As everything of Arthur’s had been laid out and brushed in most attractive order, he had; and he dressed and sought the breakfast-room. Here was no one but Mrs. Malgam, who, attired in a diaphanous material of many folds and pale tea-rose ribbons, was standing at the window like a thing bereft. But as Arthur came in, her face mantled with smiles that could have hardly “been much sweeter for the blush between.” “Oh, Mr. Holyoke, I am so glad you’ve come,” said she. “It is so poky, breakfasting alone.”
Mrs. Malgam sat down to make the tea; and Arthur sat down beside her. “What pretty hands she has,” thought Arthur; “I never noticed them before.” And just as he thought this, her blue eyes fixed his, looking suddenly up from the tea. “One lump or two?” said she. “One,” said Arthur, gravely.
A word should be given to Baby Malgam, as many thought her likely to be Flossie Gower’s rival; that is at some day, for as yet our heroine still distanced her. It is true, Flossie was a nobody, by birth; so was Mrs. Malgam; but her first husband had been Mr. Ten Eyck. Flossie was rich, but so at this time was Mrs. Malgam; Flossie was no longer young, while Baby’s ivory skin still was smooth with youth and pleasure and lack of care. Baby had been poor; and now she had three houses and four horses and forty ball-dresses and a young and fashionable and careless husband and an opera-box, and the grace and cachet of her own to properly adorn all these things—a grace which had been almost a trial to her when, already conscious of it, she had feared it was to be never used, but born like a blossom of the fields, to die there, and not in a china vase. But now she had her china vase, and was happy, and fast forgetting the fields, and him who had wandered with her in them; and regretted, not that he was dead, but that she was growing stout. And it was very cosey and charming for Arthur to be sitting with her so prettily at breakfast.
“Is nobody else up?” said he. But he did not say it in regret; and Caryl Wemyss would not have said it at all, as Arthur thought with a pang just afterward. Mrs. Malgam smiled a little, but she said:
“Mr. Derwent has been up and disappeared long since. Mr. Haviland has gone to the city. Flossie never appears until luncheon. About the rest, I don’t know.”
“What are we to do to-day?” said he, by way of conversation.
“Anything we like—that is Mrs. Gower’s rule. I fancy she and Mr. Wemyss will take a drive;” and she laughed a little again. “Mr. Van Kull and Mrs. Hay thought of riding. That is, Mr. Van Kull spoke of it to Mrs. Hay; and Mrs. Hay proposed it to Lord Birmingham. But I fancy his lordship will ride with Kitty Farnum.” And again did pretty Mrs. Malgam laugh a little.
“Are there horses for all of us?” said Arthur.
“Oh, yes. Mrs. Gower has a way of providing for us, you see.”
“In that case,” said Arthur, “will not you drive with me?”