After a moment"s silence Elisabeth asked--
"Are you going to Lady Silverhampton"s picnic on the river to-morrow?"
"Yes; I accepted because I thought I should be sure to meet you,"
replied Cecil, who would have accepted the invitation of a countess if it had been to meet his bitterest foe.
"Then your forethought will be rewarded, for I am going, too," Elisabeth said.
And then other callers were shown in, and the conversation was brought to an abrupt conclusion; but it left behind it a pleasant taste in the minds of both the princ.i.p.als.
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE RIVER
For many a frivolous, festive year I followed the path that I felt I must; I failed to discover the road was drear, And rather than otherwise liked the dust.
It led through a land that I knew of old, Frequented by friendly, familiar folk, Who bowed before Mammon, and heaped up gold, And lived like their neighbours, and loved their joke.
It was a lovely summer"s day when Lady Silverhampton collected her forces at Paddingdon, conveyed them by rail as far as Reading, and then transported them from the train to her steam-launch on the river. The party consisted of Lady Silverhampton herself, Lord and Lady Robert Thistletown, Lord Stonebridge, Sir Wilfred Madderley (President of the Royal Academy), Cecil Farquhar, and Elisabeth.
"I"m afraid you"ll be frightfully crowded," said the hostess, as they packed themselves into the dainty little launch; "but it can"t be helped. I tried to charter a P. and O. steamer for the day; but they were all engaged, like cabs on the night of a county ball, don"t you know? And then I tried to leave somebody out so as to make the party smaller, but there wasn"t one of you that could have been spared, except Silverhampton; so I left him at home, and decided to let the rest of you be squeezed yet happy."
"How dear of you!" exclaimed Lord Robert; "and I"ll repay your kindness by writing a book called How to be Happy though Squeezed."
"The word _though_ appears redundant in that connection," Sir Wilfred Madderley remarked.
"Ah! that"s because you aren"t what is called "a lady"s man,"" Lord Robert sighed. "I always was, especially before my unfortunate--oh! I beg your pardon, Violet, I forgot you were here; I mean, of course, my fortunate--marriage. I was always the sort of man that makes girls timidly clinging when they are sitting on a sofa beside you, and short-sighted when you are playing their accompaniments for them. I remember once a girl sat so awfully close to me on a sofa in mid-drawing-room, that I felt there wasn"t really room for both of us; so--like the true hero that I am--I shouted "Save the women and children," and flung myself upon the tender mercies of the carpet, till I finally struggled to the fireplace."
"How silly you are, Bobby!" exclaimed his wife.
"Yes, darling; I know. I"ve always known it; but the world didn"t find it out till I married you. Till then I was in hopes that the secret would die with me; but after that it was fruitless to attempt to conceal the fact any longer."
"We"re all going to be silly to-day," said the hostess; "that"s part of the treat."
"It won"t be much of a treat to some of us," Lord Robert retorted. "I remember when I was a little chap going to have tea at the Mershire"s; and when I wanted to gather some of their most ripping orchids, Lady M.
said I might go into the garden and pick mignonette instead. "Thank you," I replied in my most dignified manner, "I can pick mignonette at home; that"s no change to me!" Now, that"s the way with everything; it"s no change to some people to pick mignonette."
"Or to some to pick orchids," added Lord Stonebridge.
"Or to some to pick oak.u.m." And Lord Bobby sighed again.
"Even Elisabeth isn"t going to be clever to-day," continued Lady Silverhampton. "She promised me she wouldn"t; didn"t you, Elisabeth?"
Every one looked admiringly at the subject of this remark. Elisabeth Farringdon was the fashion just then.
"She couldn"t help being clever, however hard she tried," said the President.
"Couldn"t I, though? Just you wait and see."
"If you succeed in not saying one clever thing during the whole of this picnic affair," Lord Bobby exclaimed, "I"ll give you my photograph as a reward. I"ve got a new one, taken sideways, which is perfectly sweet. It has a profile like a Greek G.o.d--those really fine and antique statues, don"t you know? whose noses have been wiped out by the ages. The British Museum teems with them, poor devils!"
"Thank you," said Elisabeth. "I shall prize it as an incontrovertible testimony to the fact that neither my tongue nor your nose are as sharp as tradition reports them to be."
Lord Bobby shook his finger warningly. "Be careful, be careful, or you"ll never get that photograph. Remember that every word you say will be used against you, as the police are always warning me."
"I"m a little tired to-day," Lady Silverhampton said. "I was taken in to dinner by an intelligent man last night."
"Then how came he to do it?" Lord Robert wondered.
"Don"t be rude, Bobby: it doesn"t suit your style; and, besides, how could he help it?"
"Well enough. Whenever I go out to dinner I always say in an aside to my host, "Not Lady Silverhampton; anything but that." And the consequence is I never do go in to dinner with you. It isn"t disagreeableness on my part; if I could I"d do it for your sake, and put my own inclination on one side; but I simply can"t bear the intellectual strain. It"s a marvel to me how poor Silverhampton stands it as well as he does."
"He is never exposed to it. You don"t suppose I waste my own jokes on my own husband, do you? They are far too good for home consumption, like fish at the seaside. When fish has been up to London and returned, it is then sold at the place where it was caught. And that"s the way with my jokes; when they have been all round London and come home to roost, I serve them up to Silverhampton as quite fresh."
"And he believes in their freshness? How sweet and confiding of him!"
"He never listens to them, so it is all the same to him whether they"re fresh or not. That is why I confide so absolutely in Silverhampton; he never listens to a word I say, and never has done."
Lord Stonebridge amended this remark. "Except when you accepted him."
"Certainly not; because, as a matter of fact, I refused him; but he never listened, and so he married me. It is so restful to have a husband who never attends to what you say! It must be dreadfully wearing to have one who does, because then you"d never be able to tell him the truth. And the great charm of your having a home of your own appears to be that it is the one place where you can speak the truth."
Lord Bobby clapped his hands. "Whatever lies disturb the street, there must be truth at home," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"Wiser not, even there," murmured Sir Wilfred Madderley, under his breath.
"But you have all interrupted me, and haven"t listened to what I was telling you about my intelligent man; and if you eat my food you must listen to my stones--it"s only fair."
"But if even your own husband doesn"t think it necessary to listen to them," Lord Bobby objected, "why should we, who have never desired to be anything more than sisters to you?"
"Because he doesn"t eat my food--I eat his; that makes all the difference, don"t you see?"
"Then do you listen to his stories?"
"To every one of them every time they are told; and I know to an inch the exact place where to laugh. But I"m going on about my man. He was one of those instructive boring people, who will tell you the reason of things; and he explained to me that soldiers wear khaki and polar bears white, because if you are dressed in the same colour as the place where you are, it looks as if you weren"t there. And it has since occurred to me that I should be a much wiser and happier woman if I always dressed myself in the same colour as my drawing-room furniture. Then n.o.body would be able to find me even in my own house. Don"t you think it is rather a neat idea?" And her ladyship looked round for the applause which she had learned to expect as her right.
"You are a marvellous woman!" cried Lord Stonebridge, while the others murmured their approval.
"I need never say "Not at home"; callers would just come in and look round the drawing-room and go out again, without ever seeing that I was there at all. It really would be sweet!"
"It seems to me to be a theory which might be adapted with benefit to all sorts and conditions of men," said Elisabeth; "I think I shall take out a patent for designing invisible costumes for every possible occasion. I feel I could do it, and do it well."
"It is adopted to a great extent even now," Sir Wilfred remarked; "I believe that our generals wear scarlet so that they may not always be distinguishable from the red-tape of the War Office."
"And one must not forget," added Lord Bobby thoughtfully, "that the benches of the House of Commons are green."