II
An electric bell was heard to buzz.
“They are here,” said Mrs. Wren in a tone with a thrill in it.
A neat parlor maid announced “Lord Wrexham, Mr. Dinneford,” and two stalwart young men entered cheerily. They were hearty upstanding fellows, curiously alike in manner, appearance, dress, yet in the thousand and one subtleties of character immutably different. But this was not a moment for the fine shades. They came into the room unaffectedly, without shyness, and warmly took the hands of welcome that were offered them.
Wrexham, a subaltern of the Pinks of three years’ standing, was an attractive but rather irresolute young man. He knew that he was perilously near forbidden ground. If not exactly in the toils of an infatuation, the charms of Milly were growing day by day upon an impressionable mind. Fully content as yet to live in the moment, a wiser young man might have begun to pay the future some little attention.
As for the lively, headstrong, unconventional Jack Dinneford, at present at a loose end in London, to whom Wrexham himself had been appointed as a sort of unofficial bear-leader by the express desire of Bridport House, that warrior was on a voyage of discovery. In common with half the males of his age in the metropolis he was already in the thrall of the wonderful Princess Bedalia. In the opinion of connoisseurs she was the only one of her kind; for the past two hundred nights she had played “to capacity” at the Frivolity Theater, and even Jack Dinneford, who in one way or another had seen a goodish bit of the Old World and the New, could not repress an exquisite little thrill as her highness rose with rare politeness to receive him.
“She’s even more stunning than I guessed,” was the thought in Jack’s mind at the moment of presentation. He could almost feel the magnetism in her finger tips. She was so alive in every nerve that it would have called for no great power of imagination to detect vibration all round her.
“I feel greatly honored in meeting you,” said the young man with transparent honesty. He was no subscriber evidently to the maxim, “Language was given us to conceal our thoughts.” Somehow she couldn’t help liking him for it.
“The honor is mine.” The response was so ready, the humor behind it so genuine, that they both laughed whole-heartedly and became friends on the spot. There was no nonsense about Princess Bedalia, and the same applied to the brown-faced clear-eyed owner of the fanciful scarf pin.
The neat parlor maid brought tea. Wrexham, after a little amiable chaffing of Mrs. Wren, whom he had met on at least six occasions, provided Milly with tea and a macaroon, took the like for himself, and sat beside her without a care in the wide world. She was forbidden fruit; thus to frail humanity in its present phase she conveyed an idea of Paradise. Such a view was quite absurd, allowing even for the fact that Milly was an engaging creature, with a good heart, a ready tongue, a rather special kind of prettiness, and a particularly shrewd head.