Hughie continued during the next few weeks to study the character of the female sex as exemplified by his ward Miss Joan Gaymer, and some facts in natural history were brought to his notice which had not hitherto occurred to him.
In her relations with her male belongings a woman does not expect much. Certainly not justice, nor reason, nor common sense. That which she chiefly desires—so those who know inform us—is admiration, and, if possible, kindness, though the latter is not essential. The one thing she cannot brook is neglect. Attention of some kind she must have. Satisfy her soul with this, and she will remain all you desire her to remain,—toute femme,—something for lonely mankind to thank God for. Stint her, and there is a danger that she will drift into the ranks of that rather pathetic third sex, born of higher education and feminine superfluity, which to-day stands apart from its fellow-creatures and loudly proclaims its loathing for the masculinity of man and its contempt for the effeminacy of woman, but which seems so far only to have cast away the rapier of the one without being able to lift or handle the bludgeon of the other.
Not that Miss Joan Gaymer ran any such risk. She was indeed toute femme, and stood secure from the prospect of being cut off from her natural provender. Her chief danger was that of a surfeit. She possessed a more than usually healthy appetite for admiration, and there was never wanting a supply of persons—chiefly of her own sex, be it said—to proclaim the fact that in her case the line between appetite and gluttony was very finely drawn indeed. There was some truth, it is to be feared, in the accusation, for Joan was undoubtedly exhibiting symptoms at this time of a species of mental indigestion—what the French call tête montée and the Americans "swelled head"—induced by an undiluted diet of worship and homage. Appetite for this sort of thing grows with eating, and Joan, like her mother before her, was beginning to think too much of those who supplied her with the meat her soul loved and too little of those who did not. And as those who did not were chiefly those who had her welfare most nearly at heart, she was deprived for the time being of a good deal of the solid sustenance of real friendship.
She was a curious mixture of worldly wisdom and naïveté, and was frankly interested in herself. She was undisguisedly anxious to know what people thought of her, and made no attempt to conceal her pleasure when she found herself "a success." On the other hand, she presumed a great deal too much on the patience and loyalty of her following. She was always captious, frequently inconsiderate, and, like most young persons who have been respectably brought up, was desperately anxious to be considered rather wicked.
These facts the slow-moving brain of Hughie Marrable absorbed one by one, and he felt vaguely unhappy on the girl's account, though he could not find it in his heart to blame her. Joey, he felt, was merely making full use of her opportunities. Within her small kingdom, and for her brief term, she held authority as absolute as that, say, of a secretary of state, nor was she fettered by any pedantic scruples, such as might have hampered the official in question, about exercising the same; and Hughie, who was something of an autocrat himself, could not but admit that his ward was acting very much, mutatis mutandis, as he would have done under similar circumstances.
But as time went on and his sense of perspective adjusted itself, he began to discover signs that beneath all her airs and graces and foam and froth, the old Joey endured. She was a creature of impulse, and her vagaries were more frequently due to the influence of the moment than any desire to pose. She would disappoint a young man of a long-promised tête-à-tête on the river, to go and play at shop in a plantation with the under-keeper's children. She would shed tears over harrowing but unconvincing narratives of destitution at the back door. She was kind to plain girls,—which attractive girls sometimes are not,—and servants adored her, which is a good sign of anybody.
She was lavishly generous; indeed, it was never safe for her girl friends to express admiration, however discreet, for anything belonging to her, for she had an embarrassing habit of tearing off articles of attire or adornment and saying, "I'll give it to you!" with the eagerness and sincerity of a child.
And her code of honour was as strict as a schoolboy's—than which no more can be said. A secret was safe with her. She had once promptly and permanently renounced the friendship of a particular crony of her own, who boasted to her, giving names and details, of a proposal of marriage which she had recently refused.
In short, Miss Joan Gaymer strongly resembled the young lady who in times long past was a certain poetical gentleman's Only Joy. She was sometimes forward, sometimes coy,—sometimes, be it added, detestable,—but she never failed to please—or rather, to attract, which is better still.
Mrs. Jack Leroy spared neither age nor sex on the night of the Hunt Ball. Her husband, Hughie, and the Reverend Montague D'Arcy—all suffering from that peculiar feeling of languid depression which invariably attacks the male sex about 9.30 P.M. when dancing is in prospect—were hounded into pumps and white gloves, and packed into the omnibus, which, after a drive of seven miles, during which the gentlemen slept furtively and the tongues of Joan and her girl friends wagged unceasingly, deposited the entire party of twelve on the steps of the Town Hall at Midfield.