"The stage!" exclaimed Mrs Monnerie in consternation. "The child's as proud as Lucifer. She would faint at the very suggestion. You have heard her deliciously sharp little tongue, but her tantrums! Still, she's a friendly and docile little creature, and I am very well satisfied with her."
"And not merely that"; paced on the rather official voice. "I was noticing that something in the eyes. Almost disconcertingly absent yet penetrating. She thinks. She comes and goes in them. I noticed the same peculiarity in poor Willie Arbuthnot's. And this little creature is scarcely more than a child."
"I think it is perfectly sad, Lord Chiltern," broke in a reedy, vibrating voice. "In some circumstances it would be tragic. It's a mercy she does not realize ... habit, you know...."
Listeners seldom hear such good things of themselves. Why, then, was it so furious an eavesdropper that hastened away with a face and gesture worthy of a Sarah Siddons!
No: my box remained locked. Yet, thought I, as I examined its contents, any dexterous finger could have opened that tiny lock—with a hairpin. And how else could my secret have been discovered? Fleming or Fanny—or both of them: it maddened me to think of them in collusion. I would take no more risks. I tore Mr Anon's letter into fragments, and these again into bits yet smaller, until they were almost like chaff. These I collected together and put into an envelope, which I addressed in sprawling capitals to Miss Fanny Bowater, at No. 2.
Then for a sombre half-hour I communed intensely at the window with my Tank. It was hot and taciturn company—not a breath of air stirred my silk window-blind—yet it managed to convey a few home truths, and even to increase the light a little in which I could look at the "bushel." There were "mercies," I suppose. Out of the distance rolled the vague reverberation of the enormous city. I watched the sparrows, and they me. When the time came for my afternoon walk, I put on my hat, with eyes fixed on my letter, and, finally—left it behind me.
Was it for discretion's sake, or in shame? I cannot say, but I remember that during my slow descent to the empty hall I kept my eyes fixed with peculiar malignity on the milk-white figure of a Venus (not life-size, thank Heaven), who had been surprised apparently in the very act of entering the water for a bathe. Why I singled her out for contempt I cannot say; for she certainly looked a good deal more natural and modest than many of the fine ladies who heedlessly passed her by. It was merely my old problem of the Social Layers over again. And my mind was in such a state of humiliation and discomfort that I hadn't the energy even to smile at a marble goddess.
Fanny was awaiting me on my return. A strand of hair was looped demurely and old-fashionedly round each small ear; her clear, unpowdered skin had the faint sheen of a rose. She stood, still and shimmering, in the height of pleasant spirits, yet, I thought, watchful and furtive through it all. She had come, she said, to congratulate me on my "latest conquest."
Mrs Monnerie, she told me, had been pleased with my entertainment of the late First Commissioner of—was it Good Works? But I must beware. "Once a coquette, Midgetina, soon quite heartless," she twitted me.
To which I called sourly, as I stood drying my hands, that pretty compliments must be judged by where they come from.