"What!" he exclaimed. "Not a sultana in spangled slippers and gorgeous robes!"
"No," she answered, with a spice of Dolly in her speech. "The slippers are great flat things that turn up at the toes, and the sultan might buy me for so much a pound, and--and I care for other things besides dress."
"Nevertheless," he returned, "you would have made a dazzling sultana."
Then he went away and left her, and she sat down upon her stool before the fire again and began to pull her hair down and let it hang in grand disorder about her shoulders and over her face.
"If I am so--so pretty," she said slowly, to herself, "people ought to like me, and," sagaciously, "I must be pretty or he would not say so."
And when she went to her room it must be confessed that she crept to the gla.s.s and stared at the reflection of the face framed in the abundant, falling hair, until Aimee, wondering at her quietness, raised her head from her pillow, and, seeing her, called her to her senses.
"Mollie," she said, in her quietest way, "you look very nice, my dearr and very picturesque, and I don"t wonder at your admiring yourself; but if you stand there much longer in your bare feet you will have influenza, and then you will have to wear a flannel round your throat, and your nose will be red, and you won"t derive much satisfaction from your looking-gla.s.s for a week to come."
CHAPTER IX. ~ IN WHICH WE ARE UNORTHODOX.
"SOMETHING," announced Phil, painting away industriously at his picture,--"something is up with Grif. Can any of you explain what it is?"
Mollie, resting her elbows on the window-ledge, turned her head over her shoulder; "Toinette, tying Tod"s sleeves with red ribbon, looked up; Aimee went on with her sewing, the two little straight lines making themselves visible on her forehead between her eyebrows. The fact of something being "up" with any one of their circle was enough to create a wondering interest.
"There is no denying," Phil proceeded, "that he is changed somehow or other. He is not the same fellow that he was a few months ago,--before Dolly went away."
"It is Dolly he is bothering about," said Mollie, concisely.
Then Aimee was roused.
"I wish they were married," she said. "I wish they were married and--safe!"
"Safe!" put in Mrs. Phil. "That is a queer thing to say. They are not in any danger, let us devoutly hope."
The two wrinkles deepened, and the wise one sighed.
"I hope not," she answered, bending her small, round, anxious face over her sewing, and attacking it vigorously.
"They never struck me, you know," returned Mrs. Phil, "as being a particularly dangerous couple, though now I think of it I do remember that it has once or twice occurred to me that Griffith has been rather stupid lately."
"It has occurred to me," remarked Phil, dryly, "that he has taken a most unaccountable dislike to Gowan."
Mollie turned round to her window again.
"Not to put it too strongly," continued the head of the family, "he hates him like the deuce."
And he was not far wrong in making the a.s.sertion. The time had been coming for some time when the course of this unimposing story of true love was no longer to run smooth, and in these days Griffith was in a dangerous frame of mind. Now and then he heard of Gowan dropping in to spend a few hours at Brabazon Lodge, and now and then he heard of his good fortune in having found in Miss MacDowlas a positive champion. He was even a favorite with her, just as he was a favorite with many other people. Griffith did not visit Brabazon Lodge himself, he had given that up long ago, indeed had only once paid his respects to his relative since her arrival in London. That one visit, short and ceremonious as it was, had been enough for him. Like many estimable ladies, Miss MacDowlas had prejudices of her own which were hard to remove, and appearances had been against her nephew.
"If he is living a respectable life, and so engaged in a respectable profession, my dear," commented Dolly"s proprietress, in one of her after conversations on the subject, "why does he look shabby and out at elbows? It is my opinion that he is a very disreputable young man."
"She thinks," wrote Dolly to the victim, "that you waste your substance in riotous living." And it was such an exquisite satire on the true state of affairs, that even Griffith forgot his woes for the moment, and laughed when he read the letter.
Dolly herself was not p.r.o.ne to complain of Miss MacDowlas. She was not so bad as she looked, after all. She was obstinate and rigid enough on some points, but she had her fairer side, and Dolly found it. In a fas.h.i.+on of her own Miss MacDowlas was rather fond of her companion.
A girl who was shrewd, industrious, and often amusing, was not to be despised in her opinion; so she showed her fair young handmaiden a certain amount of respect. She had engaged companions before, who being entertaining were not trustworthy, or being trustworthy were insufferably dull. She could trust Dolly with the most onerous of her domestic or social charges, she found, and there was no fear of her small change disappearing or her visitors being bored. So the position of that "young person" became an a.s.sured and decently comfortable one.
But, day by day, Griffith was drifting nearer and nearer the old shoals of difficulty. He rasped himself with miserable imaginings, and was often unjust even toward Dolly. Hers was the brighter side of the matter, he told himself.
She was sure to find friends,--she always did, these people would make a sort of favorite of her, and she would be pleased because she was so popular among them. He could not bear the thought of her ephemeral happiness over trifles sometimes. He even fell so low as that at his worst moments, though to his credit, be it spoken, he was always thoroughly ashamed of himself afterward. There were times, too, when he half resented her little jokes at their poverty, and answered them bitterly when he wrote his replies to her letters. His chief consolation he found in Aimee, and the sage of the family found her hands fuller than ever. Quiet little body as she was, she was far-sighted enough to see danger in the distance, and surely she did her best to alter its course.
"If you are not cooler," she would say, "you will work yourself into such a fever of unhappiness, that you will be doing something you will regret."
"That is what I am afraid of," he would sometimes burst forth; "but you must admit, Aimee, that it is a pretty hard case."
"Yes," confessed the young oracle, "I will admit that, but being unreasonable won"t make it any easier."
And then the fine little lines would show themselves, and she would set herself industriously to the task of administering comfort and practical advice, and she never failed to cheer him a little, however temporarily.
And she did not fail Dolly, either. Sage axioms and praiseworthy counsel reached Brabazon Lodge in divers small envelopes, addressed to Miss Crewe, and invariably beginning, "My dearest Dolly;" and more than once difficulty had been averted, and Dolly"s heart warmed again toward her lover, when she had been half inclined to rebel and exhibit some slight sharpness of temper. Only a few days after the conversation with which the present chapter opens occurred, one of these modestly powerful missives was forwarded, and that evening Griffith met with an agreeable surprise. Chance had taken him into the vicinity of Miss MacDowlas"s establishment, and as he walked down the deserted road in a somewhat gloomy frame of mind, he became conscious suddenly of the sound of small, light feet, running rapidly down the footpath behind him.
"Griffith!" cried a clear, softly pitched voice, "Griffith, wait for me."
And, turning, he saw in the dusk of the winter day a little figure almost flying toward him, and in a few seconds more Dolly was standing by him, laughing and panting, and holding to his arm with both hands.
"I thought I should never catch you," she said. "You never walked so fast in your life, I believe, you stupid old fellow. I could n"t call out loud, though it is a quiet place, and so I had to begin to run.
Goodness! what _would_ Lady Augusta have said if she had seen me "flying after you!"
And then, stopping all at once, she looked up at him with a wicked little air of saucy daring.
"Don"t you want to kiss me?" she said. "You may, if you will endeavor to effect it with despatch before somebody comes."
She was obliged to resign herself to her fate then. For nearly two minutes she found herself rendered almost invisible, and neither of them spoke. Then half released, she lifted her face to look at him, and there were tears on her eyelashes, and in her voice, too, though she was trying very hard to smile.
"Poor old fellow," she half whispered. "Has it seemed long since you kissed me last?"
He caught her to his breast again in his old, impetuous fas.h.i.+on.
"Long!" he groaned. "It has seemed so long that there have been times when it has almost driven me mad. O Dolly! Dolly!"
She let him crush her in his arms and kiss her again, and she nestled against his shoulder for a minute, and, putting her warm little gloved hand up to his face, gave it a tiny, loving squeeze. But of course that could not last long. Miss Macdowlas"s companion might be kissed in the dusk two or three times, but, genteelly sequestered as was the road leading to Brabazon Lodge, some stray footman or housemaid might appear on the scene, from some of the neighboring establishments, at any moment, so she was obliged to draw herself away at last.
"There!" she said, "you must let me take your arm and walk on now, and you must tell me all about things. I have a few minutes to spare, and I have _so_ wanted you," heaving a weary little sigh, and holding his arm very tightly indeed.
"Dolly," he asked, abruptly, "are you sure of that?"
The other small hand clasped itself across his sleeve in an instant.
"Sure?" she answered. "Sure that I have wanted you? I have been nearly _dying_ for you!" with some affectionate extravagance.
"Are you sure," he put it to her, "quite sure that you have not sometimes forgotten me for an hour or so?"