They walked up to the house merrily, over the grey, frosty grass, Hetty and Peggy running on in front and racing and wheeling like fox-terriers, so elated by the day’s delights. Peggy had distinguished herself on her borrowed skates. Her teacher declared she was a born skater.
Lady Hartley was sunning herself in the broad portico, waiting to receive her guests. Miss Green had gone out shooting with Sir Hubert and his party. There were only Mrs. Vansittart, Mrs. Baddington, and Mr. Tivett at home.
“Only us two men among all you ladies,” said Tivett, cheerily, as they assembled before the huge wood fire in the drawing-room.
“Hadn’t you better say us one and a half, Gussie?” asked Mrs. Baddington, laughing. “It seems rather absurd to talk of yourself and Mr. Vansittart as if you were of the same weight and substance.”
Mr. Tivett, who was half hidden between Hetty and Peggy, received this attack with his usual amiability. “Never mind weight and substance,” he said; “in moral influence I feel myself a giant.”
“Not without justification,” said Vansittart. “If you were to compare Tivett’s reception at a West End tea-party with mine you would see what a poor thing mere brute force is in an intellectual environment.”
“Oh, they like me,” replied Tivett, modestly, “because I can talk chiffons. I can tell them of the newest ladies’ tailor—some little man who lives in an alley, but has found out the way to cut a habit or a coat, and is going to take the town by storm next season. I can put them up to the newest shade of bronze or auburn hair—the Princess’s shade. I can tell them lots of things, and the dear souls know that I am interested in all that interests them.”
“I never talk to Gussie Tivett without thinking how much nicer a womanly man is than a manly woman,” said Mrs. Baddington, meditatively.
“Ah, that is because the former imitates the superior sex, the latter the inferior,” answered Lady Hartley.
Eve sat in the snug armchair where Vansittart had placed her, silent, but happy, looking about the room and admiring the wonderful mixture of old and new things; furniture that was really old, furniture that cleverly reproduced the antique; trifles and modern inventions of all kinds which make a rich woman’s drawing-room a wonderland for the dwellers in shabby houses; the tall standard lamps of copper or brass or wrought iron, with their fantastical shades; the abundance of flowers and flowering plants and palms, in a season when for the commonalty flowers are not; all those things made an atmosphere of luxury which Colonel Marchant’s daughter needs must feel in sharpest contrast with her own surroundings.