Meanwhile, Dick had turned, and after gravely lifting his hat to the ladies, had resumed his seat, and was now intent again on his book.
Lady Renshaw was a fine, florid specimen of womanhood, who among her intimate friends gracefully acknowledged to being thirty-five years of age, but was probably at least ten years older. She still retained considerable traces of those good looks which several years previously had captured the elderly affections of the late Sir Timothy. Although her figure might display a greater amplitude of proportions than of yore, yet was her hair still black and glossy, her large dark eyes still as coldly bright as ever they had been, while if the fine bloom on her cheeks owed nothing of its tints to the lily, there are many people who prefer the rich damask of the rose even in the matter of complexion. Here, among the Westmoreland hills, her ladyship was dressed as richly and elaborately as if for a little shopping in Regent Street or a drive in the Park. Herein she showed her knowledge of the eternal fitness of things. Lady Renshaw in a cotton gown or a seaside wrapper would have looked little better than a dowdy. Simplicity and she had nothing in common. But Lady Renshaw fashionably attired in satins and laces was a sufficiently good imitation of a lady to pass current as such with nine people out of every dozen.
Miss Bella Wynter was a brunette, not very tall, but with a slender, graceful figure, black, sparkling eyes, and the sauciest little chin imaginable. Naturally, she was an unselfish, generous-hearted girl; but the circumstances of life and her aunt’s hard worldly training were doing their best to spoil her. She, too, was dressed in the extreme of the prevalent fashion, and looked as if she might just have stepped out of the show-room of a Parisian modiste.
‘There can be no harm in speaking to him,’ said Lady Renshaw in a low voice to her niece. ‘He may be the son of a bishop or the nephew of a lord; one never can tell whom one may encounter at these big hotels.’ Then going a little nearer to Dick, she said to him: ‘I presume, sir, that you are staying at the Palatine?’
Mr Dulcimer started, rose and bowed. ‘For a day or two, madam, on my way north.’ He spoke with the same little affected lisp with which he had addressed Jules the waiter.
‘I’m nearly certain it’s Dick,’ said Bella to herself with her heart all a-flutter. ‘But what daring! what effrontery!’
‘Then perhaps you can inform me at what hour the table-d’hôte takes place?’ said her ladyship.
Dick knew quite well, but was not going to tell. ‘I only arrived a couple of hours ago, madam; but I will at once ascertain.’
‘No, no, no! Greatly obliged to you, but we are going indoors presently, and can then ascertain for ourselves.’
‘It is he!’ exclaimed Miss Wynter under her breath. ‘O Dick, Dick!’