CHAPTER XXXIX.—IS IN TWO FYTTES—VIZ., FYTTE THE FIRST, A SULKY FIT—FYTTE THE SECOND, A FIT OF HYSTERICS.
Frere reached the drawing-room in a state of mind which the occurrences related in the last chapter had not tended to render more amiable. The front room was evidently the more popular of the two, a numerous group being gathered round Mrs. Brahmin, who in the sweetest of mild sopranos was daintily cooing forth a plaintive love-ditty, which was evidently telling well with John Dace, D.D. Avoiding the crowd, Frere made his way into the back drawing-room, which, barring an ardent flirtation in a corner between two poor young things who could not, by the most remote possibility, marry for the next fifteen years, was unoccupied. Here seating himself astride across a chair as if it had been a horse, and leaning his arms on the back, he fell into a deep fit of musing. From this he was roused by the approach of a light footstep, and looking up, perceived Rose Arundel.
“Why, Mr. Frere,” she exclaimed playfully, “I do believe you were asleep; will you not come into the other room? Mrs. Brahmin is singing like a nightingale and charming everybody.”
“Nightingales are humbugs. I hate singing women in general, and abominate Mrs. Brahmin in particular, so I’m better where I am,” was the grumpy reply.
Rose had often before received speeches from Frere quite as rude as the present one, but in this instance there was a peculiarity in his method of delivering it which at once struck her attention. Usually his bearish sayings were accompanied by a half-smile or merry twinkle of the eye, which proved that he was more than half in jest, but now there was a bitter earnestness in his tone which she had never before remarked, and Rose felt at once that something had occurred to annoy him; so she quietly drew a chair to the table near which he was seated, and carelessly turning over the pages of a book of prints which lay before her, observed—
“If you are not to be tempted within the siren’s influence, and positively refuse to be charmed with sweets sounds, I suppose I am bound by all the rules of politeness to remain here and try to talk you into a more harmonious frame of mind.”