface a couple of letters. "By Jove! I forgot to tell Mrs. Mason or any of them that more people were coming down! Here, Stone--somebody--just ring that bell, will you? Here are two men coming down to-day--be here by dinner, they say; and I forgot to order rooms and things for them!"
"Who are they, Sir Marmaduke?" asked Lyster languidly.
"What the deuce is that to you, sir?" roared the old gentleman. "Friends of mine, sir! That's enough, isn't it? Have you finished lunch."