“It must have been beautiful,” continued Clive; “quite a touching sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be present because his brother was dead; and——”
“And what else, pray, Mr. Newcome!” cries Miss, in great wrath, her pink nostrils beginning to quiver. “I did not think, really, that when we met after so many months, I was to be insulted; yes, insulted, by the mention of that name.”
“I most humbly ask pardon,” said Clive, with a grave bow. “Heaven forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel! It is, as you say, my first appearance in society. I talk about things or persons that I should not mention. I should talk about buttons, should I? which you were good enough to tell me was the proper subject of conversation. Mayn’t I even speak of connexions of the family? Mr. Belsize, through this marriage, has the honour of being connected with you; and even I, in a remote degree, may boast of a sort of an ever—so—distant cousinship with him. What an honour for me!”
“Pray, what is the meaning of all this?” cries Miss Ethel, surprised, and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing all the while he talked with her; smothering anger as he saw the young men round about her; revolting against himself for the very humility of his obedience, and angry at the eagerness and delight with which he had come at her call.
“The meaning is, Ethel”—he broke out, seizing the opportunity—“that when a man comes a thousand miles to see you, and shake your hand, you should give it him a little more cordially than you choose to do to me; that when a kinsman knocks at your door, time after time, you should try and admit him; and that when you meet him you should treat him like an old friend: not as you treated me when my Lady Kew vouchsafed to give me admittance; not as you treat these fools that are fribbling round about you,” cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and glaring round on a number of the most innocent young swells; and he continued looking as if he would like to knock a dozen of their heads together. “Am I keeping Miss Newcome’s admirers from her?”
“That is not for me to say,” she said, quite gently. He was; but to see him angry did not displease Miss Newcome.
“That young man who came for you just now,” Clive went on—“that Sir John——”
“Are you angry with me because I sent him away?” said Ethel, putting out a hand. “Hark! there is the music. Take me in and waltz with me. Don’t you know it is not my door at which you knocked?” she said, looking up into his face as simply and kindly as of old. She whirled round the dancing-room with him in triumph, the other beauties dwindling before her: she looked more and more beautiful with each rapid move of the waltz, her colour heightening and her eyes seeming to brighten. Not till the music stopped did she sink down on a seat, panting, and smiling radiant—as many many hundred years ago I remember to have seen Taglioni after a conquering pas seul. She nodded a “thank you” to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect reconciliation. Lady Kew came in just at the end of the dance, scowling when she beheld Ethel’s partner; but in reply to her remonstrances, Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders, with a look which seemed to say je le veux, gave an arm to her grandmother, an walked off, saucily protecting her.
Clive’s friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as the scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with which the reconciliation had been celebrated. I must tell you that this arch young creature had formed the object of my observation for some months past, and that I watched her as I have watched a beautiful panther at the Zoological Gardens, so bright of eye, so sleek of coat, so slim in form, so sweet and agile in her spring.
A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her second season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In her first year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little more reserved and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to whom Miss Newcome except for a little occasional flightiness, was invariably obedient and ready to come to call. But when Lady Kew appeared as her duenna, the girl’s delight seemed to be to plague the old lady, and she would dance with the very youngest sons merey to put grandmamma in a passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two hundred a year of allowance, besides eighty, and an annual rise of five in the Treasury) actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, and consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, whether two hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more next year, would be enough for them to keep house on? Young Tandy of the Temple, Lord Skibbereen’s younger son, who sate in the House for some time on the Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our walks home from the parties at the other end of the town, would entertain me with his admiration and passion for her.