"He'll never have a chance of affronting me, Kate, unless he does it through you. He hangs about here a great deal too much. He haunts the places we go to like a ghost; and he looks like a ghost besides, for he has lost his colour, grown very silent, and never smiles. I say nothing, but——"
"You think a great deal, no doubt," replied her sister. "You think wrong this time, though, if you fancy I care two straws about Frank, or Frank about me. He was pleasant enough, I grant you; but now that he's got sad, and quiet, and stupidish, he bores me. You ought to know my tastes better than most people, dear. You may be pretty sure one of your languishing swains has very little chance. I hate long stories, long memories, long sighs, and long faces. If people like one, they should make one happy:
'When Love is kind,
Lightsome, and free,
Love's sure to find
Welcome from me;
But if Love brings
Heart-ache or pang,
Tears, or such things,
Love may go hang!"
"Which only proves you were never in earnest, Kate," answered the elder woman; adding, with a sigh, "So much the better for you."
Perhaps Mrs. Battersea was thinking of a time long before she met the late Major Battersea, a time when Kate was a little toddling thing, with fat legs, chubby arms, and the manners of a confirmed and shameless flirt; a time when the sands of the Isle of Wight borrowed a golden gleam from that light which so irradiates the present to leave behind it such grim, ghostly shadows on the past; when the waves sang soft sweet music, softer, sweeter, for the whisper that stole through the drowsy wash and murmur of the tide,—sadder, too, for an instinct that warns the human heart how they will make the same melodious moan, unchanged, unpitying, after they have closed over its happiness for ever; when morning was a vision of hope, and evening a dream of peace, and all day long a waking reality of happiness, because of a straw hat, a sun-burned face, and a light laugh. Perhaps she was contrasting a certain frank, innocent, loving girl, trusting, and true-hearted, with the woman of after years, marred and warped by her first disappointment, carrying war on bravely in the enemy's country, but aching still under all her armour of pride and indifference, with the dull pain of that first grievous wound.
"So much the better for me," repeated Kate thankfully. "You would have said so, indeed, if you could have seen that poor thing yesterday. Pale, worn, dejected, and, my dear, so very badly dressed! I declare I hardly knew her again, and I used to think, for quite a dark beauty, she was the best-looking woman in London. Do you suppose, Auntie, there really is such a thing as a broken heart, or is it all nonsense and what they put in novels, and poems, and things? It must hurt horribly if there is!"
"Some people mind it more than others," answered her sister. "Let us be thankful, Kate, that you and I are not of the caring sort. But what do you suppose has brought Miss Ross to this pass? She used to be one of your regular high-fliers. Went to Court, I fancy, and all the rest of it. And how do you know your precious Frank Vanguard hadn't a finger in the pie?"
"Because I do know," affirmed Miss Kate. "You never saw such a place as she was living in; and I got everything out of the people in the house before I had been there ten minutes."
"I can easily believe it," said her sister. "As usual, taking up another's business and neglecting your own."
"But I mean to make it my own," protested Kate. "You would have been as keen about it as I am if you had seen the poor thing huddled up in her refuge like a frightened cat in a corner. Table on three legs, chairs falling to pieces, such a small room, such stuffy furniture, and you might have written your name in the dust on everything. Even her gown was all frayed at the skirt, and there wasn't another in the wardrobe, for I peeped in to see. I shall be off again directly after breakfast, and perhaps to-day I may worm something out of her, and get her to let me help her in earnest, you know. How sad, Auntie, to come to such a pass! Fancy not having enough to eat, and only one gown to put on!"