“Oh, as for audacity,” said Mrs. Ford, “that is neither here nor there, we are well used to it; but whenever you like to come, Mr. Russell, you’ll find a welcome. I knew your good father well, and a better man never was—”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Rushton, eager to introduce herself, “I must be allowed to say so too. I knew Mr. Russell very well, though I never had the pleasure of making acquaintance with his family. I am afraid, after the society you must have been seeing, you will find Farafield a very benighted sort of place. There is nothing that can be called society here.”
“That is so much the better,” said Bertie graciously; “one has plenty of it in the season, it is a relief to be let alone: and my object in coming here is not society.”
“Oh, I told you, Lucy,” cried his sister, “he has come to study.” A frown crossed Bertie’s face; he gave her a warning look. “I want rest,” he said; “there is nothing like lying fallow. It does one all the good in the world.”
“Ah!” cried Mrs. Rushton, “I know what that means. You have come to take us all off, Mr. Russell; we will all be put into your new book.”
Bertie smiled a languid and indulgent smile. “If I could suppose that there were any eccentricities to be found in your circle,” he said, “perhaps—but good breeding is alike over all the world.”
Mrs. Rushton did not quite know what this meant; but it was either a compliment or something that sounded like one. She was delighted with this elegant young man of genius, who was so familiar with and indifferent to society. “If you will come to the little picnic I am planning for to-morrow, you shall judge for yourself,” she said; “and perhaps Mrs. Stone will let your sister come too,” she added, with less cordiality. Katie, whom every one knew to be only a governess-pupil, had not attracted her attention much. She had been accepted with toleration now and then as Lucy’s friend, but as the sister of a young literary lion, who no doubt knew all kinds of fine people, Katie became of more importance. Bertie took the invitation with great composure, though his sister, who was not blasée, looked up with sparkling eyes.
“To-morrow?” he said; “I am Katie’s slave and at her disposal. I will come with pleasure if my sister will let me come.”
Was it wise? Mrs. Rushton asked herself, with a little shiver. She made a mental comparison between this new-comer and Ray. The proverbial blindness of love is not to be trusted in, in such emergencies. His mother saw, with great distinctness, that Raymond had not that air, that je ne sais quoi; nor could he talk about society, nor had he the easy superiority, the conscious genius of Bertie. But then the want of these more splendid qualities put him more on Lucy’s level. Lucy (thank Heaven!) was not clever. She would not understand the other’s gifts; and Ray was a little, just a little taller, his hair curled, which Bertie’s did not; Mrs. Rushton thought that, probably, the author would be open to adulation, and would like to be worshiped by the more important members of the community. What could he care for a bit of a girl? So, on the whole, she felt herself justified in her invitation. She offered the brother and sister seats in the break, in which she herself and the greater part of her guests were to drive to the Abbey, and she made herself responsible for the consent of Mrs. Stone. “Of course I shall ask Mr. St. Clair, Lucy,” she said. “I always like to ask him, poor fellow! he must be so dull with nothing but ladies from morning till night.”
“Happy man,” Bertie said; “what could he desire more?”