“If you should be disengaged at eleven o’clock to-morrow, and would look in, I should be very much obliged to you.”
While this conversation passed between Kate and D’Almayne, they had been themselves the subjects of observation to a party of strangers, who, coming probably from the country, had not yet attuned their voices to the requirements of London sightseeing. Accordingly, the following remarks were distinctly audible to those for whom, of all others, they were not intended.
“What a lovely young woman!” observed Mater Familias; “I suppose the mustachioed gentleman is her futur.”
“She don’t look over loving at him, if he is,” grumbled Pater F.
“Perhaps that is because her father (regarding Mr. Crane) is so close, and does not approve of the match,” suggested Sarah Jane, the eldest daughter, to Louisa Anne, her sub——
“Au contraire,” remarked the intelligent London cousin, a clerk in the Ignorance and Delay Office, who was popularly supposed to know everything and everybody; “the old boy is a rich Manchester cotton-spinner, and the young lady his wife; she married him for his tin, and half London is raving about her beauty.”
“Poor thing!” muttered Mater Familias, who, for fifty-two, was unusually romantic—“poor thing, how I pity her!”
While listening to these agreeable remarks, D’Almayne had kept his eyes steadily fixed upon an amalgamated catalogue, desirous not to add to Kate’s embarrassment; but at length, surprised at her silence and immobility, he ventured to glance towards her, and was alarmed to perceive that she had turned pale to her very lips, while she grasped the brass rail, which was placed to protect the pictures, convulsively, in order to save herself from falling. Any one with less tact than D’Almayne would, in officious eagerness to assist her, have made a fuss, and caused her to become the subject of general attention; but Horace knew better how to turn the situation to account; handing her a chair, he said quietly—
“The heat has made you feel faint; sit down for a moment, and perhaps the feeling may pass off.”
As Kate hastened to follow his suggestion, she glanced towards him, to read in his features whether he also had overheard the conversation which had affected her. Whether his subtle intellect had led him to divine her intention, and he was enacting the character he considered most likely to tell with Kate, or whether he was merely obeying a natural impulse, we do not attempt to decide; suffice it to state that, when she looked at him, he was scowling after the amiable family, whose conversation had caused the embarrassment, with so angry an expression of countenance, that a fear seized his companion lest he should be about to do something indignant and foolish, which might attract attention to her, and produce the scene she dreaded. A moment’s reflection on his cautious, prudent character, would have proved to her the unreasonableness of such a fear; but she spoke without allowing herself this—