"Conceited enough to know are worth being jolly well conceited about,"
concluded Stanor, and they laughed together in merry understanding.
"That"s it," agreed Pixie, nodding. "I used to be conceited about being plain, because it was so unusual in our family that it was considered quite distinguished, and my father used to boast at the hunt that he had the ugliest child in the county, though it was himself that said it.
But," she gave the slightest, most ephemeral of sighs, "I"ve lived through that. I"m conceited now about--other things."
"Lots of them, I"m sure. There must be lots," agreed Stanor, with a sincerity which condoned the ba.n.a.lity of the speech. "About your good nature for one thing, I should say, and your generosity in forgiving a blundering man, and your jolly disposition which makes you smile when another girl would have been wild. I can understand all those and a lot more, but, just as a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what are you conceited about _most_?"
Pixie O"Shaughnessy smiled. There was evidently no doubt in her own mind as to her reply. The slim figure straightened, the little head tilted in air. Quick and crisp came the reply--
"I can make people do what I like!"
"Can you, though!" exclaimed Stanor blankly. The statement seemed to threaten a mysteriously personal application, and he relapsed into a ruminating silence, the while his companion employed herself cheerfully with her dinner and the looks and conversation of her companions.
It was one of Pixie"s special gifts to be able to do at least three things at the same time with quite a fair amount of success. She could, for instance, write a business-like letter while carrying on an animated conversation with a friend, and keeping an eye on a small child tottering around the room. Brain, eyes, and limb were alike so alert that what to slower natures would have been impossible, to her involved no effort at all.
Therefore, when about two minutes later Stanor opened his lips again to utter a short, urgent "_How_?" she had not the slightest difficulty in switching back to the subject, though she had been at the moment in the midst of an absorbing calculation as to the number of yards of lace on a dress of a lady farther down the table, and in drawing mental designs of the way it was put on, to enclose to Bridgie in her next letter home.
"How?"
"I _understand_ them," said Pixie deeply. "You can open any door if you have the key, but most people go on banging when it"s shut. I wait till I find my key, and then I keep it ready until the moment arrives when I wish to get in."
Stanor"s broad shoulders gave an involuntary movement which might almost have been taken for a shiver. Once again he felt a mysterious conviction of a personal application. All his life long the phrase had rung in his ears, "I don"t understand you!" "If I could once understand you!" and for lack of that understanding there had been trouble and coldness between himself and his nearest relative. Proverbially he was difficult to understand; and he had prided himself on the reputation.
Who wanted to be a simple, transparent fellow, whom any one could lead?
This was the first time in his life that he had come into contact with a girl who announced herself an expert understander of human nature. He wondered vaguely what, given the initial success, Pixie would wish him to do, hesitated on the point of inquiry, thought better of it and turned the conversation to impersonal topics.
After dinner Pixie sat on a sofa in the drawing-room enjoying a temporary _tete-a-tete_ with the other girl visitor. Miss Ward"s hair was, if possible, smoother than ever, and she wore a velvet dress almost exactly matching it in shade, which seemed to Pixie"s unsophisticated eyes an extraordinarily sumptuous garment for a young girl to wear. Her eyes were brown, too--bright, quick-glancing eyes full of interest and curiosity. When she spoke her nationality became once more conspicuous.
"Miss Pat-ricia O"Shaughnessy, I guess you and I have got to be real good friends! I"ve been spoiling for another girl to enjoy this trip with me. If you"re having a good time, it makes it twice as good to have a girl to go shares, and compare notes, and share the jokes. You look to me as if you could enjoy a joke."
"I was brought up to them," Pixie affirmed. "I couldn"t live without.
There"s nothing to eat, nor to drink, nor to do, nor to have that I couldn"t give up at a pinch, but a sense of humour I--must have! If you feel the same, we"re friends from this minute. ... Would you mind telling me as a start just exactly who you are?"
Miss Ward"s face fell. Her white brows knitted in a frown.
"I"m an Amurrican," she announced. "Mr and Mrs Hilliard had an introduction to my people when they visited the States, and when I came over to Europe they invited me here. I"m proud to death of being an Amurrican; that"s of course! But there"s something else. You might as well know it first as last." She straightened herself and drew a fluttering breath. "I"m in trade! I"m Ward"s Unrivalled Piquant Pickles!"
"Wh-what?" Pixie stammered in confusion, as well she might, for the announcement was unusual, to say the least of it.
"Pickles! Cauliflower, and cabbage, and little snippets of vegetables floating in piquant sauce, in fat, square bottles. I make them in my factory. If you went over to the States you"d see my placards on every wall, and inside magazines, and on the back sheets of newspapers--a big, fat man eating a plate of cold meat with Ward"s unrivalled piquants by his side. They used to be my father"s: now they"re mine. _I_ am the Unrivalled Piquant Pickles. I run the factory. The profits grow more e-normous every year. There"s no other partners in it, only Me!"
If at the beginning of her speech the speaker had made an affectation of humility, she certainly ended on a note of pride, and Pixie"s admiration was transparently evident.
"Think of that now! A whole factory, and pickles, too! I adore pickles, especially the fat, cauliflowery bits. And to see one"s own name on the h.o.a.rdings! I"d be so proud!"
"Honest Injun, you would? You don"t feel proud and lofty because I"m in trade, and had a grandfather who couldn"t read, while _your_ ancestors have been grandees for centuries? Many English people _do_, you know.
They have a way of looking at me as if I were a hundred miles away, and stunted at that. And others who _do_ receive me don"t trouble to hide that it"s for the sake of the dollars. A girl likes to be cared for for _herself_: she wants people should judge her by what she _is_. It"s a big handicap, Pat-ricia, to be too rich."
"I"ll take your word for it, me dear, having no experience," said Pixie graciously; "but I"d like to be tried. As for caring--no one could help it. I do already, and I"ve only known you three hours, and Esmeralda said you were nice enough to be Irish, and it isn"t the easiest thing in the world to please _her_ fancy."
"She"s a beautiful princess. She"s been real sweet to me over here.
I"m crazy about her!" Honor affirmed in the slow, dragging voice which went so quaintly with her exaggerated language. "But one Mrs Hilliard don"t make a world. You"ve got to be just as good to me as you know how, Pat-ricia, for I"ve got no one belonging to me on this side nearer than an elderly cousin, twice removed, and it"s a lonesome feeling.
"You see, it isn"t only what people think of _me_, it"s the mean, suspicious feelings I"ve gotten towards _them_, as the result of being brought up an heiress. If I could tell you all I"ve endoored! The things I"ve been told! The things I"ve overheard! Twenty-three men have asked me to marry them, and there wasn"t an honest heart among the crowd. I"m not a new-fashioned girl: I"m made so"s I"d love my own home; but sure as fate I"ll die an old maid, for _I_ run away from fortune-hunters, and the honest men run away from me. If a man happened to be poor and proud, it would be a pretty stiff undertaking to propose to the biggest pickle factory in the world, and I guess I don"t make it any easier. You see it"s like this: the more I"m anxious that--that, er--er," she stammered uncertainly for a moment, then with forcible emphasis brought out a plural p.r.o.noun, "_they_ should care for me really and truly for _myself_, the more I think that they only think--"
"Exactly!" interrupted Pixie, nodding. "I quite understand." And indeed she looked so exceedingly alert and understanding that Honor flushed all over her small, pale face, and made haste to change the conversation.
"How did you get on with your partner at dinner? Pretty well, eh? He can be real charming when he likes, and there"s no doubt but he"s good to look at. I"ve met him quite a good deal since I"ve been over here, for he"s been staying at several houses at the same time. From a European point of view, we seem quite old friends, and I"ve a kind of fellow-feeling for him, poor boy, for he"s a sufferer from my complaint of being too well off for his own good."
Pixie nodded several times without speaking, her lips pursed in knowing, elderly fashion.
"That accounts for it," she said, and when Honor queried eagerly as to her meaning, her reply had a blighting insinuation.
"I"m accustomed to soldiers--men who can fight."
"That"s not fair!" cried Honor sharply. She straightened herself and tilted her head at an aggressive angle. "That"s not fair. I guess Stanor Vaughan and I have to go through our own military training, and it"s a heap more complicated than marching round a barrack yard! We"re bound to make our own weapons, and our enemies are the worst that"s made--the sort that comes skulking along in the guise of friends. There aren"t any bands playing, either, to cheer us along, and when we win there are no medals and honours, only maybe an aching heart!"
She drew herself up with a startled little laugh.
"Mussy! Listen to me sermonising.--I guess I"d better get back to facts as fast as I know how. ... When I said Stanor was _too_ well off, I didn"t mean money exactly, but things are too easy for him all round.
He"s handsome, and strong, and clever, and charming, and there"s an uncle in the background who plays fairy G.o.dfather and plans out his life ahead, so that he has nothing to worry about like other young men. He"s not an old uncle really: he"s almost young, but he had an accident as a boy which laid him up for quite a spell, and turned him into a shy recluse. Then when at last he recovered, he was lame, so of course he was cut off from active life, and I guess from what I"ve heard that he"s sensitive about it. Anyway, he lives all alone, and has adopted Stanor as a kind of son, and fusses over him like a hen with one chick--a bit more than the young man appreciates, I fancy."
"How fuss? In what way?"
"Oh! Ambitious, don"t you know," Miss Ward explained vaguely. "All the things he ever wanted to be and to do, and couldn"t, he is determined that Stanor shall do for him. He is clever, and studious, and serious, so he is set on it that the poor boy should be a book-worm, too, and put study before everything else, and have serious ideas on--er--er--the responsibility of property." Honor frowned at the tips of her small satin shoes. "Drains, you know, and cottages, and overcrowding the poor. Of course that kind of thing comes easy enough when you are thirty-five and lame, but poor Stanor is only twenty-four, and as handsome as paint. It"s difficult to be serious-minded at twenty-four, and patient with people who fuss!"
Pixie knitted her brows with an air of perturbation.
"But I hope he is nice to his uncle. It would be so hard to be hurt in your body and hurt in your mind at the same time. It"s bad enough for him, poor creature, to have to sit still and live his life through another. His heart is not crippled, nor his mind, nor his will, and fancy, me dear, going on being patient, day after day, year after year, while your body held you back, and you longed, and couldn"t, and felt the spirit to move a mountain, and were obliged to lie still on a sofa!"
Pixie bounced in a characteristic fashion on her own sofa corner, and whisked a minute pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. "Excuse me, me dear, will you change the conversation? I was always soft-hearted, but red eyes at a dinner party are not _a la mode_. ... Let"s talk about pickles!--"
CHAPTER SEVEN.
PIXIE IS DULL.
Geoffrey Hilliard and his two guests entered the drawing-room, and Pixie"s eyes turned to greet them with a smile. She was longing to talk to each one of them in turns, and with her usual complacency was a.s.sured that each would reciprocate the wish. But the next moment brought with it a jar, for Geoffrey crossed the room to join his wife, and the two younger men made a bee-line for the chair by the _other_ side of the sofa, whereon Honor sat ensconced!
It was only a minute, less than a minute, before Stanor had established a lead, and Mr Carr"s deviation to the left was a triumph of smiling composure; nevertheless, Pixie"s sharp eyes had seen and understood, and her heart felt a natural girlish pang. At twenty it is hard to accept with resignation the part of second fiddle, and Pixie"s generosity had its limits--as whose has not? She had looked at Honor"s pretty face and costly gown, had heard of her wealth and independence with the purest and most ungrudging pleasure, but when it became a case of superior popularity, that was a very different matter! Positively, it was quite an effort to twist her lips into a smile to greet Mr Carr, and it made matters no better to perceive the artificiality of his response.
He was a man several years older than the handsome Stanor, and his type of face was so essentially legal that his profession as barrister could be guessed even before it was known. His chin was the most p.r.o.nounced feature of the face--it was really interesting to discover just how a.s.sertive a chin could be. It was a prominent, deeply indented specimen, which ascribed to itself so much power of expression that even the eyes themselves played a secondary part. The tilt of it, the droop of it, the aggressive tilt forward were each equally eloquent, and, one felt sure, must make equal appeal to a British jury.
At this moment, however, there was no jury at hand--only Pixie O"Shaughnessy, feeling very small and snubbed in her corner of the sofa, and robbed for the moment of her accustomed aplomb by the blighting consciousness that she was not wanted.
Robert Carr"s chin was leaning very dejectedly forward; he would have voted his companion a tongue-tied little bore if Stanor Vaughan had not taken the opportunity of a moment when his host was absent from the dining-room to recount her "sporting" forgiveness of his own _faux pas_.
"That"s the right sort. I like that girl!" had been Robert"s reply, and the good impression was strong enough to withstand a fair amount of discouragement.
So he discoursed to Pixie on the subject of pictures, of which she knew nothing; and she switched the conversation round to music, of which he knew less; and she cast furtive glances of longing towards the other couple, who were laughing and chattering together with every appearance of enjoyment, and he kept his eyes rigorously averted, while his chin drooped ever lower and lower in growing depression. Later on the whole party played several rather foolish games, of which Pixie had never heard before, and in which she consequently did not shine, which was still another depressing circ.u.mstance to add to the list.