George Tressady came down very late for dinner, and
found his hostess on the verge of annoyance.
Mrs. Watton was a large, commanding woman, who seldom
thought it worth while to disguise any disapproval
she might feel—and she had a great deal
of that commodity to expend, both on persons and institutions.
George hastened to propitiate her with the usual futilities:
he had supposed that he was in excellent time, his
watch had been playing tricks, and so on.
Mrs. Watton, who, after all, on this great day beheld
in the new member the visible triumph of her dearest
principles, received these excuses at first with stiffness,
but soon thawed.
“Oh, you naughty boy, you naughty, mendacious
boy!” said a sprightly voice in Tressady’s
ear. “‘Excellent time,’ indeed!
I saw you—for shame!”
And Lady Tressady flounced away from her son, laughing
over her shoulder in one of her accustomed poses.
She wore white muslin over cherry-coloured silk.
The display of neck and shoulders could hardly have
been more lavish; and the rouge on her cheeks had been
overdone, which rarely happened. George turned
from her hurriedly to speak to Lord Fontenoy.
“What a fool that woman is!” thought Mrs.
Watton to herself, as her sharp eye followed her guest.
“She will make George positively dislike her
soon—and all the time she is bound to get
him to pay her debts, or there will be a smash.
What! dinner? John, will you please take Lady
Tressady; Harding, will you take Mrs. Hawkins”—pointing
her second son towards a lady in black sitting stiffly
on the edge of an ottoman; “Mr. Hawkins takes
Florence; Sir George”—she waved her
hand towards Miss Sewell. “Now, Lord Fontenoy,
you must take me; and the rest of you sort yourselves.”
As the young people, mostly cousins, laughingly did
what they were told, Sir George held out his arm to
Miss Sewell.
“I am very sorry for you,” he said, as
they passed into the dining-room.
“Oh! I knew it would be my turn,”
said Letty, with resignation. “You see,
you took Florrie last night, and Aunt Watton the night
before.”
George settled himself deliberately in his chair,
and turned to study his companion.
“Do you mind warning me, to begin with, how
I can avoid giving you a headache? Since this
morning my nerve has gone—I want directions.”
“Well—” said Letty, pondering,
“let us lay down the subjects we may
talk about first. For instance, you may talk of
Mrs. Hawkins.”
She gave an imperceptible nod which directed his eyes
to the thin woman sitting opposite, to whom Harding
Watton, a fashionable and fastidious youth, was paying
but scant attention.
George examined her.
“I don’t want to,” he said shortly;
“besides, she would last us no time at all.”
“Oh!—on the contrary,” said
Letty, with malice sparkling in her brown eye, “she
would last me a good twenty minutes. She has got
on my gown.”
