Brian, who saw Ida's pained expression, made haste to change the conversation, by an inquiry about Sir Vernon's plans for the autumn, which set that gentleman on a sporting tack, and spared Miss Palliser all further trouble.
After luncheon they went to look at the hot-houses, and dawdled away the time very agreeably until afternoon tea, Miss Rylance doing her best to improve the occasion with Peter, who was not educated up to the standard of metropolitan or South Kensingtonian young ladyhood, and who came out very badly under the process of development; for when talked to about Ruskin he was at first altogether vacuoous, but, on being pushed har believed there was a biggish swell of some such name among the Oxford dons, about whom he could not fairly be expected to know anything, as he and his brother were Cantabs: while on being languidly asked his opinion of Swinburne's last tragedy, he grew cheerful, and said he had seen him play the King to Irving's Hamlet, and that it was a very fine performance, the actor in question being a good stayer.
The thing was hopeless, and Miss Rylance felt she was wasting herself upon a dolt. After this she hardly took the trouble to suppress her yawns; yet if she had condescended to question Peter about his Alpine adventures, or to talk about his horses, guns, and dogs, she would have found him lively enough as a companion; but an education of musical 'at homes' and afternoon teas had tuned Miss Rylance's slender pipe to one particular strain, which did not suit everybody's dancing. She was heavy at heart, feeling that the whole business of the day had conduced to Ida Palliser's glorification. To be the daughter of a man born in that substantial family mansion—scion of a respectable old county family—was in itself a distinction far beyond anything Miss Rylance could boast, her grandfather having been a chemist and druggist in an obscure market town, and her father the architect of his own fortunes. She had done her best to forget this fact hitherto, but it was brought home to her mind unpleasantly to-day, when she saw the articled pupil, whose three pairs of stockings had moved her to scornful wonder, strolling about her ancestral home by the side of her first cousin, and that first cousin a baronet of Charles II's creation.
Sir Vernon and his brother were full of cordiality for their cousin, full of anticipations of future meetings, and of hopes that Captain Palliser would come to them in October for what they called a 'shy' at the pheasants.
Ida had good cause to remember that parting in front of the classic portico in the warm afternoon sunlight, the two brothers standing side by side, with frank, bright faces, looking up at their departing guests, all smiles and cheerful pleasure in this world's pleasantest things—a Dandie Dinmont and a big black-and-tan colley looking on at their master's knees—the beau idéal of young English manhood—frank, generous, outspoken, fearless—the men who can do and die when the need comes. Her eyes lingered affectionately on that picture as the wagonette drove away by the broad gravel sweep towards the avenue; and those two figures in the sunlight haunted her memory in the days to come.
CHAPTER XVII.
OUGHT SHE TO STAY?
A week after the drive to Wimperfield Miss Wendover received a very big box of peaches and grapes, enclosing a very brief letter from Vernon Palliser to his cousin Ida.
'My dear Ida,—I venture to send Miss Wendover some of our fruit,' he wrote, 'for I understood her to say she has not much glass, and grows only flowers. Peter and I are just off to Scotland, where I suppose we shall do a little shooting, and I hope a good deal of yachting and fishing. I wish you and that nice plump little friend of yours—Bessie, I think you called her—were coming to us. Such a jolly life, bobbing about between the islands and the mainland, with the chance of an occasional storm. But I shall look forward to seeing you again in October, when I hope Miss Wendover will bring you over to stay for a week or two. What splendid ideas she has about summering hunters!—never met a more sensible woman. Always your affectionate cousin, VERNON PALLISER.'
Aunt Betsy was pleased with the tribute of hothouse fruit, and even more gratified by that remark about summering horses.