“Afterwards isn’t now, Cousin Agnes. And I am doing my best, as papa wished,” said the girl weariedly. “Do let us talk of something else. Really sometimes I do wish I were any one but myself.”
“Maisie,” said her cousin reproachfully, “you know, dear, that isn’t right. You must take the cares and responsibilities of a position like yours along with the advantages and privileges of it.”
“I know,” Miss Fforde replied meekly enough; “but, Cousin Agnes, do tell me who was that very funny-looking man with the long fluffy beard whom you were talking to for some time.”
“Oh, that, my dear, was Count Dalmiati, the celebrated so-and-so,” and once launched in her descriptions Cousin Agnes left Maisie in peace.
Two days later came the afternoon of Lady Valence’s garden-party. It was one of the garden parties to which “everybody” went—Despard Norreys for one, as a matter of course. He had got more gratification and less annoyance out of his second meeting with Miss Fforde; for he flattered himself he knew how to manage her now—“that little girl in black, who thinks herself so wonderfully wise, forsooth!” Yet the sting was there still; the very persistence with which he repeated to himself that he had mastered her showed it. His thoughts recurred to her more than they were in the habit of doing to any one or anything but his own immediate concerns. Out of curiosity, merely, no doubt; curiosity increased by the apparent improbability of satisfying it. For no one seemed to know anything about her. She might have dropped from the skies. He had indeed some difficulty in recalling her personality to the two or three people to whom he applied for information.
“A girl in black—at the Leslies’ musical party? Why, my dear fellow, there were probably a dozen girls in black there. There usually is a good sprinkling of black frocks at evening parties,” said one of the knowers of everybody whom he had selected to honour with his inquiries. “What was there remarkable about her? There must have been something to attract your notice.”
“No, on the contrary,” Despard replied, “she was remarkably unremarkable;” and he laughed lightly. “It was only rather absurd. I have seemed haunted by her once or twice lately, and yet nobody knows anything about her, except that her name is Ford.”
“Ford,” said his companion; “that does not tell much. And not pretty, you say?”
“Pretty, oh, yes. No, not exactly pretty,” and a vision of Maisie’s clear cold profile and—yes, there was no denying it—most lovely eyes, rose before him. “More than pretty,” he would have said had he not been afraid of being laughed at. “I don’t really know how to describe her, and it is of less than no consequence. I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again,” and he went on to talk of other matters.
He did see her again, however, and it was, as will have already been supposed, at Lady Valence’s garden-party that he did so. It was a cold day, of course. The weather, with its usual consideration, had changed that very morning, after having been, for May, really decently mild and agreeable. The wind had veered round to the east, and it seemed not improbable that the rain would look in, an uninvited guest, in the course of the afternoon.