“To be sure,” said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. “Why, your establishment will be most enviable, Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount; for I’m sure that you will have the Three Graces within your walls.”
“Oh, fie!” exclaimed Mrs Blunt, playfully; “you are bringing quite a blush to the face of our young friend.”
My cheeks certainly were tingling, but it was only to hear them talk such twaddle; and I knew well enough now that they must have been looking on for some time, while Mrs Blunt only let me keep on strumming to show off before the visitor; for if it had been one of the girls who played badly, she would have been snubbed and sent off in a hurry for practising out of her turn.
For a moment, though, I felt a pang shoot through me—a jealous pang—as I thought that, if this new pupil came, she might bear off from me my Achille; while the next moment I was ready to laugh scornfully from the recollection that I had no Achille, that he was already another’s, that men were all false and deceivers, and that I could now turn satirical, and sympathise with Clara.
However, I showed none of the painful emotions sweeping through my breast, but took all in good part, and allowed Mrs Campanelle Brassey to tap me with her eyeglass, and kiss me on the cheek, which kiss was, after all, only a peck with her hooky nose; and then she must take what she called a fancy to me, and march me about with them all over the place, and call me “My love,” and “My sweet child,” and all that sort of stuff, when she was seeing me now for the first time; but, if I had been the most amiable of girls, but plain, like Grace Murray, instead of showy and dashing, she would not have taken the least mite of notice of me.
Yes: really, this is a dreadfully hypocritical world!
“My Euphemia will be charmed to know you, my love,” said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, looking at me as if I were good to eat, and she were a cannibal’s wife—“charmed, I’m sure.”
“I sha’n’t be charmed to know her,” I said to myself, “if she is as insincere as you.”
“I’m sure that you will soon be the best of friends. It will be so nice for her to have one to welcome her directly she leaves home, and, of course, we shall have the pleasure of seeing you on a visit at the Belfry during the vacation.”
Of course I thanked her, and thought that if I liked Euphemia I should very likely go home with her for a while, since all places now seemed the same to me, and I should require some délassement.