Meanwhile the evening went on, and the drawing-room was waiting for Lord Hawkesley. Mrs. Dare and Adelaide were waiting for him—waiting anxiously in elegant attire. Mr. Dare did not seem to care whether he came or not; and Julia, who was buried in an easy chair with her book, would have preferred, of the two, that he stayed away. Between eight and nine he arrived. A little man; young, fair, with light eyes and sharp features, a somewhat cynical expression habitually on his lips. Helstonleigh, in its gossip, conjectured that he must be making young Anthony Dare useful to him in some way or other, or he would not have condescended to the intimacy. For Lord Hawkesley, a proud man by nature, had been reared as an earl's son and heir; which meant an exclusiveness far greater in those days than it is in these. This was the third evening visit he had paid to Mrs. Dare. Had Adelaide's good looks any attraction for him? She was beginning to think so, and to weave visions upon the strength of it. Entrenched as the Dares were in their folly and assumption, Adelaide was blind to the wide social gulf that lay between herself and Viscount Hawkesley.
She sat down at the piano at his request and sang an Italian song. She had a good voice, and her singing was better than her Italian accent. Lord Hawkesley stood by her and looked over the music.
"I like your style of singing very much," he remarked to her when the song was over. "You must have learnt of a good master."
"Comme ça," carelessly rejoined Adelaide. As is the case with many more young ladies who possess a superficial knowledge of French, she thought it the perfection of good taste to display as much of it as she did know. "I had the best professor that Helstonleigh can give; but what are Helstonleigh professors compared with those of London? We cannot expect first-rate talent here."
"Do you like London?" asked Lord Hawkesley.
"I was never there," replied Adelaide, feeling the confession, when made to Lord Hawkesley, to be nothing but a humiliation.
"Indeed! You would enjoy a London season."
"Oh, so much! I know nothing of the London season, except from books. A contrast to your lordship, you will say," she added, with a laugh. "You must be almost tired of it; désillusionné."
"What's that in English?" inquired Lord Hawkesley, whose French studies, as far as they had extended, had been utterly thrown away upon him. Labouring under the deficiency, he had to make the best of it, and did it with a boast. "Used up, I suppose you mean?"
Adelaide coloured excessively. She wondered if he was laughing at her, and made a mental vow never to speak French to a lord again.