“Who is . . .,” dominated their every conscious thought.
“Ah, Effie,” cried the elder sister, addressing Lady Elton, “I thought you would be skating.”
“For Heaven’s sake, hush!” warned Lady Elton, severely. “Weren’t you here last week to see me crash to the ice with H.R.H.? I dared not risk another such fall!”
“But with the uncle of a King,” murmured Miss Mabel Angus-McCallum, “such an honour, my dear!”
Helena Chesley laughed.
“That’s not bad for you, Mabel. It’s a pity Mrs. Long didn’t overhear it,” she said.
Between her and the Angus-McCallums there existed an almost perceptible antagonism which was regarded variously as a source of amusement and uneasiness by their friends. Such traditional antipathy was not at all unusual, and marked the relation between many of the “old” families in the Capital.
Before her marriage to the scholarly young man, whose nimble wit and charm of manner had won him a permanent place in the Vice-Regal entourage, Helena Chesley had been a Halstead, and the Halsteads had owned the estate upon which such discomfiting evidences of Thaddeus McCallum’s craftsmanship rose up to confound his descendants. Whether they imagined it or not, is difficult to state, but the Angus-McCallums always felt the condescension of the landed proprietor to the day labourer in Helena Chesley’s cynical smile, while the latter resented the patronising air which the others assumed as a cloak for the inherited resentfulness of Industry towards Capital.
Miss Mabel Angus-McCallum’s retort was cut short by the arrival of Mrs. Hudson, who, metaphorically speaking, embraced the ladies as Crusoe might have taken Friday to his bosom.
“My dears,” she breathed, “I’m so glad to find you! Did anyone ever see such a mob, and such people? Who do you suppose brought me my tea?” and without waiting for an answer to the question, she continued, “That awful Lennox man! You remember, he used to be the stenographer in Sir Mortimer Fanshawe’s office!”