Chapter Six.
Marrying or Giving in Marriage.
“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the king, “that saves a world of trouble, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know.”
Alice in Wonderland.
November was not bright everywhere, however. In Paris everything, out of doors, that is to say, was looking extremely dull, and Alys Cheviott many times, during the four weeks her brother had arranged to stay there, wished herself at home again at Romary. For Paris, though people who have only visited it in spring or summer (when the sunshine, and the heat, and the crowds, and the holiday aspect of everything are almost overwhelming) can hardly perhaps realise the fact, can be exceedingly dull, and hotel life at all times requires bright weather, and plenty of outside interests, to make it endurable. Alys did not care particularly about balls or parties; she was too young to have acquired much taste for such amusements, though young enough to enjoy heartily the two or three receptions at which Mr Cheviott had allowed her to “assist.” But it was the day-time she found so long and dreary. She wanted to go out, to shop and to look about her, and to take long walks in the Bois de Boulogne in the morning, and drives with her brother in the afternoon, and every day the weather put all expeditions of the kind out of the question. It rained incessantly, or, at least, as she complained piteously, “when it didn’t rain it did worse—it looked so black and gloomy that no one had the heart to do anything.” Alys had been in Paris several times before, she had seen all the orthodox lions, and had not, therefore, the interest and excitement of the perfect novelty of her surroundings to support her, and as day after day passed, with no improvement to speak of, she began sorely to regret having teased her brother into allowing her to accompany him on this visit, in this case necessitated by the business arrangements of a friend.
“I’ll never come with you again, Laurence, anywhere, when it has anything to do with business,” she declared.
“Who is ‘it’?” inquired Mr Cheviott, calmly.
“Laurence, you are not to tease me. I am too worried to stand it, I am, really,” she replied.
”‘It’ again! Alys, you are growing incorrigible. I really think my best plan would be to send you to a good school for a year or two—the sort of place where ‘young ladies of neglected education’ are taken in hand.”
He spoke so seriously that for a quarter of a second Alys wondered if he could be in earnest. She turned sharply round from the window against which she had been pressing her pretty face in a sort of affectation of babyish discontent, staring out at the leaden sky, and the wet street, and the dreary-looking gardens in the distance.
“Laurence!” she exclaimed. But Laurence’s next remark undeceived her.