“Two and ninepence, I believe,” replied the lady, sweetly. “If you wish, I’ll ring and ask the cook. I’m glad you like it. There’s plenty more.”
“Only two and ninepence!” exclaimed Mopius, horror-stricken. “That’s the worst of it; you Europeans fancy you can get things without paying for them. I was in the East myself for twenty years; I know what good tea is—nobody better. I was famous for my tea at Batavia, Mevrouw, as Mevrouw Steelenaar told me, the Viceroy’s wife. ‘Mynheer Mopius,’ she said to me, ‘where do you get this delicious mixture?’ But I wouldn’t tell her. However, I’ll send you some. ’Pon my soul I shall. You shall know what tea is. I’ll send you a pound to-morrow. I’ll send you ten pounds.”
Helena bent forward from her listless couch; a lily of the valley dropped away among the laces of her gown, and Mynheer Mopius caught at it with eager, fat fingers.
“Mynheer, you will send me nothing,” said Helena, gravely. “Did I not make my meaning plain enough just now?” Then, not wishing to go too far, “I cannot receive presents, thank you.” And, unconsciously, the twinkle in her angry eyes wandered away to a big portrait of her florid Willie.
“Ah!” said Mopius, and put the lily in his button-hole. He did it fondly, lingeringly. He understood that young husbands are jealous, however unreasonably, of experienced, intelligent men of the world. His manner exasperated her. “I am sorry,” he said, flicking the flower. “I should have been only too glad, had there been anything I could have done for Mevrouw van Troyen.”
Mevrouw van Troyen burst out laughing. “Really?” she cried, “even leaving me when I must go and dress for dinner? Mynheer van Trossart dines with us to-night; he is going to take me to the theatre.” She rose.
Mopius rose also, but hung back. “Ah, the Baron van Trossart,” he said. “Just so! I am very anxious to make his acquaintance. Some day, perhaps, I hope—” He hesitated, looking wistfully at Helena.
Suddenly his manner, his tone, his expression explained the whole thing to her. It was not her young beauty that had attracted this poor creature. She remembered having heard some one speak of the town-councillor’s ambition. There was a vacancy in Parliament—
“You can stay and meet him now, if you like,” she said, ungraciously, but grasping at vengeance swift and sure. “Oh yes, he is well enough, thanks; only rather worried about this approaching election for Horstwyk. They can’t find, I am told, a desirable candidate.”
She paused by the door. One look at Mopius’s face was sufficient. “I don’t take much interest in politics,” she continued; “but, of course, my godfather does. He has so much influence. And he tells me that at Horstwyk they want a moderate man, one that would go down with many of the Clericals—a Conservative, in fact. Such people are so difficult to find nowadays. Everybody is extreme.”