It was not to be expected that Mildred would be prepossessed by Miss Trelawny in a first visit. Not for weeks, nor for long afterwards, did she form a true estimate of her visitor, or learn the idiosyncrasies of a character at once peculiar and original.
People never understood Ethel Trelawny. There were subtle difficulties in her nature that baffled and repelled them. 'She was odd,' they said, 'so unusual altogether, and said such queer things;' a few even hinted that it was possible that a part might sometimes be acted.
Miss Trelawny was nineteen now, and had passed through two London seasons with indifferent success, a fact somewhat surprising, as her attractions certainly were very great. Without being exactly beautiful, she yet gave an impression of beauty, and certain tints of colour and warm lights made her at times almost brilliant. In a crowded ballroom she was always the centre of observation; but one by one her partners dropped off, displeased and perplexed by the scarifying process to which they had been subjected.
'People come to dance and not to think,' observed one young cornet, turning restive under such treatment, and yet obstinate in his admiration of Ethel. He had been severely scorched during a previous dance, but had returned to the charge most gallantly; 'the music is delicious; do take one more turn with me; there is a clear space now.'
'Do people ever think; does that man, for example?' returned Ethel, indicating a tall man before them, who was pulling his blonde moustache with an expression of satisfied vacuity. 'What sort of dwarfed soul lives in that six feet or so of human matter?'
'Miss Trelawny, you are too bad,' burst out her companion with an expression of honest wrath that showed him not far removed from boyhood. 'That fellow is the bravest and the kindest-hearted in our regiment. He nursed me, by Jove, that he did, when I was down with fever in the hunting-box last year. Not think—Robert Drummond not think,' and he doubled his fist with an energy that soon showed a gash in the faultless lavender kid glove.
'I like you all the better for your defence of your friend,' returned Ethel calmly, and she turned on him a smile so frank and sweet that the young man was almost dazzled. 'If one cannot think, one should at least feel. If I give you one turn more, I dare say you will forgive me,' and from that moment she and Charlie Treherne were firm friends.
But others were not so fortunate, and retired crestfallen and humiliated. One of Charlie's brother-officers whom he introduced to Ethel in a fit of enthusiasm as 'our major, and a man every inch of him, one of the sort who would do the charge at Balaclava again,' subsided into sulkiness and total inanity on finding that instead of discussing Patti and the last opera, Ethel was bent on discovering the ten missing tribes of Israel.
'How hot this room is. They don't give us enough ventilation, I think,' gasped the worthy major at length.
'I was just thinking it was so cool. You are the third partner I have had who has complained of the heat. If you are tired of this waltz, let us sit down in that delightful conservatory;' but as the major, with a good deal of unnecessary energy, declared he could dance till daybreak without fatigue, Ethel quietly continued her discourse.