"Perhaps they may," said Daisy.
She was thinking of the chance of her marrying Paul Derinzy, whom she knew as Mr. Douglas. But Madame Clarisse did not know Mr. Derinzy, so she was not thinking of Daisy's marrying him--or anybody else, as it happened.
[CHAPTER XI.]
BEHIND THE SCENES.
When Mrs. Stothard said, "Oh yes, you will!" as comment upon Annette Derinzy's outspoken declaration that she would not go down to dinner, she probably knew that she had grounds for the assertion. At all events, the result proved her to be right. The dinner-bell clanged out, pealing through the crazy tumble-down Tower, and awaking all the echoes lying in wait in that ramshackle building; and ere the reverberation of the noise had ceased, the door of Miss Derinzy's bedroom was wide open. Annette's back had been turned to it, and when she wheeled round, her attention attracted by the current of air which rushed in and disarranged a muslin scarf which she wore round her shoulders, she saw that Mrs. Stothard was busily engaged at a chest of drawers standing in a somewhat remote corner of the room. Annette was silent, but she glanced stealthily and shiftily out of the corners of her eyes. Mrs. Stothard still remained immersed in her occupation. The girl shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, hesitating, dallying; then shook herself together, as it were, and seeing she was still unnoticed, with a low chuckle silently and swiftly passed through the doorway and descended the stairs.
In seaside places such as Beachborough the evenings in late summer are chilly. There was a handful of fire in the dining-room grate, and while Miss Annette was sulking upstairs, and deliberating whether she should or should not come down, Captain Derinzy was standing on the rug with his back to the grate, and from that post of vantage was haranguing his wife and his guest--Dr. Wainwright--in his own peculiar way. When he was alone with his wife the Captain was silent and submissive; when a third person was present, and he knew that a curtain-lecture was the worst he had to dread, he was loquacious and imperative.
"And again I say to you, Wainwright," said he, in continuance of some previous conversation, "she's got to that pitch now that she isn't to be borne. I can stand a good deal--no man more so; they used to say, when I was on the Committee of the Windham, that I had a--a--what was it?--judicial mind; that was what they called it, a judicial mind--but I can't stand this girl and her tempers, and so something must be done; and there's an end of it, Wainwright!"
There are some men who are never called by any but their christian-names, and those often familiarly abbreviated, by their most promiscuous acquaintance. There are others in whose appearance and manners something forbids their interlocutors ever dispensing with their courtesy titles. Dr. Wainwright, one would have said, undoubtedly belonged to the latter class. He was a tall man, standing over six feet in height, with a high bald forehead, large features, square jaw, and deep piercing gray eyes. His manners were placidly courtly, his naturally sonorous voice was skilfully modulated, and there was an unmistakable air of latent strength about him, a sort of consciousness of the possession of certain power, you could not tell what. He might have been a duke, or a philosopher in easy circumstances, or a "man in authority, having servants under him." Quiet, dignified, and bland, he held his own amongst all sorts and conditions of men, and with the exception of two or three intimates of a quarter of a century's standing, Captain Derinzy was probably the only person living who would have thought of calling him "Wainwright." The Doctor winced a little at the repetition of the familiarity, but beyond that took no notice of it.
"My dear Captain Derinzy," said he, after a moment's pause, "I can perfectly appreciate your feelings. I have not the least doubt that Miss Derinzy's unfortunate illness is the source of great annoyance to you. Still, if you are indisposed to run certain risks, which, as I have explained to Mrs. Derinzy----"
"I thought by this time, Dr. Wainwright," interrupted the lady, "you would have seen the utter futility of paying the least attention to anything which Captain Derinzy may say!"