“It is not that I care for the novel; I had not begun it yet. It is written,” said Lucy, trying her new subject, “by a—gentleman we know; but, perhaps, as you have just come home, you may want dinner, or something, Mr.— I mean Sir Thomas?”
“You have heard of me, I see.”
“Oh, yes; Lady Randolph so often speaks of you; but I am not much used to people with titles,” Lucy said.
“Do you call mine a title? not much of that. We are commoners, you know; and I hear that whenever there is anything very wicked wanted in a novel, it is always found in a baronet; that is hard upon us, Miss Trevor. I wonder if there is a wicked baronet in the novel you have got there.”
“I have not read it yet; it is written,” said Lucy, hesitating, “by a gentleman we know. Lady Randolph is going to speak to everybody about it, and we hope it will be very successful.”
Lucy could not keep herself from showing a little consciousness. He took it up and she was very much alarmed lest he should see the dedication. She had never thought it would affect her, yet here, already, she had quite entered into Lady Randolph’s feelings. Fortunately he did not see it, though he turned over the volume in his large hands. He was large, all over, as different as it was possible to conceive from Bertie, who was slight and dainty, almost like a girl. Lucy was not sure that she had ever seen a man before so near, or spoken to one of this kind. He was so unlike the other people of her acquaintance that she could not help giving curious looks at him under the shade of the lamp. He did not keep still for a moment, but threw his bigness about so that it filled the room, sometimes getting up and walking up and down, taking up the chairs as if they were toys. He was a creature of a new species. She did not feel toward him as Miranda did to Ferdinand, who was probably an elegant stripling of the Bertie kind, but she was interested in the new being, who was not beautiful; he was so unlike anything she had ever seen before.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SIR TOM.
The days that followed were full of this big person. Lucy found his company so pleasant that she lingered, to her own great consternation, talking to him, till Lady Randolph returned; no, not talking very much to him, but yet telling him various things about herself, which she was greatly surprised to recollect afterward, and hearing him talk, which he did with a frankness and freedom equally unusual to her. When she heard Lady Randolph’s brougham draw up at the door, Lucy fairly jumped from her chair in alarm and wonder. What would Lady Randolph say? would she be angry? A sentiment of honor alone kept her from running away; and her look of innocent panic greatly amused Sir Tom.
“Are you afraid?” he said, with that great but harmonious laugh which softly shook the house. “Is she so hard upon you? Never mind, she is fond of me, though you would not think it, and there will be a general amnesty to-night.”
“Oh, I am not afraid,” Lucy said, with a smile. But she said to herself, what will Lady Randolph think? the dedication first, and now to sit up and chatter to a gentleman! But Lady Randolph’s voice had never been so soft, nor her countenance so genial. She was so glad to see “Tom” that she saw everything in the most favorable light. At least this was the interpretation Lucy put upon her cloudless graciousness.