“But you might drive much better,” said the young man, calmly putting his hand on hers, moulding her fingers into a better grasp upon the reins, as composedly as if he were touching the springs of an instrument instead of a girl’s hand. She blushed, but he showed no sense of being aware that this touch was too much. He was the one of the strangers whom she liked best, probably because he was Sir Charles, which gave him a distinction over the others, or at least it did so to Stella. This was not, however, because she was unaccustomed to meet persons who shared the distinction, for the island people were very tolerant of such nouveaux riches as the Tredgolds, who were so very ready to add to their neighbours’ entertainment. Two pretty girls with money are seldom disdained in any community, and the father, especially as he was so well advised as to keep himself out of society, was forgiven them, so that the girls were sometimes so favoured as to go to a ball under Lady Jane’s wing, and knew all “the best people.” But even to those who are still more accustomed to rank than Stella, Sir Charles sounds better than Mr. So-and-so; and he had his share of good looks, and of that ease in society which even she felt herself to be a little wanting in. He did not defer to the girl, or pay her compliments in any old-fashioned way. He spoke to her very much as he spoke to the other young men, and gripped her fingers to give them the proper grasp of the reins with as much force of grip and as perfect calm as if she had been a boy instead of a girl. This rudeness has, it appears, its charm.
“I shouldn’t have wondered if he had called me Tredgold,” Stella said with a pretence at displeasure.
“What a horrid man!” Katherine replied, to whom this statement was made.
“Horrid yourself for thinking so,” cried her sister. “He is not a horrid man at all, he is very nice. We are going to be great—pals. Why shouldn’t we be great pals? He is a little tired of Lottie Seton and her airs, he said. He likes nice honest girls that say what they mean, and are not always bullying a fellow. Well, that is what he said. It is his language, it is not mine. You know very well that is how men speak, and Lottie Seton does just the same. I told him little thanks to him to like girls better than an old married woman, and you should have seen how he tugged his moustache and rolled in his seat with laughing. Lottie Seton must have suspected something, for she called out to us what was the joke?”
“I did not know you were on such terms with Mrs. Seton, Stella, as to call her by her Christian name.”
“Oh, we call them all by their names. Life’s too short for Missis That and Mr. This. Charlie asked me——”
“Charlie! why, you never saw him till to-day.”
“When you get to know a man you don’t count the days you’ve been acquainted with him,” said Stella, tossing her head, but with a flush on her face. She added: “I asked him to come over to lunch to-morrow and to see the garden. He said it would be rare fun to see something of the neighbourhood without Lottie Seton, who was always dragging a lot of fellows about.”
“Stella, what a very, very unpleasant man, to talk like that about the lady who is his friend, and who brought him here!”
“Oh, his friend!” cried Stella, “that is only your old-fashioned way. She is no more his friend! She likes to have a lot of men following her about everywhere, and they have got nothing to do, and are thankful to go out anywhere to spend the time; so it is just about as broad as it is long. They do it to please themselves, and there is not a bit of love lost.”