“I know all about that,” she remarked presently, “but you can’t do me either good or harm. I want nothing from you and I never shall!”
“Don’t you be too sure of that!” replied Madame Gobelli, nodding her head. “I’ve brought young women more luck than enough with their lovers before now—yes! and married women into the bargain! If it ’adn’t been for me, Lady—there! it nearly slipped out, didn’t it?—but there’s a certain Countess who would never ’ave been a widow and married for the second time to the man of ’er ’eart, if I ’adn’t ’elped ’er, and she knows it too! By the way, ’ow do you like Miss Leyton?”
“Not at all,” replied Harriet, quickly, “she is not a bit like Mrs. Pullen—so cold and stiff and disagreeable! She hardly ever speaks to me! Is it true that she’s the daughter of a lord, as Madame Lamont says, and is it that makes her so proud?”
“She’s the daughter of Lord Walthamstowe, but that’s nothing. They’ve got no money. ’Er people live down in the country, quite in a beggarly manner. A gal with a fortune of ’er own, would rank ’eads and ’eads above ’er in Society. There’s not much thought of beside money, nowadays, I can tell you!”
“Why does she stay with Mrs. Pullen then? Are they any relation to each other?” demanded Harriet.
“Relation, no! I expect she’s just brought ’er ’ere out of charity, and because she couldn’t afford to go to the seaside by ’erself!”
She had been about to announce the projected relationship between the two ladies, when a sudden thought struck her. Captain Ralph Pullen was expected to arrive in Heyst in a few days—thus much she had ascertained through the landlady of the Lion d’Or. She knew by repute that he was considered to be one of the handsomest and most conceited men in the Limerick Rangers, a corps which was noted for its good-looking officers. It might be better for the furtherance of her plans against the peace of Miss Leyton’s mind, she thought, to keep her engagement to Captain Pullen a secret—at all events, no one could say it was her business to make it public. She looked in Harriet Brandt’s yearning, passionate eyes, and decided that it would be strange if any impressionable young man could be thrown within their influence, without having his fidelity a little shaken, especially if affianced to such a cold, uninteresting “bit of goods” as Elinor Leyton. Like the parrot in the story, though she said nothing, she “thought a deal” and inwardly rumbled with half-suppressed laughter, as she pictured the discomfiture of the latter young lady, if by any chance she should find her fiancé’s attentions transferred from herself to the little West Indian.
“You seem amused, Madame!” said Harriet presently.
“I was thinking of you, and all the young men who are doomed to be slaughtered by those eyes of yours,” said the Baroness. “You’d make mischief enough amongst my friends, I bet, if I ’ad you at the Red ’Ouse!”
Harriet felt flattered and consciously pleased. She had never received a compliment in the Convent—no one had ever hinted that she was pretty, and she had had no opportunity of hearing it since.