"Jealous! I! It would take a very extraordinary kind of wife, and a very extraordinary kind of admirer of that wife, to make me jealous."
Dopsy felt her hopes in somewise revived by Mr. Tregonell's manner of looking at things. Up to this point she had mistrusted exceedingly that the flirting was all on her side: but now Leonard most distinctly averred that Angus Hamleigh had flirted, and in a manner obvious to every one. And if Mr. Hamleigh really admired her—if he were really blowing hot and cold—inclining one day to make her his wife, and on another day disposed to let her languish and fade in South Belgravia—might not a word or two from a judicious friend turn the scale, and make her happy for life.
She went up to her room to dress in a flutter of hope and fear; so agitated, that she could scarcely manage the more delicate details of her toilet—the drapery of her skirt, the adjustment of the sunflower on her shoulder.
"How flushed and shaky you are," exclaimed Mopsy, pausing in the pencilling of an eyebrow to look at her sister. "Is the deed done? Has he popped?"
"No, he has not popped. But I think he will."
"I wish I were of your opinion. I should like a rich sister. It would be the next best thing to being well off oneself."
"You only think of his money," said Dopsy, who had really fallen in love—for only about the fifteenth time, so there was still freshness in the feeling—"I should care for him just as much if he were a pauper."
"No; you would not," said Mopsy. "I daresay you think you would, but you wouldn't. There is a glamour about money which nobody in our circumstances can resist. A man who dresses perfectly—who has never been hard up—who has always lived among elegant people—there is a style about him that goes straight to one's heart. Don't you remember how in "Peter Wilkins" there are different orders of beings—a superior class—born so, bred so—always apart and above the others. Mr. Hamleigh belongs to that higher order. If he were poor and shabby he would be a different person. You wouldn't care twopence for him."
The Rector of Trevalga and his wife dined at Mount Royal that evening, so Dopsy fell to the lot of Mr. Hamleigh, and had plenty of opportunity of carrying on the siege during dinner, while Mrs. Tregonell and the Rector, who was an enthusiastic antiquarian, talked of the latest discoveries in Druidic remains.
After dinner came the usual adjournment to billiards. The Rector and his wife stayed in the drawing-room with Christabel and Jessie. Mr. Hamleigh would have remained with them, but Leonard specially invited him to the billiard-room.