"Bah-h-h!" said Trix, with a perfect shake of scorn in the interjection. "I've no patience with you! Get out of my room—do!"
Mr. Stuart, senior, was the only one who did not take it quietly.
His bile rose at once.
"Edith! Edith Darrell! Fred Darrell's penniless daughter! Beatrix Stuart, have you let this young baronet slip through your fingers in this ridiculous way after all?"
"I never let him slip—he never was in my fingers," retorted Trix, nearly crying. "It's just my usual luck. I don't want him—he's a stupid noodle—that's what he is. Edith's better-looking than I am. Any one can see that with half an eye, and when I was sick on that horrid ship, she had everything her own way. I did my best—yes I did, pa—and I think it's a little too hard to be scolded in this way, with my poor sprained ankle and everything!"
"Well, there, there, child!" exclaimed Mr. Stuart, testily, for he was fond of Trix; "don't cry. There's as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. As to being better-looking than you, I don't believe a word of it. I never liked your dark complected women myself. You're the biggest and the best-looking young woman of the two, by George!" (Mr. Stuart's grammar was hardly up to the standard.) "There's this young fellow, Hammond—his father's a lord—rich, too, if his grandfather did make it cotton-spinning. Now, why can't you set your cap for him? When the old rooster dies, this young chap will be a lord himself, and a lord's better than a baronet, by George! Come downstairs, Trixy, and put on your stunningest gown, and see if you can't hook the military swell."
Following these pious parental counsels, Miss Trix did assume her "stunningest" gown, and with the aid of her brother and a crutch, managed to reach the dining-room. There Lady Helena, pale and preoccupied, joined them. No allusion was made at dinner to the topic—a visible restraint was upon all.
"Old lady don't half like it," chuckled Stuart pere. "And no wonder, by George! If it was Charley I shouldn't like it myself. I must speak to Charley after dinner—there's this Lady Gwendoline. He's got to marry the upper-crust too. Lady Gwendoline Stuart wouldn't sound bad, by George! I'm glad there's to be a baronet in the family, even if it isn't Trixy. A cousin's daughter's better than nothing."
So in the first opportunity after dinner Mr. Stuart presented his congratulations as blandly as possible to the future Lady Catheron. In the next opportunity he attacked his son on the subject of Lady Gwendoline.
"Take example by your Cousin Edith, my boy," said Mr. Stuart in a large voice, standing with his hands under his coat-tails. "That girl's a credit to her father and family, by George! Look at the match she's making without a rap to bless herself with. Now you've a fortune in prospective, young man, that would buy and sell half a dozen of these beggarly lordlings. You've youth and good looks, and good manners, or if you haven't you ought to have, and I say you shall marry a title, by George! There's this Lady Gwendoline—she ain't rich, but she's an earl's daughter. Now what's to hinder your going for her?"
Charley looked up meekly from the depths of his chair.