"Are you enjoying yourself, Doctor McKirdy?" His hostess was smiling into the old Scotchman's face. She had seen with what troubled interest his eyes followed Mrs. Rebell and James Berwick—the Duchess would have given much to have been able to ask the doctor what he really thought about—well, about many things,—but her courage failed her. As he hesitated she bent forward and whispered, "Don't say that it's a splendid sight; you and I know what it is—a perfect clanjamfray! Confess that it is!" and as Doctor McKirdy's ugly face became filled with the spirit of laughter, the Duchess added, "You see I didn't have a Scotch mother for nothing!"
And Mrs. Boringdon, watching the little colloquy with a good deal of wonderment, marvelled that her Grace could demean herself to laugh and joke with such an insufferable nobody as she considered Doctor McKirdy to be!
CHAPTER XII.
"Que vous me coûtez cher, ô mon cœur, pour vos plaisirs!"
Comtesse Diane.
"Will you please introduce me to the lady with whom Mr. Daman has been talking all the evening? I have something I very much want to ask her, and I don't wish to say it before that horrid old man, so will you take him aside while I speak to her?"
Louise Marshall was standing before James Berwick. She looked beautiful, animated, good-humoured as he had not seen her look for a very long time, and the plaintive, rather sulky tone in which she had lately always addressed him was gone. There are women on whom the presence of a crowd, the atmosphere of violent admiration, have an extraordinary tonic effect. To-night, for the first time since she had become a widow, Mrs. Marshall felt that life, even without James Berwick, might conceivably be worth living; but unfortunately for himself, the man to whom she had just addressed what he felt to be so disquieting a request, did not divine her thoughts. Instead, suspicions—each one more hateful than the other—darted through his mind, and so, for only answer to her words he looked at her uncertainly, saying at last, "You mean Mrs. Rebell?"
She bent her head; they were standing close to the band, and it was difficult to hear, but he realized that she had some purpose in her mind, and there shone the same eager good-tempered smile on the face which others thought so lovely.