"I hardly like to tell you, dear."
"Go on!"
"I pressed him for his real opinion of me quite frankly, and he said: "Frankly, I think you"re a very pretty woman, and very jolly, but aren"t you a bit dotty on some subjects?" Of course I was very much hurt, and said, "Certainly not about _you_!" So then he said, "For instance, you always write that you have something particular to say to me, but you never say it. I left several important appointments this afternoon to come round, and you don"t seem to have any news." I _had_ said it, you see, but he didn"t take it in. I was very much offended at his calling me dotty, but he explained afterwards he only meant that I was "artistic"!"
Felicity went into fits of laughter. "Well, how did it end?"
"I asked him to dinner for next Wednesday, and he said he was going out of town, and didn"t know when he would be back. Now tell me, darling Felicity, _do_ you think he is going away to--try and conquer his feelings--or anything of that sort? That is what I should like to think," said Vera.
"No," answered Felicity. "Either it was a lie, because your husband bores him and he didn"t _want_ to come to dinner, or else he"s really going to Newmarket, and doesn"t know when he"ll be back."
"Tell me, Felicity. I can bear it.... Then--he does not care about me, and I ought to cut him out of my life?"
"I think he likes you all right, but I really shouldn"t worry about him," said Felicity.
"Then I certainly shan"t. I am far too proud! _How_ different Bertie Wilton is," she went on. "So amusing, and lively and nice to every one!
But _he_ is devoted to _you_."
"Oh, you can have him if you like," said Felicity, "and if you can. You wouldn"t get on, really. You see, he isn"t romantic, like you, and he likes people best who don"t run after him."
"Yes, I have often noticed that in people," said Vera thoughtfully.
"I"ll tell you _some one_, though, who really interests me; that is your friend, Arthur Mervyn, the actor. He has such a wonderful profile."
"Yes--in fact, two. Oh, that reminds me, I came to ask you to come to Madame Tussaud"s to-morrow afternoon. We"re making up a party to go to the Chamber of Horrors. I"m taking Sylvia and Bertie. But I can"t manage Arthur Mervyn and Bertie too,--at least, not at the Waxworks,--so I"m going some other day with him--I mean Arthur."
"Oh, what fun! I should love to come! Thanks, dearest."
"All right. Meet us there at four, and if you ever meet Arthur Mervyn again, _don"t_ talk about the stage. He hates it."
"What does he like?"
"He"s interested in murders, and things of that kind," said Felicity; "or anything cheery, you know, but _not_ the theatre."
"Do you think he would come to see me if I asked him?" asked Vera.
"He hates paying visits," said Felicity, and she glanced round the room judicially, "but if you can make him believe that some horrible crime has been acted here,--I must say it doesn"t look like it, all pink and white!--then I think he _would_ call. Or, if you suggested--just hinted--that you believed the liftman had once been mixed up in some horrible case--I think he likes poisoning or strangling best--then he"d come like a shot!"
Felicity got up laughing.
"I say," she continued as she fastened her white furs, "have you heard the very latest thing about the Valettas and Guy Scott? Bertie"s going to tell me all about it to-night; he is the only _really_ brilliant gossip I know. He"s raised it to such an art that it"s no longer gossip: it"s modern history and psychology! First he gets his facts right; then he takes a sort of vivid a.n.a.lytical interest in every one--always a humorously sympathetic view, of course--and has so much imagination that he makes you _see_ the whole thing!"
"Good gracious! I think I don"t care for gossip about other people,"
said Vera; "I"m sure I shouldn"t like that at all. I am really only interested in my own life."
"Then no wonder you find it so difficult to be amused, darling."
They parted, kissing affectionately.
CHAPTER XIV
LORD CHETWODE
"I have to go down to Fulham this morning; don"t let me forget it," said Lord Chetwode.
He was sitting in the green library with Felicity, markedly abstaining from the newspapers surrounding him, and reading over an old catalogue.
He was a fair, delicate-looking young man of twenty-eight years the amiability of whose expression seemed accentuated by the upward turning of his minute blonde moustache. He had deep blue eyes, rather far apart, regular features, and a full, very high forehead, on which the fair hair was already growing scanty. Tall and slight, he had a rather casual, boyish air, and beautiful but useful-looking white hands, the hands of the artist. His voice and manner had the soft un.o.btrusive gentleness that comes to those whose ancestors for long years have dared and commanded. In time, when there"s nothing more to fight for, the dash naturally dies out.
"My dear boy, why Fulham?" said Felicity, who was sitting at her writing-table not answering letters.
"About that bit of china."
"We don"t want any more china, dear."
"It isn"t a question of what we want! It is a question of what it would be a crime to miss. Old Staffordshire going for nothing! Really, Felicity!"
Felicity gave up the point. "I see.... How long are you going to stay in London?" she said.
"Well, I was just thinking.... You know, I don"t care much about the season."
"You haven"t had ten days of it," his wife answered. "Don"t you think it looks rather odd always letting me go to dances and things alone?"
"No. Why odd? You like them. I don"t."
She looked rather impatient. "Has it ever struck you that I"m--rather young--and not absolutely hideous?"
"Yes, very often," he said smiling. "Don"t I show how it strikes me?
Why?"
"It"s so difficult to say. Don"t you see; people try to flirt with me, and that sort of thing."
"Oh yes, they would. Naturally."
"Sometimes," said Felicity, darting a look at him like a needle, "I shouldn"t be surprised if people fell in love with me. So there!"
"You couldn"t be less surprised than I should," said her husband, rather proudly. "Shows their good taste."
"Well, for instance--you know Bertie Wilton, don"t you?"
"Oh yes, I think I"ve seen him. A boy who rattles about in a staring red motor-car. How any one on earth can stand those things when they can have horses----"
"That"s not the point, Chetwode. I think Bertie Wilton is really in love with me. I really do."
Chetwode tried to look interested. "Is he though?"
"Well, I don"t like it," she said pettishly.