Mrs. Romaine said nothing. She was an adept in the art of insinuating by a look, a turn of the head, a gesture, what she wished to convey. At this moment she indicated very clearly, though without speaking a word, that she sympathized deeply with her friend, Caspar Brooke, and was exceedingly indignant at the way in which he had been treated.
Perhaps Mr. Brooke found the atmosphere enervating, for with a half smile and shake of the head, he rose up to go. Mrs. Romaine rose also.
"She comes to-morrow evening," he said, before he took his leave.
"To-morrow evening? You will be out!"
"No, it is Wednesday: I can manage an evening at home. Perhaps you will kindly look in on Thursday afternoon?"
And this Mrs. Romaine undertook to do.
Caspar Brooke continued his walk along the Eastern side of Russell Square and Woburn Place. His quick observant eyes took note of every incident in his way, of every man, woman, and child within their range of vision. He stopped once to rate a cabman, not too mildly, for beating an over-worked horse--took down his number, and threatened to prosecute him for cruelty to animals. A ragged boy who asked him for money was brought to a standstill by some keenly-worded questions respecting his home, his name, his father"s occupation, and the school which he attended. Of these Mr. Brooke also made a note, much to the boy"s dismay; but consolation followed in the shape of a shilling, although the donor muttered a malediction on his own folly as he turned away. His last actions, before reaching his own house in Upper Woburn Place, were--first to ring the area-bell for a dog that was waiting at another man"s gate (an office which the charitable are often called upon to perform in the streets of London for dogs and cats alike), and then to pick up a bony black kitten and take it on his arm to his own door, where he delivered it to a servant, with injunctions to feed and comfort the starveling. From which facts it may be seen that Mr. Caspar Brooke, in spite of all his faults, was a lover of dumb animals, and of children, and must therefore have possessed a certain amount of kindliness of disposition.
Mr. Brooke dined at six o"clock, then smoked a cigar and had a cup of black coffee brought to him in the untidy little sanctum where he generally did his work. With the coffee came the black kitten, which sidled up to him on the table, purring, and rubbing her head against his arm as if she knew him for a friend. He stroked it occasionally as he read his evening papers, and stroked it in the caressing way which cats love, from its forehead to the tip of its stumpy tail. It was while he was thus engaged that a tap at the door was heard, and the tap was followed by the entrance of a young man, who looked as if he were quite at home.
"Can I come in?" he said, in a perfunctory sort of way; and then, without waiting for any reply, went on--"I"ve no engagement to-night, so I thought I would look in here first, and see whether you had started."
"All right. Where have you been?"
"Special meeting--Church and State Union," said the young man with a smile. "I went partly in a medical capacity, partly because I was curious to know how they managed to unite the two professions."
"Couldn"t your sister tell you?"
"Oh, I don"t allow Ethel to attend such mixed gatherings," said the visitor, seating himself on the edge of the library table, and beginning to play with the cat.
"You are unusually particular," said Mr. Brooke, with an amused look.
But Maurice Kenyon, as the visitor was named, continued to attract the kitten"s notice, without the answering protest which Caspar Brooke had expected.
Maurice Kenyon was nearly thirty, and had stepped by good fortune into the shoes of a medical uncle who had left him a large and increasing general practice in the West Central district. The young man"s popularity was not entirely owing to his skill, although he had an exceedingly good repute among his brethren in medicine. Neither was it attributable to good looks. He owed it rather to a sympathetic manner, to the cheerful candor of his dark grey eyes, to the mixture of firmness and delicate kindness by which his treatment of his patients was characterized. He was especially successful in his dealings with children; and he had therefore a good deal of adoration from grateful mothers to put up with. But of his skill and intellectual power there could be no doubt; and these qualities, coupled with his winning manner, bade fair to raise him to a very high place in his profession.
There was one little check, and one only, to the flow of Mr. Kenyon"s prosperity. Careful mothers occasionally objected that he was not married, and that his sister was an actress. Why did he let his sister go on the stage? And why, if she was an actress, did he allow her to live in his house? It did not seem quite respectable in the eyes of some worthy people that these things should be. But Mr. Kenyon only laughed when reports of these sayings, reached him, and went on his way unmoved, as his sister Ethel went on hers. And in London, the question of a doctor"s relations, his sisters, his cousins, his aunts, and what they do for a living, is not so important as it is in the country. Maurice Kenyon"s care of his sister, and her devotion to him, were well known by all their friends; and as he sometimes said, it mattered very little to him what all the rest of the world might think.
"Talking of your sister, Kenyon," said Mr. Brooke, somewhat abruptly, "I suppose you know that my daughter comes to me to-morrow?"
The connection of ideas was not, perhaps, very obvious, but Maurice Kenyon nodded as if he understood.
"I suppose she will want a companion. Would Ethel be so kind as to call on her?"
"Certainly. She will do all she can for Miss Brooke, I am sure."
"I have been speaking to Mrs. Romaine, too."
"_Have_ you?" Kenyon raised eyebrows a very little, but Mr. Brooke did not seem to notice the change of expression.
"--And she promises to do what she can; but a woman like Mrs. Romaine is not likely to find many subjects in common with a girl fresh from a convent."
"I suppose not"--in the driest of tones.
"Mrs. Romaine," said Brooke, in a more decided tone, "is a cultivated woman who has made a mark in literature----"
"In literature?" queried the doctor.
"She has written a novel or two. She writes for various papers--well and smartly, I believe. She is a thorough woman of the world. Naturally, a girl brought up as Lesley has been will----"
"--Will find her detestable," said Kenyon, briskly, "as I and Ethel do.
You"ll excuse this expression of opinion; you"ve heard it before."
For a moment Caspar Brooke"s face was overcast; then he broke into uneasy laughter, and rose from his chair, shaking himself a little as a big dog sometimes does when it comes out of the water.
"You are incorrigible," he said. "A veritable heretic on the matter of my friend, Mrs. Romaine. By the by, I must remind you, Kenyon, that Mrs.
Romaine is a very old friend of mine."
His manner changed slightly as he spoke. There was a little touch of quiet hauteur in his look and tone, as if he wished to repel unsolicited criticism. Maurice understood the man too well to be offended, and merely changed the subject.
But when, after half an hour"s chat, the young doctor left the house, his mind reverted to the topic which Mr. Brooke had broached.
"Mrs. Romaine, indeed! Why, the man"s mad--to introduce her as a friend to his daughter! Does not all the world know that Mrs. Romaine caused the separation between him and his wife? And will the poor girl know? or has she been kept in the dark completely as to the state of affairs?
Upon my word I"m sorry for her. It strikes me that she will have a hard row to hoe, if Mrs. Romaine is at her father"s ear."
CHAPTER V.
OLIVER.
Mr. Brooke had not long quitted Mrs. Romaine"s drawing-room when it was entered by another man, whose personal resemblance to Mrs. Romaine herself was so striking that there could be little doubt as to their close relationship to one another. It was one of those curious likenesses that exist and thrive upon difference. Rosalind was not tall, and she was undeniably plump; while her younger brother, Oliver Trent, was above middle height, and of a spare habit. The creamy white of Mrs.
Romaine"s complexion had turned to deadly pallor in Oliver"s thin, hairless face: and her most striking features were accentuated, and even exaggerated in his. Her arched and mobile eyebrows, her dark eyes, her broad nostrils, curved mouth, and finely-shaped chin, were all to be found, with a subtle unlikeness, in Oliver"s face, and the jetty hair, short as it was on the man"s head, grew low down on the brow and the nape of the neck exactly as hers did--although this resemblance was obscured by the fact that Rosalind wore a fringe, and carefully curled all the short hairs at the back of her head.
The greatest difference of all lay in the expression of the two faces.
Mrs. Romaine had certainly no frankness in her countenance, but she had plenty of smiling pleasantness and play of emotion. Oliver"s face was like a sullen mask: it was motionless, stolid even, and unamiable. There were people who raved about his beauty, and nicknamed him Antinous and Adonis. But these were not physiognomists....
Mrs. Romaine had two brothers, both some years younger than herself.
Oliver, the youngest and her favorite, was about thirty, and called himself a barrister. As he had no briefs, however, it was currently reported that he lived by means of light literature, play, and judicious sponging upon his sister. The elder brother, Francis, was a ne"er-do-weel, and seldom appeared upon the scene. When he did appear, it was always a sign of trouble and want of cash.
"So you have had Brooke here again?" Oliver inquired.
"How did you know, Noll?"
She turned her dark eyes upon him rather anxiously. Oliver"s views and opinions were of consequence to her.
"I saw him come in. I was coming up, but I turned round again and went away. Had a smoke in the Square till I saw him come out. Didn"t want to spoil your little game, whatever it was."
He spoke with a kind of soft drawl, not unpleasing to the ear at first, but irritating if too long continued. It seemed to irritate his sister now. She tapped impatiently on the floor with her toe as she replied--
"How vulgar you are sometimes, Oliver! But all society is vulgar now-a-days, and I suppose one ought not to complain. I have no "little game," as you express it, and there was not the slightest need for you to have stayed away."