CHAPTER X
About a month passed by, and the scene which I have alluded to seemed to have receded like distant smoke. Lady Helen and my father were the best of friends. I went to see Lady Carrington as often as I could, but for some reason Lady Helen Dalrymple and she were only the merest acquaintances, and I could see that Lady Helen was jealous when Lady Carrington invited me to her house. The days I spent with that good woman were the happiest of my life just then, but they were few and far between.
I saw very little of father. After our long delightful day at Richmond he seemed to pass more or less out of my life. He seemed to me to be an absolute and complete cipher, so much so that I could not bear to look at him. His hearty, happy, jolly, delightful manners were subdued, his eyes were more sunken than they used to be, and the colour in his cheeks had quite faded. I used to gaze at him with a pang at my heart, and wonder if he were really growing thin. He hardly ever said now, "Hallo, hallo! here we are!" or "Oh, I say, how jolly!" In fact, I never heard any of his old hearty exclamations; but what annoyed me most was that when Lady Helen was present he hardly took any notice of me.
Nevertheless, I had my good times, for by now I was tired of sitting up half the night and of going to endless dances and listening to innumerable empty compliments, and being smiled at by men whom I could not take the faintest interest in, and whose names I hardly remembered. But as the summer came on faster and faster, and the London season advanced to its height, I did enjoy my morning walks with Morris. Lady Helen had said something about my having a horse to ride, but up to the present I was not given one, and consequently I walked with Morris, and we invariably went into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens.
I remember a day early in May, when I unexpectedly met Captain Carbury. I was sitting on a chair, with Morris next to me, when I saw him in the distance. He pushed rapidly through a crowd of people, and came up to my side. He took a chair close to mine.
"Can't you get your maid to walk about for a short time?" he said. "I have something of great importance I want to say to you."
I turned towards Morris.
"Morris, will you kindly go to the first entrance and buy me two shillingsworth of violets?" I said to the girl.
Morris rose at once to do what I asked.