But soon he reined his fury’s pace. “After all, it is no business of mine,” he resumed, “besides, what could an uncultivated clod like me have in common with a noble refined lady like that! Now if she were only poor or in need of a friend, and,” warming to his work, “in danger of her life, there would be some show for me, but as it is, my case is simply hopeless,” with which moody reflections Mr. Johnstone slowly wended his way downstairs to a late breakfast.
He found Miss Maud, the daughter of the house, presiding at the breakfast table, with that radiant look and well groomed air peculiar to English country girls, and by and by, when they were left alone, he managed to turn the conversation to the object of his adoration.
“We think all the world of her,” remarked his companion. “She is one of nature’s true noble-women. She gave up the best years of her life to her invalid father, and now I suppose she will never marry.”
“Why it seems to me,” quickly replied Johnstone, “that young fellow Howard is paying her marked attention. And he is quite young and very good-looking.”
This sentence bore so dismal a tone that Miss Maud looked up, and after regarding the speaker with a demure glance, she arose from the table simultaneously with her vis-à-vis, and thereby terminated the morning meal.
As she saw Mr. Johnstone standing on the steps a few minutes later, in a listless attitude uncommon in so stalwart and well-knit a figure, she remarked to herself, “and so you are caught, my handsome but unsophisticated Antipodian.”
That evening at dinner an accident occurred which, for a time, assumed the dimensions of a calamity. Colonel Ponsonby-Fitzwaring, it must be stated, was lord lieutenant of the county in which he lived, and although he bore no title he occupied a position and lived in a style unsurpassed by any titled magnate within a hundred miles. Dinners at the Hall under his régime assumed the importance of State festivals, and the order of procedence was as carefully observed as at any court ceremony.
At eight o’clock, when the dining-room’s stately doors were thrown wide open, it was accordingly a brilliant procession which Colonel Fitzwaring—albeit still somewhat shaky from the gout—headed with the worthy Bishop’s lady on his arm. Mrs. Penelope Broadbent was proud of her revered husband, and she was, subject to no deductions, proud, also, of herself. She was a lady of magnificent quantities, and if none of her numerous admirers used the word “stately” in describing her, it was probably because her wealth of proportion was other than perpendicular. If a great and artistic photographer had had to choose as to the best means of getting a really accurate and comprehensive likeness of Mrs. Penelope Broadbent, it is probable that he would have decided on a bird’s-eye view as having many points of advantage.
The lady, although of somewhat ardent complexion, affected the most delicate conceivable shades of dress, probably by the way of contrast. The latter was certainly sufficiently startling. On this particular evening the dress which sheltered and adorned, without qualifying, the tropical super-abundance of the bishop’s greater half, was a delicate primrose satin, and it shimmered and billowed in the softened light like waves of embodied chastity, while above it rose and fell a tossing wave of glittering jewels, the Broadbent historic gems, the envy, it was said, of Royalty itself.
The Bishop’s lady, as became her rank, sat at the right hand of the host, while her benign and dignified lord sat next to the hostess at the bottom of the table.