“Oh! Ambitious, don’t you know,” Miss Ward explained vaguely. “All the things he ever wanted to be and to do, and couldn’t, he is determined that Stanor shall do for him. He is clever, and studious, and serious, so he is set on it that the poor boy should be a book-worm, too, and put study before everything else, and have serious ideas on—er—er—the responsibility of property.” Honor frowned at the tips of her small satin shoes. “Drains, you know, and cottages, and overcrowding the poor. Of course that kind of thing comes easy enough when you are thirty-five and lame, but poor Stanor is only twenty-four, and as handsome as paint. It’s difficult to be serious-minded at twenty-four, and patient with people who fuss!”
Pixie knitted her brows with an air of perturbation.
“But I hope he is nice to his uncle. It would be so hard to be hurt in your body and hurt in your mind at the same time. It’s bad enough for him, poor creature, to have to sit still and live his life through another. His heart is not crippled, nor his mind, nor his will, and fancy, me dear, going on being patient, day after day, year after year, while your body held you back, and you longed, and couldn’t, and felt the spirit to move a mountain, and were obliged to lie still on a sofa!” Pixie bounced in a characteristic fashion on her own sofa corner, and whisked a minute pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. “Excuse me, me dear, will you change the conversation? I was always soft-hearted, but red eyes at a dinner party are not à la mode. ... Let’s talk about pickles!—”
Chapter Seven.
Pixie is Dull.
Geoffrey Hilliard and his two guests entered the drawing-room, and Pixie’s eyes turned to greet them with a smile. She was longing to talk to each one of them in turns, and with her usual complacency was assured that each would reciprocate the wish. But the next moment brought with it a jar, for Geoffrey crossed the room to join his wife, and the two younger men made a bee-line for the chair by the other side of the sofa, whereon Honor sat ensconced!
It was only a minute, less than a minute, before Stanor had established a lead, and Mr Carr’s deviation to the left was a triumph of smiling composure; nevertheless, Pixie’s sharp eyes had seen and understood, and her heart felt a natural girlish pang. At twenty it is hard to accept with resignation the part of second fiddle, and Pixie’s generosity had its limits—as whose has not? She had looked at Honor’s pretty face and costly gown, had heard of her wealth and independence with the purest and most ungrudging pleasure, but when it became a case of superior popularity, that was a very different matter! Positively, it was quite an effort to twist her lips into a smile to greet Mr Carr, and it made matters no better to perceive the artificiality of his response.
He was a man several years older than the handsome Stanor, and his type of face was so essentially legal that his profession as barrister could be guessed even before it was known. His chin was the most pronounced feature of the face—it was really interesting to discover just how assertive a chin could be. It was a prominent, deeply indented specimen, which ascribed to itself so much power of expression that even the eyes themselves played a secondary part. The tilt of it, the droop of it, the aggressive tilt forward were each equally eloquent, and, one felt sure, must make equal appeal to a British jury.