Victoria's affairs were especially agitating to herself at this time and made her uncertain in her temper and easily upset. Out of the mist in which her many admirers obscurely floated two figures had risen who were quite obviously suitors for her hand. When Millie had first begun to perceive this she doubted the evidence of her observation. It could not be possible that any one should want to marry Victoria, stout and middle-aged as she was. But on second thoughts it seemed quite the simple natural thing for any adventurer to attempt. There was Victoria's money, with which she quite obviously did not know what to do. Why should not some one for whom youth was over, whose income was an uncertain quantity, decide to spend it for her?
Millie called both these men adventurers. There she was unjust. Major Miles Mereward was no adventurer; he was simply an honest soldier really attracted by Victoria. Honest, but Lord, how dull!
As he sat in Victoria's room, the chair creaking beneath his fat body, his red hair rough and unbrushed, his red moustache untrimmed, his red hands clutching his old grey soft hat, he was the most uncomfortable, awkward, silent man Millie had ever met. He had nothing to say at all; he would only stare at Victoria, give utterance to strange guttural noises that were negatives and affirmatives almost unborn. He was poor, but he was honest. He thought Victoria the most marvellous creature in the world with her gay talk and light colour. He scarcely realized that she had any money. Far otherwise his rival Robin Bennett.
Mr. Bennett was a man of over forty, one who might be the grandson of Byron or a town's favourite "Hamlet"—"Distinguished" was the word always used about him.
He dressed beautifully; he moved, Victoria declared, "like a picture." Not only this; he was able to talk with easy fluency upon every possible subject—politics, music, literature, painting, he had his hand upon them all. Moreover, he was adaptable. He understood just why Victoria preferred the novels she did, and he was not superior to her because of her taste. He knew why tears filled her eyes when the band played "Pomp and Circumstance," and thought it quite natural that on such an occasion she should want, as she said, "to run out and give sixpences to all the poor children in the place." He did not pretend to her that her bridge-playing was good. That indeed was more than even his Arts could encompass, but he did assure her that she was making progress with every game she played. He even tempted her in the ballroom of the hotel into the One-Step and the Fox-Trot, and an amusing sight for every one it was to see Victoria's flushed and clumsy efforts.
Nevertheless, it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that the man was an adventurer. Every one in the hotel knew it—Victoria was his third target that season; even Victoria did not disguise it altogether from herself.
It was here that Millie found her touching and appealing. Millie realized that this was the very first time in Victoria's life that any one had made love to her; that it was her money to which Bennett was making love seemed at the moment to matter very little. The woman was knowing, at long last, what it meant to have eyes—fine, large, brown eyes—gazing into hers, what it was to have her lightest word listened to with serious attention, what it was would some one hasten to open the door, to push forward a chair for her, to pick up her handkerchief when she dropped it (a thing that she was always now doing). Mereward did none of these things for her—his brain moved too slowly to make the race a fair one. He was beaten by Bennett (who deeply despised him) every time.
But Victoria was only half a fool. "Millie mine," she said, "don't you find Major Mereward very restful? He's a good man."
"He is indeed," said Millie.
"Of course he hasn't Mr. Bennett's brains. I said to Mr. Bennett last night, 'I can't think how it is with your brilliance that you are not in the Cabinet.'"