“Proud!” she interrupted—“My! I guess it must feel something splendid to have an ancestor who was piked through the body on Bosworth field, and left there for the birds to eat. It seems to give a kind of stiffness in the back to all the family ever afterwards. Shouldn’t wonder if the descendants of the birds who ate him felt kinder stuck up about it too!”
I laughed,—she laughed with me, and was quite herself again.
“If I told you my ancestor was a Pilgrim Father, you [p 196] wouldn’t believe me I expect!” she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling.
“I should believe anything from your lips!” I declared gallantly.
“Well, believe that, then! Swallow it down if you can! I can’t! He was a Pilgrim Father in the Mayflower, and he fell on his knees and thanked God as soon as he touched dry land in the true Pilgrim-Father way. But he couldn’t hold a candle to the piked man at Bosworth.”
Here we were interrupted by the entrance of a footman.
“The carriage is waiting, Miss.”
“Thanks,—all right. Good-night Mr Tempest,—you’d better send word to Sibyl you are here; Lord Elton is dining out, but Sibyl will be at home all the evening.”
I offered her my arm, and escorted her to the carriage, feeling a little sorry for her as she drove off in solitary state to the festive ‘crush’ of the successful varnisher. She was a good girl, a bright girl, a true girl,—vulgar and flippant at times, yet on the whole sincere in her better qualities of character and sentiment,—and it was this very sincerity which, being quite unconventional and not at all la mode, was misunderstood, and would always be misunderstood by the higher and therefore more hypocritically polished circles of English society.
I returned to the drawing-room slowly and meditatively, telling one of the servants on my way to ask Lady Sibyl if she could see me for a few moments. I was not kept waiting long; I had only paced the room twice up and down when she entered, looking so strangely wild and beautiful that I could scarcely forbear uttering an exclamation of wonder. She wore white as was always her custom in the evenings,—her hair was less elaborately dressed than usual, and clustered over her brow in loose wavy masses,—her face was exceedingly pale, and her eyes appeared larger and darker by comparison—her smile was vague and fleeting like that of a sleep-walker. She gave me her hand; it was dry and burning.