Miss Darrell turned to the piano with a frown, but her eyes were smiling, and in her secret heart she was well-content. Charley was beside her. Charley had given up the ball and Mrs. Featherbrain for her. It was of no use denying it, she was fond of Charley. Of late it had dawned dimly and deliciously upon her that Sir Victor Catheron was growing very attentive. If so wildly improbable a thing could occur, as Sir Victor's falling in love with her, she was ready at any moment to be his wife; but for the love which alone makes marriage sweet and holy, which neither time, nor trouble, nor absence, can change—that love she felt for her cousin Charley, and no other mortal man.
It was a very pleasant evening—how pleasant, Edith did not care to own, even to herself. Aunt Chatty dozed sweetly in her arm-chair, she in her place at the piano, and Charley taking comfort on his sofa, and calmly and dispassionately finding fault with her music. That those two could spend an evening, an hour, together, without disagreeing, was simply an utter impossibility. Edith invariably lost her temper—nothing earthly ever disturbed Charley's. Presently, in anger and disgust, Miss Darrell jumped up from the piano-stool, and protested she would play no more.
"To be told I sing Kathleen Mavourneen flat, and that the way I hold my elbows when I play Thalberg's 'Home,' is frightful to behold, I will not stand! Like all critics, you find it easier to point out one's faults, than to do better. It's the very last time, sir, I'll ever play a note for you!"
But, somehow, after a skirmish at euchre, at which she was ignobly beaten, and, I must say, shamefully cheated, she was back at the piano, and it was the clock striking twelve that made her start at last.
"Twelve! Goodness me. I didn't think it was half-past ten!" Mr. Stuart smiled, and stroked his mustache with calm complacency. "Aunt Chatty, wake up! It's midnight—time all good little women were in bed."
"You need not hurry yourself on that account, Dithy," Charley suggests, "if the rule only applies to good little women."
Miss Darrell replies with a glance of scorn, and wakes up Mrs. Stuart.
"You were sleeping so nicely I thought it a pity to wake you sooner. Come, auntie dear, we'll go upstairs together. You know we have a hard day's work before us to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Stuart."
"Good-night, my love," Mr. Stuart responded, making no attempt to stir. Edith linked her strong, young arm in that of her sleepy aunt and led her upstairs. He lay and watched the slim green figure, the beautiful bright face, as it disappeared in a mellow flood of gaslight. The clear, sweet voice came floating saucily back:
"And Charley he's my darling,
My darling—my darling,
And Charley he's my darling,
The young Chevalier!"