“Aye, indeed, kindred spirits,” said the baronet, nodding and smiling complacently. “But how is this, eh? May we hope to monopolize these privileges all the evening?”
“Here comes a rival,” answered the Marquise, as the door opened, and Mr. Thomas Bendibow was ushered in. “I expect Mr. Philip Lancaster also. Do you know him, Mr. Fillmore? How do you do, Tom? What lovely flowers! For me? You are preux chevalier; that is more than your papa ever did for me.”
“You know I don’t think of anything but you—well, I don’t, by George! Oh, I say, don’t you look ravishing to-night, Perdita!” exclaimed this ingenuous youth. “I say, there ain’t any other people coming, are there? I want to have you all to myself to-night.”
“Tom, you are not to make love to your sister—before company!”
“Oh, sister be——! I know—you are going to flirt with that Lancaster fellow—”
“You have not told me if you know Mr. Lancaster?” said the Marquise, turning to Merton Fillmore.
“I have read his ‘Sunshine of Revolt,’ ” replied the solicitor.
“Good Gad!” ejaculated Sir Francis, below his breath. He was gazing toward the doorway, in which several persons now appeared—the Lockhart party, in fact—and his ruddy visage became quite pallid.
The Marquise’s beautiful eyes lighted up. She had had some secret doubts as to whether Lancaster would come, for she understood not a little of the intricacies of that gentleman’s character; but here he was, and she felt that she had scored the first success in the encounter. To get the better of any one, the first condition is to get him within your reach. But Perdita took care that the brightness of her eyes should not shine upon Philip too soon. She turned first upon Mrs. Lockhart and Marion. She had taken the former’s measure at first sight, and knew how to make her feel pleased and at ease. Marion was a more complex problem; but Marion did not know the world, and it was simple enough to disappoint her probable anticipation that the Marquise would at once monopolize Philip. The Marquise lost no time in introducing Philip to Mr. Fillmore, on the basis of the latter’s having read “The Sunshine of Revolt,” and left the two gentlemen to make friends or foes of each other as they might see fit. She then devoted herself to the two ladies, and incidentally to Mr. Grant, whom she had invited simply as a friend of theirs, and in whom she took no particular interest. Mr. Thomas Bendibow, considering himself slighted, strolled off into an adjoining room to indulge his wrongs over a glass of sherry. The baronet, who was almost manifestly laboring under some unusual embarrassment or emotion, attached himself, after some hesitation, to the Marquise’s party, and endeavored to monopolize the conversation of Mr. Grant. That gentleman, however, met his advances with a quiet reticence, which was beyond Sir Francis’ skill to overcome. By degrees he found himself constrained to address himself more and more to Mrs. and Miss Lockhart; and Perdita, somewhat to her own surprise, was drawn more and more to look and speak to Mr. Grant. There was something about him—in his old-fashioned but noticeable aspect, in his quiet, observant manner—in the things he said—that arrested the Marquise’s attention in spite of herself. Here was a man who had seen and known something: a man—not a suit of clothes, with a series of set grimaces, attitudes and phrases. Manhood had an invincible attraction for this lady, no matter what the guise in which it presented itself to her. At last she and Mr. Grant insensibly settled down to what was practically a tête-à-tête.
“You must find it lonely here in England after so many years,” she said.