“You have no doubt! I dare say not. You care very little about what interests me, count. Pray don’t trouble yourself about it now.” And Jack retreated, meek and snubbed.
“The selfishness of men!” said Mme. de Kerbec, as she helped herself from the bowl Pearl held out—“the selfishness of men! He knows if there is a thing I detest it is tasting my tea without the sugar.”
While the tea-serving was going on Léon Léopold stood with his back to the wall and watched the pretty tea-table with its glistening silver and porcelain, and graceful cup-bearers hurrying to and fro; he never dreamed of lending more than a moral assistance to the latter, as an Englishman in his place would have done. Blanche was intimate as a sister with Pearl and Polly Redacre; but Léon seldom showed himself on a Saturday evening. He was on the most distant terms of acquaintanceship with the ladies of the family, with whom he was always as silent as a sphinx. No wonder Polly voted him a muff. But Pearl declared her belief that Léon had plenty of fun in him, if one only could get at it. He was very good-looking, rather striking, indeed, in appearance; not tall but finely proportioned, with a blue shaven chin and a short black moustache, and solemn, coal-black eyes that had a way of looking at you, Pearl said, as if to see whether you or he should look longest without laughing. Colonel Redacre thought highly of him, and said he had the making of a first-rate soldier in him; but Pearl declared this was because Léon listened so attentively to the description of the Balaklava charge every time her father related it, which was pretty nearly every time he met Léon.
“And that song we were to have had from your son?” said Mrs. Monteagle, taking her tea-cup to a seat near Mme. Léopold. “I have a poor opinion of a young man who can sing and won’t sing; either he is shy, which means that he is a goose, or he wants to make a fuss over it, which means that he is a coxcomb.”
“My dear boy, you must execute yourself after that!” exclaimed his mother, laughing.
“I but await the orders of ces demoiselles,” protested Léon, starting from his position against the wall and doubling himself in two before Pearl. He went straight to the piano, and soon the room was echoing to the lament of the disconsolate lover to his Eléonore. Léon had a fine voice, fairly cultivated, and, if he had not sung exactly as if he had been a wooden man, it would have been very pleasant to listen to him; but Pearl said it was just like accompanying an automaton.
“How well they suit!” observed Mme. Léopold in a sotto voce, as she glanced towards the piano, where Léon’s black head showed above Pearl’s fair face and dancing brown eyes. Mrs. Monteagle knew at once why she had been convened to a little chat by Léon’s mother.
“Yes; they make a good effect as contrasts.”
“And both are so musical! My son has a passion for music.”
“If he has all his passions under as good control as he seems to have this one, he is a model young man—indeed, a model man for any age,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a little grunt that was peculiar to her. To judge of Mrs. Monteagle’s character from seeing her at whist would have been a grievous mistake; you would have supposed she had not the spirit of a mouse, whereas she had, on the contrary, a very high spirit, and held her own everywhere and against all comers except at cards, and above all when Mme. de Kerbec was playing. She laughed at Mme. de Kerbec everywhere except at the whist-table, and there she was completely cowed by her.