Beatrice opened her feather fan, and wielded it with a sort of aggressive negligence. She dropped into a seat beside Monica, and began to talk to her with an air of studied affectation utterly at variance with her ordinary manner, ignoring Tom as entirely as if no introduction had passed between them, and that with an assumption of hauteur that could only be explained by a deeply-seated antipathy.
Monica tried to include Tom in the conversation; but he declined to be included, returned an indifferent answer, and withdrew to a distant corner of the room, where he remained deeply engrossed, as it seemed, in the study of a photographic album.
Monica was perplexed. She could not imagine what it all meant. She had never heard the Pendrills speak of Lady Beatrice Wentworth, and she was sufficiently acquainted with Tom’s history to render this perplexity the greater. She was certain Mrs. Pendrill had heard the name of her expected guest, and it had aroused no emotion in her. Yet she would presumably know the name of a lady towards whom her nephew cherished so great an antipathy. Monica could not make it out. But one thing was plain enough: those two were sworn foes, and intended to remain so—and they were guests beneath the same roof!
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
AN ENIGMA.
It was a relief when the other men came in, and when dinner was announced. Randolph evidently knew nothing of any disturbing element in the party as he handed Beatrice in to dinner, and again made a sort of attempt to introduce her to Tom, who was seated opposite, not knowing that Monica had already had an opportunity of performing that little ceremony.
“You are two of my oldest friends, you know,” said their host, in his pleasant, easy fashion, “and you are both my guests now, so you will have a capital opportunity of expatiating together upon my many perfections.”
“No need for that, Randolph,” answered Beatrice, gaily. “They speak too loud for themselves, and your wife’s eyes tell too many tales of them. You know I never could bear paragons. If you turn into one, I shall have no more to say to you.”