"You"re English, aren"t you?" Lady Cecilia began, as soon as we were alone. "I can tell by the way you speak."
I said I was a Canadian, that I was in New York more or less by accident, and might go back to my own country again.
"How interesting! It belongs to us, Canadia, doesn"t it?"
With a slightly ironic emphasis on the proper noun I replied that Canadia naturally belonged to the Canadians, but that the King of Great Britain and Ireland was our king, and that we were very loyal to all that we represented.
"Fancy! And isn"t it near here?"
All of Canada, I stated, was north of some of the United States, and some of it was south of others of the United States, but none of the more settled parts was difficult of access from New York.
"How very odd!" was her comment on these geographical indications. "I think I remember that a cousin of ours was governor out there--or something--though perhaps it was in India."
I named the series of British n.o.blemen who had ruled over us since the confederation of the provinces in 1867, but as Lady Cecilia"s kinsman was not among them we concluded that he must have been Viceroy of India or Governor-General of Australia.
The theme served to introduce us to each other, and lasted while Mrs.
Billing"s tour of inspection kept her within earshot.
I am bound to admit that I admired Lady Cecilia with an envy that might be qualified as green. She was not clever and she was not well educated, but her high breeding was so spontaneous. She so obviously belonged to spheres where no other rule obtained. Her manner was the union of polish and simplicity; each word she p.r.o.nounced was a pleasure to the ear. In my own case life had been a struggle with that American-Canadian crudity which stamps our New World carriage and speech with commonness; but you could no more imagine this girl lapsing from the even tenor of the exquisite than you could fancy the hermit thrush failing in its song.
When Mrs. Billing was quite at the other end of the room my companion"s manner underwent a change. During a second or two of silence her eyes fell, while the shifting of color over the milk-whiteness of her skin was like the play of Canadian northern lights. I was prepared for the fact that beneath her poise she might be shy, and that, being shy, she would be abrupt.
"You"re engaged to Hugh Brokenshire, aren"t you?"
The words were whipped out fast and jerkily, partly to profit by the minute during which Mrs. Billing was at a distance, and partly because it was a matter of now-or-never with their utterance.
I made the necessary explanations, for what seemed to me must be the hundredth time. I was not precisely engaged to him, but I had said I would marry him if either of two conditions could be carried out. I went on to state what those conditions were, finishing with the information that of the two I had practically abandoned one.
She nodded her comprehension.
"You see that--that they won"t come round."
"No," I replied, with some incisiveness; "they will come round--especially Mr. Brokenshire. It"s the other condition I no longer expect to see fulfilled."
If the hermit thrush could fail in its song it did it then. Lady Cecilia stared at me with a blankness that became awe.
"That"s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard. Ethel Rossiter must be wrong."
I had a sudden suspicion.
"Wrong about what?"
The question put Lady Cecilia on her guard.
"Oh, nothing I need explain." But her face lighted with quick enthusiasm. "I call it magnificent."
"Call what "magnificent"?"
"Why, that you should have that conviction. When one sees any one so sporting--"
I began to get her idea.
"Oh, I"m not sporting. I"m a perfect coward. But a sheep will make a stand when it"s put to it."
With her hands in her sable m.u.f.f, her shapely figure was inclined slightly toward me.
"I"m not sure that a sheep that makes a stand isn"t braver than a lion.
The man my sister Janet is engaged to--he"s in the Inverness Rangers--often says that no one could be funkier than he on going into action; but that," she continued, her face aglow, "didn"t prevent his being ever so many times mentioned in despatches and getting his D. S.
O."
"Please don"t put me into that cla.s.s--"
"No; I won"t. After all a soldier couldn"t really funk things, because he"s got everything to back him up. But you haven"t. And when I think of you sitting here all by yourself, and expecting that great big rich Mr.
Brokenshire and Ethel, and all of them, to come to your terms--"
To get away from a view of my situation that both consoled and embarra.s.sed me, I said:
"Thank you, Lady Cecilia, very, very much; but it isn"t what you meant to say when you began, is it?"
With some confusion she admitted that it wasn"t.
"Only," she went on, "that isn"t worth while now."
A hint in her tone impelled me to insist.
"It may be. You don"t know. Please tell me what it was."
"But what"s the use? It was only something Ethel Rossiter said--and she was wrong."
"What makes you so sure she was wrong?"
"Because I am. I can see." She added, reluctantly, "Ethel thought there was some one--some one besides Hugh--"
"And what if there was?"
Though startled by the challenge, she stood her ground.
"I don"t believe in people making each other any more unhappy than they can help, do you?" She had a habit of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her small gray-green eyes into two glimmering little slits of light, with an effect of shyness showing through amus.e.m.e.nt and _diablerie_. "We"re both girls, aren"t we? I"m twenty, and you can"t be much older. And so I thought--that is, I thought at first--that if you had any one else in mind, there"d be no use in our making each other miserable--but I see you haven"t; and so--"
"And so," I laughed, nervously, "the race must be to the swift and the battle to the strong. Is that it?"
"N-no; not exactly. What I was going to say is that since--since there"s n.o.body but Hugh--you won"t be offended with me, will you?--I won"t step in--"
It was my turn to be enthusiastic.
"But that"s what I call sporting!"
"Oh no, it isn"t. I haven"t seen Hugh for two or three years, and whatever little thing there was--"