“You don’t mean to say that you came up with the Commissioner?” cried Dick and Georgia together.
“Rather!” A glance passed between husband and wife, and Mabel caught it. “Now, why this thusness? I had a chaperon, I assure you. I’ll tell you all about it. And the Commissioner has been most kind—and patronising.”
“Probably,” said Dick dryly. “And was it Burgrave who escorted you to the gate here?”
“Oh no; it was that nice boy who went to Kubbet-ul-Haj with you eight years ago.”
“Boy!” cried Georgia. “My dear Mab, Fitz Anstruther is one of the most rising young civilians in the province.”
“And he said,” went on Mabel, unheeding, “that he would look in again after dinner. Well, Georgie, he is three years younger than I am, at any rate. Now, Dick, don’t be rude and say that that wouldn’t make him so very young after all. I know I’m in the sere and yellow leaf. The fact was borne in upon me when I heard an angry woman on the voyage informing her cabin-mates that I was ‘no chicken.’”
“What!” cried Dick. “Then the celebrated smile has been doing its deadly work as usual? How many scalps this time, Mab?”
Mabel smiled gently. It might be perfectly true, as other women were never tired of saying, that she had no claim to be called beautiful. The most that could be said of her was that she was nice-looking, and the effect of that (it was often added spitefully) was spoilt by the singular and most unpleasing combination of fair hair with dark brown eyes. But when the ladies had said their say, Mabel knew that she had but to smile to bring every man in the neighbourhood to her feet. There was a peculiar fascination about her smile which made a slave of the man upon whom it shone. It called forth all that was best in him, roused all the chivalry of his nature, and compelled him to devote himself to Mabel’s service. Various irate London cabmen, an elderly guard on the Caledonian Railway, and the magistrate who found himself obliged to fine Mabel for allowing her fox-terrier to go about unmuzzled, were among the victims. The magistrate was currently reported to have apologised privately for doing his duty, and to have been abjectly desirous of paying the fine out of his own pocket if Mabel would have allowed it. It was commonly understood that General North, Mabel’s late guardian, had found his life a burden to him owing to the multitude of her suitors, and that he would scarcely allow her to go out alone lest any unwary stranger, thanked with a smile for some slight service, should be impelled to propose to her on the spot.
“Well, Mab,” said Dick again, as his sister did not answer, “the voyage was the usual triumphal progress, I suppose? Any casualties?”
“No duels or suicides, Dick. The days of chivalry are gone, you know. But every one was very nice. I don’t count the officers—it’s their business to make themselves pleasant—but the captain took me into his cabin and showed me the pictures of Mrs Captain and the little Captains, and I was told he didn’t do that for everybody. The ladies were not quite as friendly as—well, as I should have liked them to be. They talked me over a good deal, too. Once they asked a rather nice boy why he and all the rest thought such a lot of me. He couldn’t think of anything to say but that I was ‘so awfully feminine, don’t you know?’ When he thought of it afterwards he was rather pleased with himself, and came and told me. It wasn’t bad, was it?”