"Liking? Well!" And Mrs. Marvelle, looking at herself once more in the glass, carefully arranged the ruffle of Honiton lace about her massive throat,—"It was a little more than liking—though, of course, her feelings were perfectly proper, and all that sort of thing,—at least, I suppose they were! She had a great friendship for him,—one of those emotional, perfectly spiritual and innocent attachments, I believe, which are so rare in this wicked world." Mrs. Marvelle sighed, then suddenly becoming practical again, she continued. "Yes, I shall go there and stop to luncheon, and talk this thing over. Then I'll drive on to the Van Clupps, and bring Marcia home to dinner. I suppose you don't object?"
"Object!" Mr. Marvelle made a deprecatory gesture, and raised his eyes in wonder. As if he dared object to anything whatsoever that his wife desired!
She smiled graciously as he approached, and respectfully kissed her smooth cool cheek, before taking his departure for his daily work as a lawyer in the city, and when he was gone, she betook herself to her own small boudoir, where she busied herself for more than an hour in writing letters, and answering invitations.
She was, in her own line, a person of importance. She made it her business to know everything and everybody—she was fond of meddling with other people's domestic concerns, and she had a finger in every family pie. She was, moreover, a regular match-maker,—fond of taking young ladies under her maternal wing, and "introducing" them to the proper quarters, and when, as was often the case, a distinguished American of many dollars but no influence offered her three or four hundred guineas for chaperoning his daughter into English society and marrying her well, Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pocketed the douceur quite gracefully, and did her best for the girl. She was a good-looking woman, tall, portly, and with an air of distinction about her, though her features were by no means striking, and the smallness of her nose was out of all proportion to the majesty of her form—but she had a very charming smile, and a pleasant, taking manner, and she was universally admired in that particular "set" wherein she moved. Girls adored her, and wrote her gushing letters, full of the most dulcet flatteries—married ladies on the verge of a scandal came to her to help them out of their difficulties—old dowagers, troubled with rheumatism or refractory daughters, poured their troubles into her sympathizing ears—in short, her hands were full of other people's business to such an extent that she had scarcely any leisure to attend to her own. Mr. Rush-Marvelle,—but why describe this gentleman at all? He was a mere nonentity—known simply as the husband of Mrs. Rush-Marvelle. He knew he was nobody—and, unlike many men placed in a similar position, he was satisfied with his lot. He admired his wife intensely, and never failed to flatter her vanity to the utmost excess, so that, on the whole, they were excellent friends, and agreed much better than most married people.
It was about twelve o'clock in the day, when Mrs. Rush-Marvelle's neat little brougham and pair stopped at Lord Winsleigh's great house in Park Lane. A gorgeous flunkey threw open the door with a virtuously severe expression on his breakfast-flushed countenance,—an expression which relaxed into a smile of condescension on seeing who the visitor was.
"I suppose Lady Winsleigh is at home, Briggs?" inquired Mrs. Marvelle, with the air of one familiar with the ways of the household.
"Yes'm," replied Briggs slowly, taking in the "style" of Mrs. Rush-Marvelle's bonnet, and mentally calculating its cost. "Her ladyship is in the boo-dwar."
"I'll go there," said Mrs. Marvelle, stepping into the hall, and beginning to walk across it, in her own important and self-assertive manner. "You needn't announce me."
Briggs closed the street-door, settled his powdered wig, and looked after her meditatively. Then he shut up one eye in a sufficiently laborious manner and grinned. After this he retired slowly to a small ante-room, where he found the World with its leaves uncut. Taking up his master's ivory paper-knife, he proceeded to remedy this slight inconvenience,—and, yawning heavily, he seated himself in a velvet arm-chair, and was soon absorbed in perusing the pages of the journal in question.
Meanwhile Mrs. Marvelle, in her way across the great hall to the "boo-dwar," had been interrupted and nearly knocked down by the playful embrace of a handsome boy, who sprang out upon her suddenly with a shout of laughter,—a boy of about twelve years old, with frank, bright blue eyes and clustering dark curls.