”‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire,’” thought the unfortunate Evelyn; “this time I must brave it out.”
“Is your dog a dachs?” she said, quickly. “Oh, yes, I remember seeing him; he tried to jump into the carriage, but I wasn’t really frightened, only startled for a moment. Is he with you here? You must introduce him formally, if so. I love dachshunds—our favourite dog was a dachs. He died—some years ago. We can hardly bear to talk of it even now.”
A perplexed look stole over Michael Gresham’s face at her words. Was he dreaming? or going through one of those strange experiences familiar to us all, in which it seems as if we were living for a second time through some event, or train of events, often of the most trivial, which has already happened?
No; the conviction he now felt that words almost similar to those Mrs Headfort had just uttered had quite recently been addressed to him, was too strong, too unmistakable to have anything of fancy about it.
“By Jove,” he thought, “it was the girl in the railway carriage—her maid—who told me the very same thing about a dachshund she had had. I can’t make it out. They didn’t seem to be talking like mistress and maid when Solomon jumped at them, though I didn’t hear clearly what they were saying. There was something inconsistent about the girl from the first. Well, it’s no business of mine.” Then, conscious that Evelyn’s eyes were still directed towards him, he threw off his hesitation and answered lightly:
“I hope the association will not be too painful to prevent your making friends with my Solomon. Not that I don’t sympathise in the loss of a dog—it’s a terrible thing.”
“Don’t let my cousin get on to dogs, Mrs Headfort, his own dogs especially,” interrupted the elder Gresham; “he’ll go on for hours about that Solomon of his, I warn you.”
Evelyn smiled gently. In her heart she was not very devoted to dogs. Bonny and Vanda were much more adorable pets. Nor was she anxious in any way to grow more familiar with the dachshund’s master.
“He must be rather a stupid young man,” she thought, as she glanced across the table at Michael’s somewhat rugged face. “His cousin evidently thinks him so, and all the better for us if he is not observant. And, oh! how plain-looking he is compared to this one!”
For the moment, however, she had not much opportunity of admiring her neighbour’s clear-cut features. For her host, having done his duty so far by the elderly dowager on his right hand, now felt free to turn his attention to his cousin’s pretty young wife. A kindly question or two about her “Duke” and his doings—even more, some allusion to the incomparable Bonny, set Evelyn perfectly at her ease. The conversation which ensued, though of the liveliest interest to herself and not without charm for the squire himself, naturally left her orthodox companion somewhat out in the cold. For on his other side was placed a certain Miss Worthing, a person whom he would have characterised as a “bread-and-butter miss,” whose timid attempt at breaking the silence met with but faint success, for all the answers that Mr Gresham condescended to make to her were monosyllabic and discouraging in the extreme.