“Why not?” said the other, quietly. “I thought we were to be friends, Miss Stuart. Do you know I’m going to risk your displeasure by saying a word on my friend’s behalf?”
Grey tried to speak—to recover her usual calm self-possession, but her words would not come.
“This is all nonsense, you know,” continued Chumbley, “and I don’t know that I blame Hilton much. It’s only natural, you know, and the poor fellow’s only like everyone else. They all get caught by the beauty just the same as I was. You’re not a man, you know, so you can’t understand it. Now, for instance, take me. I’m a great big fellow—a sort of a small giant in my way—strong as a horse. I could take that Rajah up by his neck and one leg, and pitch him out of window; but when Helen Perowne came here, and gave me one of her looks, I was done, and she led me about just as she pleased. Ah! there’s a very comic side to it all.”
“But you soon broke your silken string, Mr Chumbley,” said Grey, trying to speak in his own bantering tone.
“Not really,” he said confidentially. “The fact is, she broke it. I couldn’t have got away if I had not seen that she was only playing with me. It was she who broke it by beginning to lead others on. I say, Miss Stuart, what awful old women your schoolmistresses must have been!”
“Awful old women?” exclaimed Grey. “Yes, to bring up Miss Perowne as such—a man-killer.”
“Oh! Mr Chumbley,” cried Grey, “the Miss Twettenhams were the sweetest, most amiable of ladies, and Helen Perowne made them really very anxious—”
She checked herself suddenly, as if annoyed at having spoken against her friend, at whom she glanced now, to see that she seemed to be really the queen of the feast.
“Yes,” said Chumbley, drily, “you’re right. They must have been nice old ladies; but about Hilton,” he continued. “You see it’s like this; a fellow gets caught before he knows where he is, and then he thinks he has arrived at the happiest time of his life; then, a few days later, he sees some other fellow coming to the happiest point of his life; and then, after a flush or two of fever, the first fellow begins to feel much better. I say, Miss Stuart, I was awfully in love with Helen Perowne.”
“Yes, I think you were,” she replied, with a sad little smile.