"I asked how often Sir Victor danced with you last night."
"I really forget. Four times, I think—yes, four times. Why?"
"He danced six with me, and I'm sure he didn't dance more than half as often with any one else. Mamma thinks he means something, and he took me to supper, and told me about England. We had quite a long conversation; in fact, Edith, I fairly grow crazy with delight at the thought of one day being 'My lady.'"
"Why think of it, then, since it sets you crazy?" Edith suggested, with cool indifference. "I daresay you've heard the proverb, Trix, about counting your chickens before they're hatched. However, in this case I don't really see why you should despair. You're his equal in every way, and Sir Victor is his own master, and can do as he likes."
"Ah, I don't know!" Trix answered with a despondent sigh, "he's a baronet, and these English people go so much for birth and blood. Now you know we've neither. It's all very well for pa to name Charley after a prince, and spell Stuart, with a u instead of an ew, like everybody else, and say he's descended from the royal family of Scotland—there's something more wanted than that. He's sent to London, or somewhere, for the family coat-of-arms. You may laugh, Edith, but he has, and we're to seal our letters with a griffin rampant, or a catamount couchant, or some other beast of prey. Still the griffin rampant, doesn't alter the fact, that pa began life sweeping out a grocery, or that he was in the tallow business, until the breaking out of the rebellion. Lady Helena and Sir Victor are everything that's nice, and civil, and courteous, but when it comes to marrying, you know, that's quite another matter. Isn't he just sweet, though, Edith?"
"Who? Sir Victor? Poor fellow, what has he ever said or done to you, Trix, to deserve such an epithet as that? No, I am glad to say he didn't strike me as being 'sweet'—contrariwise, I thought him particularly sensible and pleasant."
"Well, can't a person be sweet and sensible too?" Trix answered, impatiently. "Did you notice his eyes? Such an expression of weariness and sadness, and—now what are you laughing at. I declare, you're as stupid as Charley. I can't express a single opinion that he doesn't laugh at. Call me sentimental if you like, but I say again he has the most melancholy expression I ever looked at. Do you know, Dithy, I love melancholy men."
"Do you?" said Edith, still laughing. "My dear lackadaisical Trixy! I must confess myself, I prefer 'jolly' people. Still you're not altogether wrong about our youthful baronet, he does look a prey at times to green and yellow melancholy. You don't suppose he has been crossed in love, do you? Are baronets—rich baronets—ever crossed in love I wonder. His large, rather light blue eyes, look at one sometimes as though to say:
"'I have a secret sorrow here,
A grief I'll ne'er impart,
It heaves no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes the 'art!'"
Miss Darrell was an actress by nature—she repeated this lachrymose verse, in a sepulchral tone of voice.