That Girl in Black; and, Bronzie Read online

instant longer than was actuallynecessary.

  "I--I hope we may meet again, Miss Ford," he said, simply butcordially--something in her present manner was infectious--"and continueour talk."

  She glanced up at him.

  "I hope so, too," she said quickly. But then her brows contracted againa little. "At least--I don't know that it is very probable," she addeddisconnectedly, as she hastened away in the direction whence came thevoices.

  "Hasn't many invitations, I dare say," he said to himself as he lookedafter her. "If she had been still with Gertrude Englewood I might,perhaps, have got one or two people to be civil to them. But I daresayit would have been Quixotic, and it's the sort of thing I dislikedoing--putting one's self under obligation for no real reason."

  If he had heard what Maisie Fforde was thinking to herself as she madeher way quickly to her cousin!

  "What a pity!" she thought. "What a real pity that a man who must havehad good material in him should have so sunk--to what I can't helpthinking vulgarity of _feeling_, if not of externals--to suchcontemptible self-conceit and affectations! I can understand, however,that he may have been a nice boy once, as Gertrude maintains. PoorGertrude--how her hero has turned out! I must never let her know howimpossible I find it to resist drawing him out--it surely is not wrong?Oh, how I should _love_ to see him thoroughly humbled! The worst of itis, that when he becomes a reasonable being, as he does now and then, hecan be so nice--interesting even--and I forget whom I am talking to.But not for long! No, indeed--`Mrs Englewood's dowdy _protegee_,' the`bread-and-butter miss,' for whom the tenth waltz was too muchcondescension, hasn't such a bad memory. And when I had looked forwardto my first dance so, and fancied the world was a good and kind place!_Oh_!" and she clenched her hands as the hot mortification, the scathing_desillusionnement_, of that evening recurred to her in its full force."Oh, I hope it is not wicked and un-Christian, but I should _love_ tosee him humbled! I wonder if I shall meet him again. I hope not--andyet I hope I shall."

  The "again" came next at a dinner-party, to which she accompanied hercousin. Mrs Maberly was old-fashioned in some of her ideas. Nothing,for instance, would persuade her that it was courteous to be _more_ thantwenty minutes later than the dinner-hour named, in consequence of whichshe not unfrequently found herself the first arrival. This in no wayannoyed Maisie, as it might have done a less simple-minded maiden;indeed, on the contrary, it rather added to her enjoyment. She liked toget into a quiet corner and watch the various guests as they came in;she felt amused by, and yet sorry for, the little perturbations shesometimes discerned on the part of the hostess, especially if the latterhappened to be young and at all anxious-minded. This was the case onthe evening in question, when fully half-an-hour had been spent by MissFforde in her corner before dinner was announced.

  "It is too bad," Maisie overhead the young _chatelaine_ whisper to afriend, "such affectation really amounts to rudeness. But yet it is soawkward to go down--" then followed some words too low for her tounderstand, succeeded by a joyful exclamation--"Ah, there he is atlast," as again the door opened, and "Mr Norreys" was announced.

  And Maisie's ears must surely have been praeter-naturally sharp, forthrough the buzz of voices, through the hostess's amiably expressedreproaches, they caught the sound of her own name, and the fatal words"that girl in black."

  "You must think me a sort of Frankenstein's nightmare," she could nothelp saying with a smile, as Despard approached to take her down todinner. But she was scarcely prepared for the rejoinder.

  "I won't contradict you, Miss Ford, if you like to call yourself names.No, I should have been both surprised and disappointed had you not beenhere. I have felt sure all day I was going to meet you."

  Maisie felt herself blush, felt too that his eyes were upon her, andblushed more, in fury at herself.

  "Fool that I am," she thought. "He is going to play now at making mefall in love with him, is he? How contemptible, how absurd! Does hereally imagine he can take me in?"

  She raised her head proudly and looked at him, to show him that she wasnot afraid to do so. But the expression on his face surprised heragain. It was serious, gentle, and almost deprecating, yet with anhonest light in the eyes such as she had never seen there before.

  "What an actor he would make," she thought. But a little quiver of somecurious inexplicable sympathy which shot through her as she caught thoseeyes, belied the unspoken words.

  "I am giving far more thought to the man and his moods than he isworth," was the decision she had arrived at by the time they reached thedining-room door. "After all, the wisest philosophy is to take thegoods the gods send us and enjoy them. I shall forget it all for thepresent, and speak to him as to any other pleasant man I happen tomeet."

  And for that evening, and whenever they met, which was not unfrequentlyin the course of the next few weeks, Maisie Fforde kept to thisdetermination. It was not difficult, for when he chose, Despard Norreyscould be more than pleasant. And--"Miss Ford" in her third personalitywas not hard to be pleasant to; and--another "and"--they were bothyoung, both--in certain directions--deplorably mistaken in theirestimates of themselves; and, lastly, human nature is human naturestill, through all the changes of philosophies, fashions, and customs.

  The girl was no longer acting a part; had she been doing so, indeed, shecould not so perfectly have carried out the end she had, in the firstfire of her indignation, vaguely proposed to herself. For the timebeing she was, so to speak, "letting herself go" with the pleasantinsidious current of circumstances.

  Yet the memory of that first evening was still there. She had notforgotten.

  And Despard?

  CHAPTER THREE.

  The London season was over. Mr Norreys had been longing for its close;so, at least, he had repeated to his friends, and with even moreinsistence to himself, a great many, indeed a very great many, times,during the last hot, dusty weeks of the poor season's existence. Hewanted to get off to Norway in a friend's yacht for some fishing, hesaid; he seemed for once really eager about it, so eager as to make morethan one of his companions smile, and ask themselves what had come toNorreys, he who always took things with such imperturbable equanimity,what had given him this mania for northern fishing?

  And now the fishing and the trip were things of the past. They had notturned out as delightful in reality as in anticipation somehow, and yetwhat had gone wrong Despard, on looking back, found it hard to say.That nothing had gone wrong was the truth of the matter. The weatherhad been fine and favourable; the party had been well chosen;Lennox-Brown, the yacht's owner, was the perfection of a host.

  "It was a case of the workman, not of the tools, I suspect," Despardsaid to himself one morning, when, strolling slowly up and down thesmooth bit of gravel path outside the drawing-room windows at MarkersleaVicarage, he allowed his thoughts to wander backwards some little way."I am sick of it all," he went on, with an impatient shake, testifyingto inward discomposure. "I'm a fool after all, no wiser, indeed a verygreat deal more foolish, than my neighbours. And I've been hard enoughupon other fellows in my time. Little I knew! I cannot throw it off,and what to do I know not."

  He was staying with his sister, his only near relation. She was olderthan he, had been married for several years, and had but one trouble inlife. She was childless. Naturally, therefore, she lavished on Despardan altogether undue amount of sisterly devotion. But she was by nomeans an entirely foolish woman. She had helped to spoil him, and shewas beginning to regret it.

  "He is terribly, quite terribly _blase_," she was saying to herself asshe watched him this morning, herself unobserved. "I have never seen itso plainly as this autumn," and she sighed. "He is changed, too; he ismoody and irritable, and that is new. He has always been sosweet-tempered. Surely he has not got into money difficulties--I canscarcely think so. He is too sensible. Though, after all, as Charlesoften says, perhaps the best thing that could befall the poor boy wouldbe to have to work hard for his living--" a most na
tural remark on thepart of "Charles," seeing that he himself had always enjoyed athoroughly comfortable sufficiency,--and again Mrs Selby sighed.

  Her sigh was echoed; she started slightly, then, glancing round, she sawthat the glass door by which she stood was ajar, and that her brotherhad arrested his steps for a moment or two, and was within a couple ofyards of her. It was his sigh that she had heard. Her face cloudedover still more; it is even probable that a tear or two rose unbidden toher eyes. She was a calm, considering woman as a rule; for once sheyielded to impulse, and, stepping out, quickly slipped her hand throughMr Norreys' arm.

  "My dear Despard," she said, "what a sigh! It