Pikey was still strong enough not to yield her office, but her methods became less drastic. The Deputy, however, was not permitted to wear the blue dress. She was curtly told that real ladies did not appear in the same frock on two successive evenings. An affair of pink silk was unwillingly placed at her disposal. And when Girlie came to look at herself in the glass, she found it just as becoming and slightly more modern in style. Perhaps it did not go quite so well with her eyes, but in the course of an epic twenty-four hours the rose had deepened in her cheeks, so that all things considered “what she lost on the roundabouts she gained on the swings.”
XVII
The anxieties of the day had not improved the nerves of Miss Cass. They were a little frayed, no doubt, when she was led in to dinner on the arm of the genial, loud-voiced host. Mr. Minever was a great one for chaff and there was something about poor Girlie’s woe-begone appearance that was a direct challenge to his powers. Had the Bartlet’s masterpiece proved too much for her? If the little man wrote as he talked she was a very wise young woman, in Mr. Minever’s opinion, to keep her bed in order to grapple with his dialogue. Sir Toby laughed brightly at all the sallies which reached his end of the table, where the luckless yellow chrysanthemum lady and Mrs. Spencer-Jobling were bearing up with superhuman patience. Still, it has to be said for Sir Toby that he was a little sportsman in his way.
From time to time, as the noisily cheerful meal went on, Sir Toby stole a glance down the table at the innocent cause of the mirth. She really was nailingly pretty, although her color was so high this evening that it could hardly be her own. The little man grew pensive, not to say distrait. By the time the port appeared it had begun to seem rather a pity that Carabbas notoriously “hadn’t a bob.” Still Grandpapa Angora was on his last legs according to all accounts, and even if keeping up a dukedom was becoming an expensive hobby and supertax was now on a very democratic basis, the head of the clan must surely have kept a little bit in the family stocking just to bring them in out of the rain.
Indeed, that seemed quite a fascinating speculation as Sir Toby preened his small tail feathers and held the door for the ladies to file cheerfully and jauntily out of the room. But one there was neither jaunty nor cheerful. She was a duke’s granddaughter it was true, but she was so timid and demure that she might have been a nursery governess. Her one desire, seemingly, was to efface herself altogether. And yet, as Sir Toby reflected, there is something to be said after all for pedigree stock. These Sheffielders—or was it Leeds they came from?—with their familiarity, their badinage, their amazing self-confidence, how tiresome they were! The little Catkin Puss might be dull—dull as a mud fence—but when the worst had been said, she was a Lady!
“Penny for your thoughts, Philpot.” The loud-voiced host emphasized this speculative offer by pushing his so-called 1890 towards Sir Toby.
“Worth a sight more than that, ain’t they, Pot?” quoth a puffy man opposite with a face as red as a boiled lobster. And then, to Sir Toby’s unspeakable annoyance, he winked impudently at the others. “But I’m bound to say I admire your taste.”
The retort which rose to the long suffering lips of Sir Toby was, “I wish I could return the compliment!” That would have been a fit reply to one who always made a point of treating him as if he were still in Puppyhole. His tormentor, one Garden by name, was a man of some parts, but in the course of a rather hopeless life, having done most things and most people, he had steadily declined in the world’s esteem, until now there was only dramatic criticism, occasional journalism and the tolerance of club acquaintances between the jail, the poorhouse and himself.
Soft, however, was Sir Toby’s answer. This same Garden had once kicked him round Sixpenny, and although the experience had not done him as much good as it might have, the little baronet had a deep-seated desire that it should never happen again.
The host, however, that prince of crude fellows whose size in dancing pumps was a large ten, lost no time in putting his foot still deeper in the mire. Before Sir Toby could deal efficiently with his ancient foe, Mr. Minever had coarsely guffawed, “So does Duckingfield.” At this breach of taste on the part of the host, Sir Toby glared. And the new peer glared also.