“You are very cutting, Beatrice; almost as much so as Tom here. It is really rather a trying position to be hedged in between a clever woman and a clever man.”
“If you call me a clever woman again, Randolph, I’ll never forgive you. I abominate the whole race!” cried Beatrice, hotly; “and as for clever men—I detest them!”
This was said so heartily as to elicit a guffaw of laughter from a ruddy-faced young gentleman of sporting tastes, who was her neighbour on the other side. She turned to him with one of her most sparkling glances.
“Now you, I am quite certain, agree with me. Your face tells me you do. Don’t you think that it is the clever people who make the world an intolerable place?”
“They’re the greatest nuisance out,” assented that young gentleman, cordially. “I always did say so. I was never clever. I was plucked three times, I think, for my little-go.”
“Then you and I are sure to be great friends,” said Beatrice, laughing. “I am quite, quite sure I should never have passed any examination if I had been a man. I was at Oxford once, long ago; and oh! you know, the only men that were any good at all were those who had been ‘plucked,’ as they call it, or fully expected to be. The clever, good, precocious boys were—oh! well, let us not think of them. It takes away one’s appetite!”
The sporting gentleman laughed, and enjoyed this summary verdict; but Randolph just glanced across at his wife. He, too, was aware that there was something odd in Beatrice’s manner. He detected the covert vein of bitterness in her tone; and he was as much at a loss to understand it as any one else could be. Tom’s face and impenetrable silence puzzled him likewise.
Dinner, however, passed smoothly enough. Beatrice was very lively, and her witticisms kept all the table alive. Her young neighbour lost his heart to her at once, and she flirted with him in the most frank and open fashion possible. She could be very fascinating when she chose, and to-night, after the first edge had been taken off her sallies, she was, undoubtedly, exceedingly attractive.
If there was something a little forced in her mirth, at least nobody detected it, save those who knew her very well, and not even all of those, for Haddon was obviously unconscious that anything was wrong, and talked to Monica in the most unconcerned fashion possible. What Tom thought of it all nobody could hazard an opinion.
At length Monica gave the signal to her animated guest, and they two withdrew together. Beatrice laughed gaily, as she half walked half waltzed across the hall, humming a dance tune the while.