“Charlotte, allow me,—my friends, Prince Lucio Rimânez—Mr Geoffrey Tempest; gentlemen, my sister-in-law, Miss Charlotte Fitzroy.”
We bowed; the lady gave us a dignified bend of the head. She was an imposing looking spinster, with a curious expression on her features which was difficult to construe. It was pious and prim, but it also suggested the idea that she must [p 127] have seen something excessively improper once in her life and had never been able to forget it. The pursed-up mouth, the round pale-coloured eyes and the chronic air of insulted virtue which seemed to pervade her from head to foot all helped to deepen this impression. One could not look at Miss Charlotte long without beginning to wonder irreverently what it was that had in her long past youth so outraged the cleanly proprieties of her nature as to leave such indelible traces on her countenance. But I have since seen many English women look so, especially among the particularly ‘high bred,’ old and plain-featured of the “upper ten.” Very different was the saucy and bright physiognomy of the younger lady to whom we were next presented, and who, raising herself languidly from her reclining position, smiled at us with encouraging familiarity as we made our salutations.
“Miss Diana Chesney,”—said the Earl glibly—“You perhaps know her father, prince,—you must have heard of him at any rate—the famous Nicodemus Chesney, one of the great railway-kings.”
“Of course I know him”—responded Lucio warmly—“Who does not! I have met him often. A charming man, gifted with most remarkable humour and vitality—I remember him perfectly. We saw a good deal of each other in Washington.”
“Did you though?” said Miss Chesney with a somewhat indifferent interest,—“He’s a queer sort of man to my thinking; rather a cross between the ticket-collector and custom-house officer combined, you know! I never see him but what I feel I must start on a journey directly—railways seem to be written all over him. I tell him so. I say ‘Pa, if you didn’t carry railway-tracks in your face you’d be better looking.’ And you found him humorous, did you?”
Laughing at the novel and free way in which this young person criticised her parent, Lucio protested that he did.
“Well I don’t,”—confessed Miss Chesney—“But that may be because I’ve heard all his stories over and over again, and I’ve read most of them in books besides,—so they’re not much account to me. He tells some of them to the [p 128] Prince of Wales whenever he can get a chance,—but he don’t try them off on me any more. He’s a real clever man too; he’s made his pile quicker than most. And you’re quite right about his vitality,—my!—his laugh takes you into the middle of next week!”
Her bright eyes flashed merrily as she took a comprehensive survey of our amused faces.
“Think I’m irreverent, don’t you?” she went on—“But you know Pa’s not a ‘stage parent’ all dressed out in lovely white hair and benedictions,—he’s just an accommodating railway-track, and he wouldn’t like to be reverenced. Do sit down, won’t
you?”—then turning her pretty head coquettishly towards her host—“Make them sit down, Lord Elton,—I hate to see men standing. The superior sex, you know! Besides you’re so tall,” she added, glancing with unconcealed admiration at Lucio’s handsome face and figure, “that it’s like peering up an apple-tree at the moon to look at you!”