We get a further glimpse of this honest gentleman, when we mentioned the fact that he stood out valiantly against motor cars till the last gasp from his wife. To please her, he bought a limousine, and forthwith extolled it, because it was his, as the best car on the market, which it wasn’t.
Night and day his thoughts wandered, in happy vagabondage, to Lady Margot Maltravers.
She spent a flying week-end before Lionel arrived.
Some description of the young lady must be attempted. The late Lord Beaumanoir had left his only child the freehold of a handsome house in London, some valuable town property, and a round sum securely invested in gilt-edged securities. The Beaumanoir estates and title passed to a distant kinsman. When she came of age, Lady Margot announced her intention of going “on her own.” Having plenty to “go on,” this announcement was acclaimed by poorer relations as indicating spirit and intelligence. Under cover of this chorus of praise, a few private loans were impetrated. Lady Margot lavished largesse with amusing cynicism. “I must pay for my whistle,” she remarked to her intimates. “If I whistle the wrong tune, the poor dears will hold their tongues.”
However, despite predictions to the contrary, she conducted herself circumspectly. It was true that minor poets were to be seen in her drawing-room and about her dining-table, with a sprinkling of artists, politicians, barristers, musicians, and novelists. She said that she liked to be amused. She had more than one flirtation. The “poor dears” feared that she had not treated her lovers well. She was accused of luring them on and then laughing at them. When reproached she replied modestly: “Really, you know, they are hunting comfortable board and lodging rather than little me.”
Little she was, although mignonne is a happier word. Her feet and hands were exquisite. It was said—perhaps truly—that Lady Margot bought her footwear from that mysterious personage who lives in Paris, and who has the effrontery to demand from his clients a big premium, cash on the nail, before he consents to supply them with shoes at a fabulous price. Her frocks were beyond compare, and she especially affected, in the evening, a vivid translucent emerald green that set off admirably the dead white of her complexion and her dark sparkling eyes and hair. Her portrait, by one of her admirers, was hung upon the line in the Royal Academy, and made the artist’s reputation while enhancing hers.
About the time when she encountered our Wiltshire squire, Lady Margot was getting “fed up” with clever young men consumed by their own ambitions. In fine, they had ceased to amuse her. They ground their little axes too persistently. Indeed, she had captivated Sir Geoffrey at once by saying candidly: “You know, they wouldn’t be missed. The real world would wag on without them.”
Sir Geoffrey was quite of her opinion.
“Popinjays, my dear young lady, popinjays.”
This queerly contrasted pair, the reactionary squire and the twentieth-century maiden, met at a big Hampshire house, where the partridge driving is superlatively good. Sir Geoffrey happened to be a fine performer, a little slow with his second gun, but quick enough to shoot in the best company. To the humiliation of the younger men, Lady Margot accompanied the veteran, and highly recommended his performance and his retriever’s. He amused her more than the young men, because he was absolutely sincere. And she succumbed instantly to the gracious personality of Lady Pomfret, accepting with alacrity an invitation to visit Pomfret Court, openly chagrined when no early date was set.