CHAPTER XXI.'You and Ted must have had a very pleasant ride,' said Laurette, a little maliciously, as they drove to the Anstey-Hobbs mansion.'Yes, the sea and the air were delightful,' answered Stella calmly.'If you keep that charming colour, Mrs. A.-H. will fall in love with you on the spot. Since reading some book or other she is quite enthusiastic about healthy, well-developed girls—especially if they combine what she calls a rare organization with dabbling in the fine arts. You don't model in clay, or paint, or sing, do you?''No; I'm like the cat with one trick; my one accomplishment is reading.''Still, I fancy you'll take with my Melbourne friends. Why do you laugh?''You made me think I must be cow-lymph or a new shade of ribbon. What do people have to do when they take?''Oh, sit in a corner and try to be as good as little Jack Horner. Do you know, Stella, it strikes me that you are more spoilt than ever. I suppose it comes from your being the youngest, as Tom says.''It is awfully good of you to make excuses for me,' said Stella, with a heightened colour.Mr. Anstey-Hobbs was popularly credited with being a millionaire. Certainly the surroundings and appointments of his town house gave colour to the belief, not to mention the number of idle servants who hung about the place. 'Just like an English nobleman's house,' as a governor from one of the adjacent colonies had said—a saying which some of Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' friends treasured up and repeated to select circles of their friends' friends, basking in the reflected glory of a viceregal compliment respecting an abode in which they were so much at home. As for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs herself, she never repeated anything that savoured of vain-glory. Indeed, one would imagine at times that wealth was quite a mortification to her. She would take precautions to have scores upon scores of callers on her reception-days, and then take a bosom friend aside, who entirely believed in her and had an incontinent tongue, and say, 'Ah, my dear, how are we to cultivate our minds as we should, when we are swallowed up in social maelstroms like this?' And so, when she donned a specially magnificent visiting dress—one of Worth's highest flights—indicating yet chastening the possession of wealth, she would sit in a remote corner of her carriage, with a melancholy air, as if she were bowed down with the thought that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And then, in talking to her friends at such times, the words 'our terrible climate' and the 'severe limitations of colonial life' were often on her lips.'It is sordid wealth without culture or the traditions of refinement that stifles our artists and poets,' she would murmur, as if shoals of such gifted beings were annually offered up on the altar of Mammon—the fact being that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had a talent for assimilating ideas from the books and magazines she read in such numbers monthly, but had not an equal felicity in their application. The thought that wealth was detrimental to mental expansion was one which had from various sources become dear to her—so much so, that about this time Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had made a determined effort to put down, as far as possible, the overwhelming power of money in Melbourne society. She had struggled to establish a salon—a weekly gathering to be open only to people of culture and esprit. Those who had neither, asserted that the line must certainly be drawn at Mr. Anstey-Hobbs, but habitués of the salon said it was drawn at those who were neither amusing nor had made any contribution to art or literature. But then a liberal interpretation had been put upon the latter term, for among the gifted beings at the first reunion was a wealthy young squatter, a neighbour of Ritchie's, who was by no means amusing, and had never been suspected of wandering on the slopes of Parnassus. On inquiry, however, it turned out that a year previously he had written a letter to the MelbourneArguson 'Fluke in the Liver of Sheep.'The luncheon-party at which Stella made her début in Melbourne society, as Laurette grandiloquently phrased it, was made up of ten women in all, supplemented by two young men, who stole furtive glances at each other, and at first spoke chiefly in monosyllables. According to the hostess, one was a poet, the other a painter. Stella sat at Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' right hand, the painter at her left. Some funny talk went on about allegory.'Well, Mr. Vincent, I still think that your first idea of representing Australia as a wood-nymph, with an opossum-skin thrown carelessly over her shoulders, was exquisite,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs.'That may be, dear madame'—Stella found that this was the title by which young souls, touched with the sacred fire of genius, and therefore admitted to the salon, addressed the hostess—'that may be; but are our public educated up to the point of reading this allegory? I lay it down as one of the canons of art that a picture must tell its own tale. Now, the tale that would be conveyed by the figure in its first inception would be that it was not Australia, but a young black woman.''But suppose you introduce a kangaroo on one side and an emu on the other?''There would be two objections. The introduction of these typical animals would strengthen the aboriginal theory with one class, and afford an element of mockery to another.''Of mockery? surely not! Abandoned as our so-called newspaper critics may be—and, alas! we have no higher standard for leading the masses to sweetness and light—they would never dare to sully with their profligate satire so pure and original a conception!''You have hit the very point. That is exactly what they would do, madame. The figure of a young female inadequately clad, with a bewildered-looking kangaroo on one side and a nerveless emu on the other, suggests nothing so much as an exhibition trophy of colonial wine and olives. You know thebanalandbornétone of newspaper judgment.''Ah, you have so much penetration, such marvellous insight into the envious writhings of inferior natures!' murmured Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, gazing at her 'painter' with pensive admiration. 'Indeed, I doubt whether the very strength of your analytical judgment does not stand in your way as a great creative artist.'Mr. Vincent blushed with pleasure, but still maintained a gloomy frown, as became an artist who had to bear the burden of genius in a world beset with inappreciative masses and unilluminated critics.'And what form, then, have you decided on finally?' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs after a pause. She had always a lady on the premises who took the more prosaic duties of a hostess, and so left her full scope in her efforts for developing the less material forces of colonial society.'Well, a figure more after the classical school, with silken drapery, gauzy and flowing. You wished to say something?''Does it not strike you that it would be better—always, of course, with an eye to the untrained masses; and as I wish to make a gift of this allegorical figure to our picture-gallery, we must think of them—would it not be better to array the—the young woman in a product of colonial growth, or, rather, manufacture?''There you display the subtlety of the born critic as distinguished from those who exist merely because they get so much per column for squirting muddy water. But unfortunately our manufactures are still too crude—too entirely limited to the more fustian uses of life. Tweed and flannel could hardly be used to drape a lithe young female whose contour must show through.''But we grow cotton in Queensland and the northern territory.''Yes, and we can also grow silk; at least, silkworms and mulberries thrive with us.''I am vanquished, Mr. Vincent. I have not another word to say. The silken drapery is perfectly legitimate.''But still, as silk is not yet one of our established industries, we must enhance its effect by something characteristically colonial,' said Mr. Vincent, with the dispassionate fairness of a mind too broad to be puffed up with a sense of its own critical acumen.'Quite true—quite true. The salt-bush is very typical. How would it do to have salt-bush for the background, with a couple of sheep nibbling at it? They might be rather lean, to typify that this bush has often kept our flocks from starving.''If I were painting for such as you are, madame, my task would be an easy one—my labour of love, I should say; for on the day on which I cannot feel it is such, I never touch a brush. But to the ignorant on the one hand, and the malicious on the other—and in the colonies these are the two great classes for whom artists work—I say to these the sheep would be a stumbling-block. The one would think, and the other would say, without thinking, that the young woman was a shepherdess—"a reminiscence of the worst rococo period of unreal landscapes!" That's what the critic with a little wit and no conscience would say. No—my own idea, after long, and I may say painful thought, is to paint the figure with a garland of colonial flowers, holding a basket of colonial fruit, with a colonial bird on her shoulder pecking at it.''Oh, charming—charming! Really too exquisite, Mr. Vincent!Dotell me what flowers and what bird. The fruit—would you have grapes and oranges and peaches, and so on, or one kind?''I do not know about grapes. The colonial wine is really so very—— Well, I fear I am fastidious with wine.' It may be mentioned,en parenthèse, that Mr. Vincent usually smoked a strong cigar over his wine, and smacked his lips ecstatically when he gulped British champagne made of unripe gooseberries.'Yes, and then one likes to encourage teetotal principles among the masses,' answered Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs. 'Perhaps we had better discard the grapes? And the flowers?''Well, I don't know the names of any colonial flowers; but I must ruralize a little in the Botanical Gardens. I suppose they have native ones there?''No doubt—no doubt! Oh, how very charming and natural it will all be—quite a bush idyll! Now about the bird—you see I am all impatience!''Well, I thought, a native companion——'Here, to save herself from absolute disgrace, Stella dropped her napkin, so as to have an excuse for stooping and hiding her face for a moment. The movement drew Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' attention to her right-hand neighbour. It may be imagined that Stella had listened with both ears to all that had passed. Her eyes were literally dancing with suppressed merriment, her cheeks glowing like a well-sunned peach. She was flanked on her left by an elderly woman, who was rather deaf, and who ate her way stolidly through every dish on themenu, so that the girl's attention had been undistracted.Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs put up her pince-nez and looked at her admiringly. The lady had very good eyesight, without any defect of over long or short sight; but an English countess, who had visited Melbourne and stayed some days at Toorak House, had always put up her pince-nez when she wished to look attentively at anything, being so short-sighted that objects at a little distance were all blurred and indistinct to her unaided eyes. So, with the curious humility of a parvenu, Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had ever since zealously imitated one afflicted with impaired vision.'My dear young lady, I fear you are not eating,' she said.On which Stella answered with wreathed smiles that she had been so very much interested in the conversation on painting, etc. Indeed, her face was so radiant with what her hostess mentally called naïve delight, that she instantly took a liking to the girl.'You are, perhaps, colonial-born?''I am an Australian,' answered Stella, who had to keep on smiling in what she felt was an imbecile way. The image of the allegorical figure of Australia, with a native companion perched on her shoulder, was really too killing.'You make a distinction, then, between colonial and Australian?'Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs was the daughter of an English country attorney, and having in her provincial youth been familiarized with the term 'colonial' as somehow expressive of a state of things far below the status of the great British under-middle classes, she still clung to the term in her days of grandeur, fondly deeming that it somehow marked her as one whose bringing-up was more aristocratic than could fall to the lot of those who were born and bred in Australia.'Surely,' answered Stella, 'when there is so much difference.''Now do tell me how. You see, I came to the colonies only when I married. I believe I was the first of our family to leave England.' There was a vague flourishing emphasis on 'our family,' as though it represented great territorial magnates.'Well, a colony—does it not suggest a handful of men ploughing scraps of land in an insignificant little state or island, or, at any rate, the first scattered handful of pioneers who have an uncertain footing in an alien land? Australia is not a colony; it is a continent, a great country where generations have already lived and died—the birthplace of thousands upon thousands who love it more dearly than any other spot in the whole world.' The light of patriotic love and pride shone in the girl's eyes, and her voice was musical with deep feeling.'Really, you know, I am very glad to have this explained to me,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, with the indefinite awkwardness of one who has unawares awakened a chord in an unknown instrument.'I grant you, though,' Stella went on in a lighter tone, half piqued at herself for betraying any emotion, 'that we cannot dispense with the word "colonial."' She was deeply tempted to add, 'as long as we have people who hang idly about Australian cities, painting foolish pictures for money that should be better spent.''Well, you heard what my friend Mr. Vincent said. Tell me, do you think a native companion——'There was no help for it. Stella had to laugh.'Dear Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, a native companion is much larger than the domestic goose, and is mounted on legs over two feet high, with a neck almost as long as its legs.''Ah, I fear it would not do, then, to perch on the shoulder of an allegorical figure of Australia,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, dropping her pince-nez, and turning to the artist, who was staring at Stella sombrely, as if he suspected her of inventing the dimensions of the unfortunate fowl.'Now tell me, Miss Courtland, are there any pretty bush-flowers that would do for a garland—any that may be considered nationally Australian, like the lily for France and the rose for England?' continued this enthusiastic art-patron.'Oh yes; it is an embarrassment of choice. To go no further than the exquisite blossom of our tan wattles, the white scrub immortelles, the epacris, and the lovely myrtle-blossoms of the eucalyptus, cream and pink. Have you ever seen the curve of a low hillside in the depths of our woods all one mass of epacris—white, and pale-pink, and scarlet?'Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs murmured an apologetic negative, with an involuntary glance at the gorgeous orchids that adorned her table. It struck her, perhaps, as being a little out of place to speak with so much enthusiasm of things that grew in masses in the bush to one who could command such rare exotics.'The tan wattle is of rather a crude and violent tint,' said Mr. Vincent in a tone of authority.'I can imagine that it would very easily become so on canvas,' answered Stella with a sweet smile, which quite confirmed Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs in her first estimate of the young lady as being 'delightfully naïve, you know.' It is to be feared she would have changed her opinion if she had overheard Stella that night describe to Ted the accessories of an allegorical Australia, that had been evolved in her hearing by a 'colonial' painter and his patroness.CHAPTER XXII.Stella was still sitting over a late breakfast with Laurette when her brother called with hisfiancée, having driven Dora from her father's house in the family pony-chaise. He watched the first greetings between the girls with keen pleasure. Dora was very pretty; fair and mignonne, with pale-gold hair in crisp wavelets, a pure English complexion, and large blue eyes that had something of the expression of a child's who has suddenly been told a pleasant piece of news.'Oh! you are a sweet little darling. No wonder Cuthbert has thrown me over for you,' said Stella, looking at her critically.'But Cuthbert has not thrown you over, dear Stella; he has given you one more sister to love.''Do they teach each other what to say already?' thought Stella. They babbled away pleasantly for some little time, going over those reminiscences and simple personalities in which old ladies and newly-engaged lovers so readily indulge. Presently Laurette joined them, and the talk became more general. The plan was that Stella should spend the day and stay the night at the Carters'. Cuthbert was preparing to go, having parochial work, when Ted rode up to Monico Lodge, followed by a groom leading Shah, for Stella to ride.The discovery seemed to have something of the nature of a sensation to Dora when, after she and Ted were introduced, he said: 'Why, Stella, I thought I would find you ready. Shah is in fine form for you to-day.''You have appointed to go out riding?' Cuthbert said a little coldly to his sister.'You see I had no idea that you children would be so good and kind as to come so early. I am sorry, Ted, but I am afraid I cannot ride this morning.'Ted's brow darkened visibly. 'But that's nonsense, Stella,' he said impatiently. 'If you haven't finished your jabber, I can wait.'Cuthbert's face became more and more impassive. Dora looked from Cuthbert to Stella in a mystified way, and then Laurette came to the rescue, proposing that she should drive back with Dora. She wanted to see dear Mrs. Carter so much. They could take Stella's dress-basket and maid, and then Ted would take Stella direct to the parsonage.'That's the very ticket,' said Ted. 'Go on, Stella; see if you can't get ready in five minutes,' and he pulled his watch out, and Stella, without further ado, hastened to obey.Incredible as it was to Cuthbert, this rather illiterate and overbearing young man seemed destined to triumph in his suit. His heart sank strangely at the thought. He left for town before Stella reappeared, and when they met again at the parsonage in the evening, he knew by the wistful droop of his sister's mouth that she had somehow felt bored to death. Bored in this exquisitely refined Christian home, and yet tolerant of Ritchie as a lover!Poor Stella! She had indeed passed through some evil hours that day. In the first place, the seaside and Shah, the blue serenity of the day, the great, measureless crescendo of the waves, and Ted's touching goodness in entirely keeping off forbidden ground, had beguiled her into prolonging her ride beyond what she intended. The moment she entered the house, she became aware that lunch had been kept back on her account. There are some households in which unpunctuality is made into one of the seven deadly sins, and it seemed this was one of them. There were three daughters older than Dora, and it transpired that the day was pigeon-holed for all, with set duties for each hour, so that when thirty minutes were lost in waiting for a guest who was inexcusably late, the rest of the day threatened to resolve itself into a scramble to make up for lost time and wasted opportunities. The Rev. S. Carter and the two eldest daughters had to excuse themselves and hurry away before the meal was over, in order to catch a certain train to one of the suburbs, where a sale of gifts in aid of a church school had to be opened. Directly after their departure, a friend called by appointment to accompany the third daughter on a periodical visit to an orphanage. And thus silence prevailed for a little, which Stella endeavoured to break by saying: 'I feel most awfully guilty, you know; but the sea was too divine. And the sky—have you noticed, Dora, how widely vaulted it is to-day?''Oh yes; very pretty!' answered Dora, with a faint smile, and Stella resolved, for the hundredth time since she left home, that she would not try to drag the things that captivated her so insanely into conversation. It was like offering people coin for which they had no change.'Cuthbert did not mention you were engaged,' said Mrs. Carter, when they had settled themselves in the drawing-room, each with some form of needlework.'Oh, but I am not!' answered Stella. And then mother and daughter exchanged a quick look, and Dora, colouring very prettily, said:'I thought, dear, by—by Mr. Ritchie calling you Stella, and your going out riding——'It certainly behoved Stella to explain the long-dated friendship, or at any rate acquaintanceship, which had established both customs. But she was little in the habit of apologizing for herself, and, partly through indifference, partly out of perversity, she allowed the subject to drop. Not so Mrs. Carter, however, who found a roundabout way of approaching the subject again. Mrs. Tareling was Mr. Ritchie's sister then. What a very brilliant marriage she had made. Stella opened her eyes wide in surprise. Of course, the younger son of a British peer was considered so in the colonies, Mrs. Carter presumed. 'No doubt you knew her before she married?' Ah, yes; they knew each other since they were children. And Mr. Ritchie, the young man, was one of those who had so many sheep and cattle and things. Stella believed he had over fifteen thousand a year. On hearing this, Mrs. Carter sat more upright, and regarded Stella with new and respectful interest. And then the lady slid into a long and tedious account of her own family. It was rather involved, or else Stella's attention wandered, for at the close she was not certain whether it was Mrs. Carter herself or her mother or her grandmother who had been governess to an English princess of the Royal family. It was clear, however, that they belonged to a good family; that they had been much reduced; that those who had married had espoused rising clergymen. One sister was married to a bishop. 'Poor woman!' thought Stella. Mrs. Carter seemed to pause as if for some expression of awe or admiration. When she found this was not forthcoming, she went on to explain how wide was the gulf fixed between a colonial and an English bishop. The Carters were only temporarily in Melbourne, and proposed to return to England at no distant date. There was money in Mr. Carter's family: one of his nieces was married to the first cousin of a great duke. Stella lost herself in calculating what share of lustre this connection with the British aristocracy shed on her brother. When she emerged from this depth, Mrs. Carter was dilating on the pang it would cost them to part with dear Dora. But Cuthbert was all they could have wished: they had every confidence in him, etc. It seemed to Stella that the good lady was applying the phrases of a governess's testimonial to her brother. Yes, decidedly it must have been Mrs. Carter herself who had held brevet rank as a governess. She placed so tiresome and so didactic an emphasis on the less alluring aspects of life, coupled with an implication of having been, since early childhood, engaged in laying the moral groundwork of society. Then, in the midst of this gentle, consequential, self-complacent purring, she suddenly asked Stella whether young ladies in the colonies—those who had been born in them, and had never lived elsewhere—took more after the American stamp than the English?The question somewhat revived Stella's drooping spirits. It opened the door for a frankly mischievous sketch of her own existence at Fairacre. The sick-visiting, the calls, the church-going, the walks with the children, the rides with her brother, etc., but not the remotest allusion to what she knew had been chiefly in Mrs. Carter's mind: not a whisper of Platonic friendship or suitors. One might imagine, from Stella's easy rapid sketch, that a 'colonial'-born girl was like the angels in heaven, and never even remotely glanced at the question of marrying.By-and-by there were visitors and afternoon tea-parties, but both of a very mild, not to say tepid, character. Dull people do not understand the grateful fillip that the beverage, when quite fresh and fragrant, gives to the spirits and imagination. Nor did matters improve much when the rest of the family returned. When they were all together, the atmosphere was pervaded with snatches of ruined lives—parlour extracts from the careers of reprobates of both sexes. Something had always happened which was too 'shocking' to be gone into. Either a mangle or a daughter seemed to have disappeared clandestinely from most of the poor houses they had recently visited.Stella listened in vain for some touch of fun or genuine pathos—something that these poor people had said which would throw an illuminating ray on what they really thought or endured. But no; if anything was repeated that had been said by the fatherless, or the widow, or the backslider, it had a chilling echo to her of conventional make-believe—of the kind of pulpit-slang the needy catch up so readily, with alms given on condition that they repent. Or it was still more like what one of the middle classes might have said after being led astray and made decorously repentant by the pangs of hunger.There are multitudes who all their lives visit the poor without ever catching a true lineament of their minds. Such people are often suffused with an hysterical kind of earnestness which makes them utterly impervious to any true apprehension of what is going on in the minds of others. Or they are swaddled in a complacent egoism which makes them quite invulnerable to any true appreciation of the bearings of life. They are capable only of one standpoint, and this one is all distorted and awry.'You do not look very much entertained, Stella,' said her brother when he found an opportunity, shortly before he left, of speaking to her alone.'No? It must be the ravages of a troubled conscience you notice. Shah was too dear this morning. I kept the whole household waiting for me, and then—you must notice that the eldest Miss Carter sings methodically out of tune? Or don't people mind such trifles when they are in love?'Cuthbert flushed hotly. He was indeed very much 'in love,' and this, coupled with the conviction that his sister had decided to accept Ritchie's devotion, made him impatient—for a moment angry even. Like other angry people, he took up the first weapon that came to hand.'Perhaps the charms of Ritchie's society make you impatient of ordinary intercourse,' he said almost sternly.Stella looked at him with startled, dilating eyes. It was almost the first time in her life that Cuthbert had spoken and looked at her unkindly. She felt it like a stab, but she strove to conceal all appearance of being hurt.'I dare say,' she answered, smiling. 'You see, we Australians understand one another. We have a wicked love of enjoyment, of horses, and sunshine, and the seashore. Did you hear that Ted has a new bay colt, which has twice covered a mile in an incredibly short time?''No; I have never been much interested in the performances of horses, as you know.''Well, it has an amusing side. Ted is always pursued by a trainer, or a jockey, or a man in a funny necktie, who is dying to buy the little brown filly out of Lady Glendora, by Victor, you know.''I never believed till now that you would end by accepting him. Stella, it seems to me little short of an infatuation.''But do you know, my dear, that there are women who marry even bishops?'Was it perversity, or the outcome of some nascent feeling of a deeper nature than even she herself was aware of, which led the young woman to answer her brother's remonstrances with so much reserve that a sudden change in her real attitude towards Ted would not have seemed inconsistent? Perhaps there was something of both motives. Nevertheless, the chief one which made these long morning rides so precious to her was a passionate love of being in the open air, of riding, of getting away from people who were, more or less, tiresome—she herself, at times, most of all. On horseback, more completely than anywhere else, she threw every haunting shape of troubled thought to the winds. Life then became a glorious ecstasy—a glad, bounding motion in which simply to be was enough, without any foolish looking before and after.That night, before she fell asleep, Stella recalled her brother's face and words in the brief conversation that had passed, and she felt her heart failing her in a curious way. 'It is true,' she thought; 'the chief attachment of my life is crumbling away. As long as I was first with Cuthbert, he did not see what a faulty, foolish, inconsistent creature I am. Dora's placid little perfections show me up in a lurid light. After this he cannot see me without criticising me—without wondering how, at one time, I seemed to him so dear and lovable. And I—I shall always be conscious of it, and always say horrid things. Oh, it is no use my drawing out a little set of rules, resolving to be more gentle, and sweet, and patient. The things I say, for which I afterwards hate myself, come to me with handles. "Is this a dagger that I see before me?" No, it is a stupid little bodkin, that generally contrives to scratch me. I seem to have got to that stage of life in which I must take myself for better or worse, as people do in marriage—meaning mostly for worse. Perhaps, when the glow of courtship and the honeymoon are over, Cuthbert may cease to criticise me—but that is too far away to be consoling. I have the unfortunate Australian temperament. I want the share that falleth to my lot now. And then there will be not only Dora, whose eyes get rounder at everything I say, but there will be an elder sister eternally singing out of tune—practising a little song with a moral in its tail, to sing at a servantmaids' friendly association. Poor things! it is no wonder they disappear like the mangles that are bought with subscriptions. After all, Shah and Ted are less objectionable than many things in life.'She mocked herself, as she habitually did when she was bent on keeping sterner, more serious thoughts at a distance. Yet before she fell asleep her pillow was wet with tears. In the days that followed the brother and sister gradually drifted apart. He was constantly with the Carters and their friends during his hours of relaxation from parochial work. Stella, swayed by a variety of motives, conceived almost a horror of the Carter household. She even repented of having called Dora 'a little darling' at their first interview. She described her to Ted as opening her eyes wide like an automatic doll.'You don't like having your nose put out of joint, I can see that,' answered Ted, with an amused chuckle.Stella made a slight grimace at him, and gave Shah his head. As they were trotting up the Toorak road, Ted spoke again:'You see, Stella, that's one strong point about me. I'll never throw you over for anybody.''Oh, for the matter of that, Cuth hasn't; only he's got engaged to the wrong sort of family. When you get engaged, Ted, please see that the lady you love has not three unmarried sisters—the eldest desperately unmusical, but bent on singing.''Well, you see, the lady I love has only one unmarried sister. But, of course, you had that in your mind when you spoke,' said Ted, smiling to himself under his moustache.Stella laughed merrily at the imputation.'Now confess,' said Ted, as they slackened their horses' pace and dropped into a walk, 'you would be horribly cross if I came to-morrow morning and said I had got engaged, and instead of begging you to ride Shah, took out the other young woman.'CHAPTER XXIII.Next morning the rain came down in torrents. It was out of the question to go out riding. Nor could Ted make an appointment for the afternoon, in case it cleared. Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had formed one of those sudden attachments for Miss Courtland which characterized the Melbourne lady's social career. Already, in writing to Stella, she addressed her as an 'ever dear,' and this was the day on which the new 'ever dear' was to be at Toorak House at twelve o'clock, and spend a quiet evening with a few special friends.'That means the people who have souls and pens, Stella,' said Laurette. 'Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs always reads people's characters at a glance. She quite took you in the first day. You are so sweet and fresh and naïve—so open to new ideas. Fancy my listening to all this without betraying you!''By Jove! you women are a rum lot,' broke in Ted, who stood staring out through the window, beating a tattoo on his boot with a riding-whip.'Thank you, dear,' said Laurette, with a pert little bow.'Yes; here's that Hobbs woman flying at Stella with both arms when they meet, and Stella going for all the day and most of the night with her; and then I'll swear she'll have some comic story when she comes back, like that one about the lean sheep and the Mallee and the native companion.'Laurette looked thoroughly mystified. Though Stella dearly loved to tell a funny story, she was very careful not to make a confidante of one with so slippery a tongue as Laurette's. Ted perceived the situation, and his heart beat with joy. Stella was sitting on a low arm-chair near the fire, cutting the leaves of a magazine. Ted sat down on the fender-stool at her feet, and said in an undertone: 'After all, what you told me in the top of the she-oak so many years ago is quite true.''Oh, as for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, she gives herself away to everyone,' said Laurette viciously. There had been an ardent friendship at one time between the two, which had long since been offered up as alms to oblivion, and Laurette suspected that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had confided some story to Stella under the bond of secrecy. 'There was that absurd story about herself and the Russian commander last season. Oh, I mean when the Russian man-of-war was here. Of course, Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs gave a grand ball, and Joseph—that's her husband—rather forgot himself. She was so mortified, she began to speak to the commander in a bow-window, and a broken voice, of the withering bonds of the conjugal life, just merely to show off how sensitive and refined she was. She didn't mean a word of it, you know. The commander thought she was proposing to elope with him, and explained in fragmentary English that his official position would not permit any irregularity, but that he hoped to return before long.''Really, Laurette, I don't think you should tell a story like that before me,' said Ted, who was engaged in trying to purloin a bow of ribbon off Stella's shoe.'And then the way she dresses,' said Laurette, who, like many others, found it difficult to curb her enthusiasm as soon as she had begun discussing an absent friend. 'You noticed her the other evening at Government House, arrayed in an extraordinary pea-green, with yellow marabout feathers on the train? She reads the "Court Circular," you know, and makes a point of dressing like a young princess—quite forgetting she is getting on in life, and never had a complexion.''If you say much more, I shall stay to see you hugging and kissing her when she comes in,' said Ted, slipping a knot of crimson satin ribbon into his vest pocket.'That reminds me; I must write a note or two before I go,' said Stella.One of these was to Louise, her brother Hector's wife, at Lullaboolagana.'You say you are not very well, and are longing to see me,' she wrote. 'Well, if you write in your answer "I want you at once," you will see me twenty-four hours after I get it. I feel an ungrateful wretch—for Laurette is all kindness in her way—but the Mallee Scrub spoils one for the kind of society in which money is the one great distinction, and where women have no time for anything but to be insignificant victims of those sinister successes of life which end in choking it with superfluities. As for Cuth—ah me!—one little dimple of Dora's pretty face is worth all I am or can be. Yes, this is partly jealousy—a mean sort of reptile which I used to think I was quite above. I suppose we are above most failings as long as there is no temptation.''Well, Ted,' said his sister, when the two were alone, 'it seems to me that you and Stella are getting on.'Laurette did not really think so; but money affairs were day by day assuming a sterner aspect, and she was anxious to make belief in the success of Ted's suit a ground for making 'sacrifices' on his behalf. Laurette's ideal of a sacrifice was making someone pay very heavily for an action that had cost her nothing.'Oh, do you think so?' answered Ritchie. Then he walked up and down the room for a little. 'Look here, Larry,' he said suddenly, 'do you think Stella has heard anything?'Laurette was just then like achiffonnier, who discards nothing that comes to hand till it is examined at leisure.'I do not know,' she answered slowly; 'what makes you ask?''Well, at times she is so merry and full of fun; then she gets a silent fit; and though we are friendly, we never seem to get any further. The more I see of her the less I know what is going to happen.''She doesn't know herself. Stella Courtland is one of those girls who seem to be wise and even strong-minded—but all the time she is torn in twenty directions. It runs all through her. At seventeen she wouldn't be confirmed, because she wanted to be a Catholic. She has never been confirmed to this day, and never turned Catholic. She stays away from Church far more than I do, and yet she'll read her Bible by the hour, as if it were a French novel. She scoffs at people thinking they can do any good to the poor, and still she has a trick of going to see them and listening to everything they choose to say far more patiently than she would to you or me. She has been absurdly fond of her brother Cuthbert all her life; and instead of being glad he has got engaged to a pretty well-connected girl, she mopes over it. I have no doubt she thinks in her heart that I am a very poor shallow creature; but at any rate I know what I want, and I generally succeed in getting it; and for once I change my mind, she changes hers fifty times. Let her go on a little longer, and if the whim should take her in the end that she doesn't care to marry you, I think I can bring her to her bearings. It used to be a great weakness with her, even as a girl, to believe she could do good. It's a sort of family superstition. She may not have it very strong now; but still enough to get at her through her conscience.''Through her conscience!' repeated Ritchie; as though in the case of a woman this were a theological abstraction, not to be lightly brought up in secular conversation.'Yes, precisely,' returned Laurette, with a firm voice. Conscience was, on the whole, the mental faculty of which she knew least, and she felt therefore all the better qualified to reckon on its mystic influence with a character so unstable. 'But after giving you so much encouragement, she'll never finally reject you.''Well, as to the encouragement, Larry, it's more that I won't give in, you see—and take "no" for an answer.''Then don't be impatient. The longer you are thrown together in this sort of way the better for you.'When Stella came back from Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' that evening, she found Laurette looking very much discomposed over a telegram that awaited her return from a musical evening at Sir Thomas and Lady Danby's, who were next-door neighbours at Monico Lodge. She said nothing, however, as to the cause of her evident vexation, but chatted about the events of the day until Ted came in. He launched into details of a dinner that had been given at the Melbourne Club to Colonel Aldersley, prior to his departure for England.'There was little Jingo of Wyoming,' he said, 'laying it on as usual with a trowel: "The presence of men like Colonel Aldersley amongst us," says he, "has more than social significance. It is the influence of such high-toned people that rivets the bonds that bind us to the mother-country," and a lot more I can't remember. And there was the colonel trying to look as if he believed it, and the other fellows jogging each other, and little Eardley Everson—a brat of a boy of eighteen, who has lost over £20,000 to the colonel—pinching himself to see if he was awake.'Stella was much diverted by this, but Laurette re-read her telegram with a care-laden face. Then she left the room, saying she would be back in a few minutes.On this, Ted entered into more personal talk.'I say, Stella, what do you call that dress you have on—I mean, what stuff is it?''Crêpe de Chine—pale pink, as you see!''And that stuff peeping out round your shoulders?''Cream-coloured crêpe lisse.''Would you mind being married just in a dress like that?''Why, Ted, that's like fishing for an invitation!''Nothing of the sort. Who ever heard of a bridegroom asking to be invited to—— Now, Stella, don't move; sit just as you are. And what are these roses in your hair and bosom?''Scarlet fairy roses. Aren't they too dear and sweet? Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs still has heaps of them, though they were nearly over with us when I left home.''Tell me about Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs before Larry comes back. I won't let the cat out of the bag on you this time!'Stella was sitting on her favourite chair, near the fire. The flames leaped rosily, and cast rosy reflections on her face—stealing to it on each side of the Japanese screen, with its flock of wide-winged storks hovering above their slender bamboos. Ritchie had planted himself straight in front of her, sitting horseback fashion on a chair, his hands, which were crossed on the back of it, supporting his chin.At this request Stella began to laugh, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. It was the expression that her companion best loved to see her wear. When she looked like that he always understood what she said.'Oh, the salon, Ted; it was really too funny. You must know that after dinner we assembled in what Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs calls her boudoir, but it is as large as any ordinary drawing-room. It is hung with panels of peach-coloured satin, very beautifully embroidered—some with Graces and Cupids tumbling over wreaths of roses. But the design I liked best was a great spray of double white cherry-blossoms, with a pair of sweet little gray love-birds billing in the midst——''Yes, they're jolly little animals. I wish some people would take a little more after them.''Now, if you interrupt I must remember bow late it is. Perhaps I ought to tell you that this work was done by a Russian countess that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs met abroad. She got into trouble with her husband, or the Government, or something. So one night, instead of returning home from a ball, she ran away to the Riviera, where she designed and worked lovely things for people who have two hundred thousand sheep in the woods of Australia. When you come to think of it, there is something that fascinates the mind in the idea of eloping with a crewel-needle from the reach of the police, or an objectionable husband.''Nonsense, Stella; no woman worth her salt runs away from her husband like that,' answered Ted promptly. He may have had reasons of his own for entertaining strict views on this point. 'Besides, if you knew all, you may depend it was not with a crewel-needle she eloped.''Well, at any rate it was with a crewel-needle she lived. And she was known as the Countess Olga. But where was I? Oh, the salon—well, you must figure to yourself that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs was drapedartistementin a wonderful Indian fabric, and that she lived in an enormous armchair covered with citron-coloured velvet. Beside her was a little octagon table carved out of Angola ivory; on it the daintiest little notebook in the world with jewelled clasps—a notebook in which to enter thebons motsof the evening.''What arebons mots? Have I ever heard any?''Oh, Ted, Ted—to think that I climbed trees with you in my infancy, and have seen you at intervals ever since, and that you should ask such a question! How shall I explain—it must be in the concrete. You remember the last time you were out riding you told me of an Oxford man who was a knock-about-hand at Strathhaye for some time, and how, speaking of the old Greeks once, he said their only idea of trade was piracy, and I answered it remained for modern times to combine the two? Well, that was something in the nature of abon mot.''Oh, you are always saying things of that kind. But why the dickens should the old frump want to put them in a notebook?''Why, indeed,' answered Stella, laughing heartily. 'Well, you see, Ted, the prosperity of a salon depends on itsbons mots—but I am obliged to confess I did not hear any. There were twenty of us, and the first part of the evening was monopolized by a Yankee newspaper-man, who sends columns of lies every week to a daily paper in New York. He stood with his back to the fire, and held forth through his nose for nearly an hour on the merits of cremation. He proved conclusively that a casket ten inches by eight would contain the calcined ashes of an adult. And then he asked the host in an audible aside for a "nip of dog's nose." What in the world is that?'It was now Ted's turn to laugh. 'Why, it's a horrid mess made of gin and beer mixed.''Then that accounts for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' confusion. She told me beforehand that in striving to establish asalon d'espritshe was determined to keep the grosser pleasures of the palate in the background—to have nothing more material than macaroons and lemonade. I think Mr. Hobbs himself went to brew the unholy mixture. I am sure he would not dare to ask it from the butler, who is a magnificent creature, whose former life has been passed in the bosom of the British nobility. What can be keeping Laurette so long?''Oh, I dare say the kiddies have got measles or something,' answered Ted. 'Go on, Stella, tell me some more. Were there many to dinner?''Yes, about a dozen. These endless costly dinners are my horror. I like my food plain and unmixed, like a bird or a peasant. On one side of me there was a parched-up-looking woman, who seemed to be in a state of nervous tension about her spoons and forks. On the other a man hardly middle-aged, who gobbled away till the veins on his forehead stood out. Pastor Fiedler's nine little pigs used to dine much more peacefully, and then their grunts were so much more eloquent than anything he said.''I've been to Toorak House a few times,' said Ted, laughing. 'It always seemed crammed up with things from everywhere.''Oh yes; I should think that temples in the far East must have been rifled for screens, and rugs, and mantel-drapes. There are some things I have quite fallen in love with. One is a very old Egyptian drinking-cup—greenish-gray, in the shape of a lotus-leaf. Another is a slender Etrurian vase in jade.... But how late it is!' she cried suddenly. 'Laurette must be seeing the children through all the phases of a lingering malady. Good-night, Ted.''Good-night.' But he did not release her hand. 'Oh, Stella, if you would let me take one kiss—just one. You did once before, you know, when we were engaged—that afternoon in the garden at Fairacre.'She drew back, but he had taken both her hands, and held them firmly in his.'Let me go at once, Ted,' she cried in quick anger and something of dismay.'Stella, when is this to come to an end? How long am I to wait and beg, and play the fool? Have pity on me. You do like me a little. That's all I want to begin with. You have thought that you might marry me; you must have thought that you would let me kiss you. There, don't look as if I frightened you. Try and make up your mind——''I have made up my mind,' she cried, sweeping past him, an indignant flush on her face.It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and she found Maisie fast asleep in the dressing-room, where she had been waiting her mistress's return. Stella made her go to bed at once, but she herself sat in a dressing-gown by her bedroom fire. She was angry; first at Ted and then herself. It was ridiculous of her to sit and talk with him so long. Laurette was a sneak, who had no doubt purposely stayed away. Even chaperons had not been invented without a cause. Probably the most jaded institutions of society were founded upon some battered relic of reason. But was it necessary to run full tilt against them before acknowledging this?How absurd it was getting, this determined, endless wooing! What would be the end of it? Her anger died away as she tried to answer the question. She could not pretend to dislike Ted. She reflected on the endless variation of dulness that entered so largely into the lives of the bulk of women. After all, money was one of the greatest safeguards against that mildew of unexpectant monotony with which the years were so largely infected when once one began to find things out. She was really beginning to feel as if Ted had a right to her. Finally, she resolved that she would hasten her departure for Lullaboolagana, and there make a final, an irrevocable decision. Then she pictured herself writing to Ted; no, she would see him, it would be kinder; she would ask him to meet her in Melbourne on her way back. 'Ted, this must come to an end. You must take my final answer; I cannot marry you.' Would he call it 'coming a cropper,' and rend her with reproaches? And then a little panic seized her, that no reason she could urge would stand the tide of Ted's remonstrances. She did not acknowledge it to herself, and yet a vague consciousness underlay her musings, that the masterful way in which he had held her hands, and looked at her with ardent eyes, made some hitherto unknown chord of her nature vibrate in unison with his will. Perhaps it was a faint reminiscence in her blood of the remote ancestresses of pre-civilization, who were knocked on the head if they did not fall in with the marital arrangements made for them.
CHAPTER XXI.
'You and Ted must have had a very pleasant ride,' said Laurette, a little maliciously, as they drove to the Anstey-Hobbs mansion.
'Yes, the sea and the air were delightful,' answered Stella calmly.
'If you keep that charming colour, Mrs. A.-H. will fall in love with you on the spot. Since reading some book or other she is quite enthusiastic about healthy, well-developed girls—especially if they combine what she calls a rare organization with dabbling in the fine arts. You don't model in clay, or paint, or sing, do you?'
'No; I'm like the cat with one trick; my one accomplishment is reading.'
'Still, I fancy you'll take with my Melbourne friends. Why do you laugh?'
'You made me think I must be cow-lymph or a new shade of ribbon. What do people have to do when they take?'
'Oh, sit in a corner and try to be as good as little Jack Horner. Do you know, Stella, it strikes me that you are more spoilt than ever. I suppose it comes from your being the youngest, as Tom says.'
'It is awfully good of you to make excuses for me,' said Stella, with a heightened colour.
Mr. Anstey-Hobbs was popularly credited with being a millionaire. Certainly the surroundings and appointments of his town house gave colour to the belief, not to mention the number of idle servants who hung about the place. 'Just like an English nobleman's house,' as a governor from one of the adjacent colonies had said—a saying which some of Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' friends treasured up and repeated to select circles of their friends' friends, basking in the reflected glory of a viceregal compliment respecting an abode in which they were so much at home. As for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs herself, she never repeated anything that savoured of vain-glory. Indeed, one would imagine at times that wealth was quite a mortification to her. She would take precautions to have scores upon scores of callers on her reception-days, and then take a bosom friend aside, who entirely believed in her and had an incontinent tongue, and say, 'Ah, my dear, how are we to cultivate our minds as we should, when we are swallowed up in social maelstroms like this?' And so, when she donned a specially magnificent visiting dress—one of Worth's highest flights—indicating yet chastening the possession of wealth, she would sit in a remote corner of her carriage, with a melancholy air, as if she were bowed down with the thought that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And then, in talking to her friends at such times, the words 'our terrible climate' and the 'severe limitations of colonial life' were often on her lips.
'It is sordid wealth without culture or the traditions of refinement that stifles our artists and poets,' she would murmur, as if shoals of such gifted beings were annually offered up on the altar of Mammon—the fact being that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had a talent for assimilating ideas from the books and magazines she read in such numbers monthly, but had not an equal felicity in their application. The thought that wealth was detrimental to mental expansion was one which had from various sources become dear to her—so much so, that about this time Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had made a determined effort to put down, as far as possible, the overwhelming power of money in Melbourne society. She had struggled to establish a salon—a weekly gathering to be open only to people of culture and esprit. Those who had neither, asserted that the line must certainly be drawn at Mr. Anstey-Hobbs, but habitués of the salon said it was drawn at those who were neither amusing nor had made any contribution to art or literature. But then a liberal interpretation had been put upon the latter term, for among the gifted beings at the first reunion was a wealthy young squatter, a neighbour of Ritchie's, who was by no means amusing, and had never been suspected of wandering on the slopes of Parnassus. On inquiry, however, it turned out that a year previously he had written a letter to the MelbourneArguson 'Fluke in the Liver of Sheep.'
The luncheon-party at which Stella made her début in Melbourne society, as Laurette grandiloquently phrased it, was made up of ten women in all, supplemented by two young men, who stole furtive glances at each other, and at first spoke chiefly in monosyllables. According to the hostess, one was a poet, the other a painter. Stella sat at Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' right hand, the painter at her left. Some funny talk went on about allegory.
'Well, Mr. Vincent, I still think that your first idea of representing Australia as a wood-nymph, with an opossum-skin thrown carelessly over her shoulders, was exquisite,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs.
'That may be, dear madame'—Stella found that this was the title by which young souls, touched with the sacred fire of genius, and therefore admitted to the salon, addressed the hostess—'that may be; but are our public educated up to the point of reading this allegory? I lay it down as one of the canons of art that a picture must tell its own tale. Now, the tale that would be conveyed by the figure in its first inception would be that it was not Australia, but a young black woman.'
'But suppose you introduce a kangaroo on one side and an emu on the other?'
'There would be two objections. The introduction of these typical animals would strengthen the aboriginal theory with one class, and afford an element of mockery to another.'
'Of mockery? surely not! Abandoned as our so-called newspaper critics may be—and, alas! we have no higher standard for leading the masses to sweetness and light—they would never dare to sully with their profligate satire so pure and original a conception!'
'You have hit the very point. That is exactly what they would do, madame. The figure of a young female inadequately clad, with a bewildered-looking kangaroo on one side and a nerveless emu on the other, suggests nothing so much as an exhibition trophy of colonial wine and olives. You know thebanalandbornétone of newspaper judgment.'
'Ah, you have so much penetration, such marvellous insight into the envious writhings of inferior natures!' murmured Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, gazing at her 'painter' with pensive admiration. 'Indeed, I doubt whether the very strength of your analytical judgment does not stand in your way as a great creative artist.'
Mr. Vincent blushed with pleasure, but still maintained a gloomy frown, as became an artist who had to bear the burden of genius in a world beset with inappreciative masses and unilluminated critics.
'And what form, then, have you decided on finally?' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs after a pause. She had always a lady on the premises who took the more prosaic duties of a hostess, and so left her full scope in her efforts for developing the less material forces of colonial society.
'Well, a figure more after the classical school, with silken drapery, gauzy and flowing. You wished to say something?'
'Does it not strike you that it would be better—always, of course, with an eye to the untrained masses; and as I wish to make a gift of this allegorical figure to our picture-gallery, we must think of them—would it not be better to array the—the young woman in a product of colonial growth, or, rather, manufacture?'
'There you display the subtlety of the born critic as distinguished from those who exist merely because they get so much per column for squirting muddy water. But unfortunately our manufactures are still too crude—too entirely limited to the more fustian uses of life. Tweed and flannel could hardly be used to drape a lithe young female whose contour must show through.'
'But we grow cotton in Queensland and the northern territory.'
'Yes, and we can also grow silk; at least, silkworms and mulberries thrive with us.'
'I am vanquished, Mr. Vincent. I have not another word to say. The silken drapery is perfectly legitimate.'
'But still, as silk is not yet one of our established industries, we must enhance its effect by something characteristically colonial,' said Mr. Vincent, with the dispassionate fairness of a mind too broad to be puffed up with a sense of its own critical acumen.
'Quite true—quite true. The salt-bush is very typical. How would it do to have salt-bush for the background, with a couple of sheep nibbling at it? They might be rather lean, to typify that this bush has often kept our flocks from starving.'
'If I were painting for such as you are, madame, my task would be an easy one—my labour of love, I should say; for on the day on which I cannot feel it is such, I never touch a brush. But to the ignorant on the one hand, and the malicious on the other—and in the colonies these are the two great classes for whom artists work—I say to these the sheep would be a stumbling-block. The one would think, and the other would say, without thinking, that the young woman was a shepherdess—"a reminiscence of the worst rococo period of unreal landscapes!" That's what the critic with a little wit and no conscience would say. No—my own idea, after long, and I may say painful thought, is to paint the figure with a garland of colonial flowers, holding a basket of colonial fruit, with a colonial bird on her shoulder pecking at it.'
'Oh, charming—charming! Really too exquisite, Mr. Vincent!Dotell me what flowers and what bird. The fruit—would you have grapes and oranges and peaches, and so on, or one kind?'
'I do not know about grapes. The colonial wine is really so very—— Well, I fear I am fastidious with wine.' It may be mentioned,en parenthèse, that Mr. Vincent usually smoked a strong cigar over his wine, and smacked his lips ecstatically when he gulped British champagne made of unripe gooseberries.
'Yes, and then one likes to encourage teetotal principles among the masses,' answered Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs. 'Perhaps we had better discard the grapes? And the flowers?'
'Well, I don't know the names of any colonial flowers; but I must ruralize a little in the Botanical Gardens. I suppose they have native ones there?'
'No doubt—no doubt! Oh, how very charming and natural it will all be—quite a bush idyll! Now about the bird—you see I am all impatience!'
'Well, I thought, a native companion——'
Here, to save herself from absolute disgrace, Stella dropped her napkin, so as to have an excuse for stooping and hiding her face for a moment. The movement drew Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' attention to her right-hand neighbour. It may be imagined that Stella had listened with both ears to all that had passed. Her eyes were literally dancing with suppressed merriment, her cheeks glowing like a well-sunned peach. She was flanked on her left by an elderly woman, who was rather deaf, and who ate her way stolidly through every dish on themenu, so that the girl's attention had been undistracted.
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs put up her pince-nez and looked at her admiringly. The lady had very good eyesight, without any defect of over long or short sight; but an English countess, who had visited Melbourne and stayed some days at Toorak House, had always put up her pince-nez when she wished to look attentively at anything, being so short-sighted that objects at a little distance were all blurred and indistinct to her unaided eyes. So, with the curious humility of a parvenu, Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had ever since zealously imitated one afflicted with impaired vision.
'My dear young lady, I fear you are not eating,' she said.
On which Stella answered with wreathed smiles that she had been so very much interested in the conversation on painting, etc. Indeed, her face was so radiant with what her hostess mentally called naïve delight, that she instantly took a liking to the girl.
'You are, perhaps, colonial-born?'
'I am an Australian,' answered Stella, who had to keep on smiling in what she felt was an imbecile way. The image of the allegorical figure of Australia, with a native companion perched on her shoulder, was really too killing.
'You make a distinction, then, between colonial and Australian?'
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs was the daughter of an English country attorney, and having in her provincial youth been familiarized with the term 'colonial' as somehow expressive of a state of things far below the status of the great British under-middle classes, she still clung to the term in her days of grandeur, fondly deeming that it somehow marked her as one whose bringing-up was more aristocratic than could fall to the lot of those who were born and bred in Australia.
'Surely,' answered Stella, 'when there is so much difference.'
'Now do tell me how. You see, I came to the colonies only when I married. I believe I was the first of our family to leave England.' There was a vague flourishing emphasis on 'our family,' as though it represented great territorial magnates.
'Well, a colony—does it not suggest a handful of men ploughing scraps of land in an insignificant little state or island, or, at any rate, the first scattered handful of pioneers who have an uncertain footing in an alien land? Australia is not a colony; it is a continent, a great country where generations have already lived and died—the birthplace of thousands upon thousands who love it more dearly than any other spot in the whole world.' The light of patriotic love and pride shone in the girl's eyes, and her voice was musical with deep feeling.
'Really, you know, I am very glad to have this explained to me,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, with the indefinite awkwardness of one who has unawares awakened a chord in an unknown instrument.
'I grant you, though,' Stella went on in a lighter tone, half piqued at herself for betraying any emotion, 'that we cannot dispense with the word "colonial."' She was deeply tempted to add, 'as long as we have people who hang idly about Australian cities, painting foolish pictures for money that should be better spent.'
'Well, you heard what my friend Mr. Vincent said. Tell me, do you think a native companion——'
There was no help for it. Stella had to laugh.
'Dear Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, a native companion is much larger than the domestic goose, and is mounted on legs over two feet high, with a neck almost as long as its legs.'
'Ah, I fear it would not do, then, to perch on the shoulder of an allegorical figure of Australia,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, dropping her pince-nez, and turning to the artist, who was staring at Stella sombrely, as if he suspected her of inventing the dimensions of the unfortunate fowl.
'Now tell me, Miss Courtland, are there any pretty bush-flowers that would do for a garland—any that may be considered nationally Australian, like the lily for France and the rose for England?' continued this enthusiastic art-patron.
'Oh yes; it is an embarrassment of choice. To go no further than the exquisite blossom of our tan wattles, the white scrub immortelles, the epacris, and the lovely myrtle-blossoms of the eucalyptus, cream and pink. Have you ever seen the curve of a low hillside in the depths of our woods all one mass of epacris—white, and pale-pink, and scarlet?'
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs murmured an apologetic negative, with an involuntary glance at the gorgeous orchids that adorned her table. It struck her, perhaps, as being a little out of place to speak with so much enthusiasm of things that grew in masses in the bush to one who could command such rare exotics.
'The tan wattle is of rather a crude and violent tint,' said Mr. Vincent in a tone of authority.
'I can imagine that it would very easily become so on canvas,' answered Stella with a sweet smile, which quite confirmed Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs in her first estimate of the young lady as being 'delightfully naïve, you know.' It is to be feared she would have changed her opinion if she had overheard Stella that night describe to Ted the accessories of an allegorical Australia, that had been evolved in her hearing by a 'colonial' painter and his patroness.
CHAPTER XXII.
Stella was still sitting over a late breakfast with Laurette when her brother called with hisfiancée, having driven Dora from her father's house in the family pony-chaise. He watched the first greetings between the girls with keen pleasure. Dora was very pretty; fair and mignonne, with pale-gold hair in crisp wavelets, a pure English complexion, and large blue eyes that had something of the expression of a child's who has suddenly been told a pleasant piece of news.
'Oh! you are a sweet little darling. No wonder Cuthbert has thrown me over for you,' said Stella, looking at her critically.
'But Cuthbert has not thrown you over, dear Stella; he has given you one more sister to love.'
'Do they teach each other what to say already?' thought Stella. They babbled away pleasantly for some little time, going over those reminiscences and simple personalities in which old ladies and newly-engaged lovers so readily indulge. Presently Laurette joined them, and the talk became more general. The plan was that Stella should spend the day and stay the night at the Carters'. Cuthbert was preparing to go, having parochial work, when Ted rode up to Monico Lodge, followed by a groom leading Shah, for Stella to ride.
The discovery seemed to have something of the nature of a sensation to Dora when, after she and Ted were introduced, he said: 'Why, Stella, I thought I would find you ready. Shah is in fine form for you to-day.'
'You have appointed to go out riding?' Cuthbert said a little coldly to his sister.
'You see I had no idea that you children would be so good and kind as to come so early. I am sorry, Ted, but I am afraid I cannot ride this morning.'
Ted's brow darkened visibly. 'But that's nonsense, Stella,' he said impatiently. 'If you haven't finished your jabber, I can wait.'
Cuthbert's face became more and more impassive. Dora looked from Cuthbert to Stella in a mystified way, and then Laurette came to the rescue, proposing that she should drive back with Dora. She wanted to see dear Mrs. Carter so much. They could take Stella's dress-basket and maid, and then Ted would take Stella direct to the parsonage.
'That's the very ticket,' said Ted. 'Go on, Stella; see if you can't get ready in five minutes,' and he pulled his watch out, and Stella, without further ado, hastened to obey.
Incredible as it was to Cuthbert, this rather illiterate and overbearing young man seemed destined to triumph in his suit. His heart sank strangely at the thought. He left for town before Stella reappeared, and when they met again at the parsonage in the evening, he knew by the wistful droop of his sister's mouth that she had somehow felt bored to death. Bored in this exquisitely refined Christian home, and yet tolerant of Ritchie as a lover!
Poor Stella! She had indeed passed through some evil hours that day. In the first place, the seaside and Shah, the blue serenity of the day, the great, measureless crescendo of the waves, and Ted's touching goodness in entirely keeping off forbidden ground, had beguiled her into prolonging her ride beyond what she intended. The moment she entered the house, she became aware that lunch had been kept back on her account. There are some households in which unpunctuality is made into one of the seven deadly sins, and it seemed this was one of them. There were three daughters older than Dora, and it transpired that the day was pigeon-holed for all, with set duties for each hour, so that when thirty minutes were lost in waiting for a guest who was inexcusably late, the rest of the day threatened to resolve itself into a scramble to make up for lost time and wasted opportunities. The Rev. S. Carter and the two eldest daughters had to excuse themselves and hurry away before the meal was over, in order to catch a certain train to one of the suburbs, where a sale of gifts in aid of a church school had to be opened. Directly after their departure, a friend called by appointment to accompany the third daughter on a periodical visit to an orphanage. And thus silence prevailed for a little, which Stella endeavoured to break by saying: 'I feel most awfully guilty, you know; but the sea was too divine. And the sky—have you noticed, Dora, how widely vaulted it is to-day?'
'Oh yes; very pretty!' answered Dora, with a faint smile, and Stella resolved, for the hundredth time since she left home, that she would not try to drag the things that captivated her so insanely into conversation. It was like offering people coin for which they had no change.
'Cuthbert did not mention you were engaged,' said Mrs. Carter, when they had settled themselves in the drawing-room, each with some form of needlework.
'Oh, but I am not!' answered Stella. And then mother and daughter exchanged a quick look, and Dora, colouring very prettily, said:
'I thought, dear, by—by Mr. Ritchie calling you Stella, and your going out riding——'
It certainly behoved Stella to explain the long-dated friendship, or at any rate acquaintanceship, which had established both customs. But she was little in the habit of apologizing for herself, and, partly through indifference, partly out of perversity, she allowed the subject to drop. Not so Mrs. Carter, however, who found a roundabout way of approaching the subject again. Mrs. Tareling was Mr. Ritchie's sister then. What a very brilliant marriage she had made. Stella opened her eyes wide in surprise. Of course, the younger son of a British peer was considered so in the colonies, Mrs. Carter presumed. 'No doubt you knew her before she married?' Ah, yes; they knew each other since they were children. And Mr. Ritchie, the young man, was one of those who had so many sheep and cattle and things. Stella believed he had over fifteen thousand a year. On hearing this, Mrs. Carter sat more upright, and regarded Stella with new and respectful interest. And then the lady slid into a long and tedious account of her own family. It was rather involved, or else Stella's attention wandered, for at the close she was not certain whether it was Mrs. Carter herself or her mother or her grandmother who had been governess to an English princess of the Royal family. It was clear, however, that they belonged to a good family; that they had been much reduced; that those who had married had espoused rising clergymen. One sister was married to a bishop. 'Poor woman!' thought Stella. Mrs. Carter seemed to pause as if for some expression of awe or admiration. When she found this was not forthcoming, she went on to explain how wide was the gulf fixed between a colonial and an English bishop. The Carters were only temporarily in Melbourne, and proposed to return to England at no distant date. There was money in Mr. Carter's family: one of his nieces was married to the first cousin of a great duke. Stella lost herself in calculating what share of lustre this connection with the British aristocracy shed on her brother. When she emerged from this depth, Mrs. Carter was dilating on the pang it would cost them to part with dear Dora. But Cuthbert was all they could have wished: they had every confidence in him, etc. It seemed to Stella that the good lady was applying the phrases of a governess's testimonial to her brother. Yes, decidedly it must have been Mrs. Carter herself who had held brevet rank as a governess. She placed so tiresome and so didactic an emphasis on the less alluring aspects of life, coupled with an implication of having been, since early childhood, engaged in laying the moral groundwork of society. Then, in the midst of this gentle, consequential, self-complacent purring, she suddenly asked Stella whether young ladies in the colonies—those who had been born in them, and had never lived elsewhere—took more after the American stamp than the English?
The question somewhat revived Stella's drooping spirits. It opened the door for a frankly mischievous sketch of her own existence at Fairacre. The sick-visiting, the calls, the church-going, the walks with the children, the rides with her brother, etc., but not the remotest allusion to what she knew had been chiefly in Mrs. Carter's mind: not a whisper of Platonic friendship or suitors. One might imagine, from Stella's easy rapid sketch, that a 'colonial'-born girl was like the angels in heaven, and never even remotely glanced at the question of marrying.
By-and-by there were visitors and afternoon tea-parties, but both of a very mild, not to say tepid, character. Dull people do not understand the grateful fillip that the beverage, when quite fresh and fragrant, gives to the spirits and imagination. Nor did matters improve much when the rest of the family returned. When they were all together, the atmosphere was pervaded with snatches of ruined lives—parlour extracts from the careers of reprobates of both sexes. Something had always happened which was too 'shocking' to be gone into. Either a mangle or a daughter seemed to have disappeared clandestinely from most of the poor houses they had recently visited.
Stella listened in vain for some touch of fun or genuine pathos—something that these poor people had said which would throw an illuminating ray on what they really thought or endured. But no; if anything was repeated that had been said by the fatherless, or the widow, or the backslider, it had a chilling echo to her of conventional make-believe—of the kind of pulpit-slang the needy catch up so readily, with alms given on condition that they repent. Or it was still more like what one of the middle classes might have said after being led astray and made decorously repentant by the pangs of hunger.
There are multitudes who all their lives visit the poor without ever catching a true lineament of their minds. Such people are often suffused with an hysterical kind of earnestness which makes them utterly impervious to any true apprehension of what is going on in the minds of others. Or they are swaddled in a complacent egoism which makes them quite invulnerable to any true appreciation of the bearings of life. They are capable only of one standpoint, and this one is all distorted and awry.
'You do not look very much entertained, Stella,' said her brother when he found an opportunity, shortly before he left, of speaking to her alone.
'No? It must be the ravages of a troubled conscience you notice. Shah was too dear this morning. I kept the whole household waiting for me, and then—you must notice that the eldest Miss Carter sings methodically out of tune? Or don't people mind such trifles when they are in love?'
Cuthbert flushed hotly. He was indeed very much 'in love,' and this, coupled with the conviction that his sister had decided to accept Ritchie's devotion, made him impatient—for a moment angry even. Like other angry people, he took up the first weapon that came to hand.
'Perhaps the charms of Ritchie's society make you impatient of ordinary intercourse,' he said almost sternly.
Stella looked at him with startled, dilating eyes. It was almost the first time in her life that Cuthbert had spoken and looked at her unkindly. She felt it like a stab, but she strove to conceal all appearance of being hurt.
'I dare say,' she answered, smiling. 'You see, we Australians understand one another. We have a wicked love of enjoyment, of horses, and sunshine, and the seashore. Did you hear that Ted has a new bay colt, which has twice covered a mile in an incredibly short time?'
'No; I have never been much interested in the performances of horses, as you know.'
'Well, it has an amusing side. Ted is always pursued by a trainer, or a jockey, or a man in a funny necktie, who is dying to buy the little brown filly out of Lady Glendora, by Victor, you know.'
'I never believed till now that you would end by accepting him. Stella, it seems to me little short of an infatuation.'
'But do you know, my dear, that there are women who marry even bishops?'
Was it perversity, or the outcome of some nascent feeling of a deeper nature than even she herself was aware of, which led the young woman to answer her brother's remonstrances with so much reserve that a sudden change in her real attitude towards Ted would not have seemed inconsistent? Perhaps there was something of both motives. Nevertheless, the chief one which made these long morning rides so precious to her was a passionate love of being in the open air, of riding, of getting away from people who were, more or less, tiresome—she herself, at times, most of all. On horseback, more completely than anywhere else, she threw every haunting shape of troubled thought to the winds. Life then became a glorious ecstasy—a glad, bounding motion in which simply to be was enough, without any foolish looking before and after.
That night, before she fell asleep, Stella recalled her brother's face and words in the brief conversation that had passed, and she felt her heart failing her in a curious way. 'It is true,' she thought; 'the chief attachment of my life is crumbling away. As long as I was first with Cuthbert, he did not see what a faulty, foolish, inconsistent creature I am. Dora's placid little perfections show me up in a lurid light. After this he cannot see me without criticising me—without wondering how, at one time, I seemed to him so dear and lovable. And I—I shall always be conscious of it, and always say horrid things. Oh, it is no use my drawing out a little set of rules, resolving to be more gentle, and sweet, and patient. The things I say, for which I afterwards hate myself, come to me with handles. "Is this a dagger that I see before me?" No, it is a stupid little bodkin, that generally contrives to scratch me. I seem to have got to that stage of life in which I must take myself for better or worse, as people do in marriage—meaning mostly for worse. Perhaps, when the glow of courtship and the honeymoon are over, Cuthbert may cease to criticise me—but that is too far away to be consoling. I have the unfortunate Australian temperament. I want the share that falleth to my lot now. And then there will be not only Dora, whose eyes get rounder at everything I say, but there will be an elder sister eternally singing out of tune—practising a little song with a moral in its tail, to sing at a servantmaids' friendly association. Poor things! it is no wonder they disappear like the mangles that are bought with subscriptions. After all, Shah and Ted are less objectionable than many things in life.'
She mocked herself, as she habitually did when she was bent on keeping sterner, more serious thoughts at a distance. Yet before she fell asleep her pillow was wet with tears. In the days that followed the brother and sister gradually drifted apart. He was constantly with the Carters and their friends during his hours of relaxation from parochial work. Stella, swayed by a variety of motives, conceived almost a horror of the Carter household. She even repented of having called Dora 'a little darling' at their first interview. She described her to Ted as opening her eyes wide like an automatic doll.
'You don't like having your nose put out of joint, I can see that,' answered Ted, with an amused chuckle.
Stella made a slight grimace at him, and gave Shah his head. As they were trotting up the Toorak road, Ted spoke again:
'You see, Stella, that's one strong point about me. I'll never throw you over for anybody.'
'Oh, for the matter of that, Cuth hasn't; only he's got engaged to the wrong sort of family. When you get engaged, Ted, please see that the lady you love has not three unmarried sisters—the eldest desperately unmusical, but bent on singing.'
'Well, you see, the lady I love has only one unmarried sister. But, of course, you had that in your mind when you spoke,' said Ted, smiling to himself under his moustache.
Stella laughed merrily at the imputation.
'Now confess,' said Ted, as they slackened their horses' pace and dropped into a walk, 'you would be horribly cross if I came to-morrow morning and said I had got engaged, and instead of begging you to ride Shah, took out the other young woman.'
CHAPTER XXIII.
Next morning the rain came down in torrents. It was out of the question to go out riding. Nor could Ted make an appointment for the afternoon, in case it cleared. Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had formed one of those sudden attachments for Miss Courtland which characterized the Melbourne lady's social career. Already, in writing to Stella, she addressed her as an 'ever dear,' and this was the day on which the new 'ever dear' was to be at Toorak House at twelve o'clock, and spend a quiet evening with a few special friends.
'That means the people who have souls and pens, Stella,' said Laurette. 'Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs always reads people's characters at a glance. She quite took you in the first day. You are so sweet and fresh and naïve—so open to new ideas. Fancy my listening to all this without betraying you!'
'By Jove! you women are a rum lot,' broke in Ted, who stood staring out through the window, beating a tattoo on his boot with a riding-whip.
'Thank you, dear,' said Laurette, with a pert little bow.
'Yes; here's that Hobbs woman flying at Stella with both arms when they meet, and Stella going for all the day and most of the night with her; and then I'll swear she'll have some comic story when she comes back, like that one about the lean sheep and the Mallee and the native companion.'
Laurette looked thoroughly mystified. Though Stella dearly loved to tell a funny story, she was very careful not to make a confidante of one with so slippery a tongue as Laurette's. Ted perceived the situation, and his heart beat with joy. Stella was sitting on a low arm-chair near the fire, cutting the leaves of a magazine. Ted sat down on the fender-stool at her feet, and said in an undertone: 'After all, what you told me in the top of the she-oak so many years ago is quite true.'
'Oh, as for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, she gives herself away to everyone,' said Laurette viciously. There had been an ardent friendship at one time between the two, which had long since been offered up as alms to oblivion, and Laurette suspected that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had confided some story to Stella under the bond of secrecy. 'There was that absurd story about herself and the Russian commander last season. Oh, I mean when the Russian man-of-war was here. Of course, Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs gave a grand ball, and Joseph—that's her husband—rather forgot himself. She was so mortified, she began to speak to the commander in a bow-window, and a broken voice, of the withering bonds of the conjugal life, just merely to show off how sensitive and refined she was. She didn't mean a word of it, you know. The commander thought she was proposing to elope with him, and explained in fragmentary English that his official position would not permit any irregularity, but that he hoped to return before long.'
'Really, Laurette, I don't think you should tell a story like that before me,' said Ted, who was engaged in trying to purloin a bow of ribbon off Stella's shoe.
'And then the way she dresses,' said Laurette, who, like many others, found it difficult to curb her enthusiasm as soon as she had begun discussing an absent friend. 'You noticed her the other evening at Government House, arrayed in an extraordinary pea-green, with yellow marabout feathers on the train? She reads the "Court Circular," you know, and makes a point of dressing like a young princess—quite forgetting she is getting on in life, and never had a complexion.'
'If you say much more, I shall stay to see you hugging and kissing her when she comes in,' said Ted, slipping a knot of crimson satin ribbon into his vest pocket.
'That reminds me; I must write a note or two before I go,' said Stella.
One of these was to Louise, her brother Hector's wife, at Lullaboolagana.
'You say you are not very well, and are longing to see me,' she wrote. 'Well, if you write in your answer "I want you at once," you will see me twenty-four hours after I get it. I feel an ungrateful wretch—for Laurette is all kindness in her way—but the Mallee Scrub spoils one for the kind of society in which money is the one great distinction, and where women have no time for anything but to be insignificant victims of those sinister successes of life which end in choking it with superfluities. As for Cuth—ah me!—one little dimple of Dora's pretty face is worth all I am or can be. Yes, this is partly jealousy—a mean sort of reptile which I used to think I was quite above. I suppose we are above most failings as long as there is no temptation.'
'Well, Ted,' said his sister, when the two were alone, 'it seems to me that you and Stella are getting on.'
Laurette did not really think so; but money affairs were day by day assuming a sterner aspect, and she was anxious to make belief in the success of Ted's suit a ground for making 'sacrifices' on his behalf. Laurette's ideal of a sacrifice was making someone pay very heavily for an action that had cost her nothing.
'Oh, do you think so?' answered Ritchie. Then he walked up and down the room for a little. 'Look here, Larry,' he said suddenly, 'do you think Stella has heard anything?'
Laurette was just then like achiffonnier, who discards nothing that comes to hand till it is examined at leisure.
'I do not know,' she answered slowly; 'what makes you ask?'
'Well, at times she is so merry and full of fun; then she gets a silent fit; and though we are friendly, we never seem to get any further. The more I see of her the less I know what is going to happen.'
'She doesn't know herself. Stella Courtland is one of those girls who seem to be wise and even strong-minded—but all the time she is torn in twenty directions. It runs all through her. At seventeen she wouldn't be confirmed, because she wanted to be a Catholic. She has never been confirmed to this day, and never turned Catholic. She stays away from Church far more than I do, and yet she'll read her Bible by the hour, as if it were a French novel. She scoffs at people thinking they can do any good to the poor, and still she has a trick of going to see them and listening to everything they choose to say far more patiently than she would to you or me. She has been absurdly fond of her brother Cuthbert all her life; and instead of being glad he has got engaged to a pretty well-connected girl, she mopes over it. I have no doubt she thinks in her heart that I am a very poor shallow creature; but at any rate I know what I want, and I generally succeed in getting it; and for once I change my mind, she changes hers fifty times. Let her go on a little longer, and if the whim should take her in the end that she doesn't care to marry you, I think I can bring her to her bearings. It used to be a great weakness with her, even as a girl, to believe she could do good. It's a sort of family superstition. She may not have it very strong now; but still enough to get at her through her conscience.'
'Through her conscience!' repeated Ritchie; as though in the case of a woman this were a theological abstraction, not to be lightly brought up in secular conversation.
'Yes, precisely,' returned Laurette, with a firm voice. Conscience was, on the whole, the mental faculty of which she knew least, and she felt therefore all the better qualified to reckon on its mystic influence with a character so unstable. 'But after giving you so much encouragement, she'll never finally reject you.'
'Well, as to the encouragement, Larry, it's more that I won't give in, you see—and take "no" for an answer.'
'Then don't be impatient. The longer you are thrown together in this sort of way the better for you.'
When Stella came back from Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' that evening, she found Laurette looking very much discomposed over a telegram that awaited her return from a musical evening at Sir Thomas and Lady Danby's, who were next-door neighbours at Monico Lodge. She said nothing, however, as to the cause of her evident vexation, but chatted about the events of the day until Ted came in. He launched into details of a dinner that had been given at the Melbourne Club to Colonel Aldersley, prior to his departure for England.
'There was little Jingo of Wyoming,' he said, 'laying it on as usual with a trowel: "The presence of men like Colonel Aldersley amongst us," says he, "has more than social significance. It is the influence of such high-toned people that rivets the bonds that bind us to the mother-country," and a lot more I can't remember. And there was the colonel trying to look as if he believed it, and the other fellows jogging each other, and little Eardley Everson—a brat of a boy of eighteen, who has lost over £20,000 to the colonel—pinching himself to see if he was awake.'
Stella was much diverted by this, but Laurette re-read her telegram with a care-laden face. Then she left the room, saying she would be back in a few minutes.
On this, Ted entered into more personal talk.
'I say, Stella, what do you call that dress you have on—I mean, what stuff is it?'
'Crêpe de Chine—pale pink, as you see!'
'And that stuff peeping out round your shoulders?'
'Cream-coloured crêpe lisse.'
'Would you mind being married just in a dress like that?'
'Why, Ted, that's like fishing for an invitation!'
'Nothing of the sort. Who ever heard of a bridegroom asking to be invited to—— Now, Stella, don't move; sit just as you are. And what are these roses in your hair and bosom?'
'Scarlet fairy roses. Aren't they too dear and sweet? Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs still has heaps of them, though they were nearly over with us when I left home.'
'Tell me about Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs before Larry comes back. I won't let the cat out of the bag on you this time!'
Stella was sitting on her favourite chair, near the fire. The flames leaped rosily, and cast rosy reflections on her face—stealing to it on each side of the Japanese screen, with its flock of wide-winged storks hovering above their slender bamboos. Ritchie had planted himself straight in front of her, sitting horseback fashion on a chair, his hands, which were crossed on the back of it, supporting his chin.
At this request Stella began to laugh, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. It was the expression that her companion best loved to see her wear. When she looked like that he always understood what she said.
'Oh, the salon, Ted; it was really too funny. You must know that after dinner we assembled in what Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs calls her boudoir, but it is as large as any ordinary drawing-room. It is hung with panels of peach-coloured satin, very beautifully embroidered—some with Graces and Cupids tumbling over wreaths of roses. But the design I liked best was a great spray of double white cherry-blossoms, with a pair of sweet little gray love-birds billing in the midst——'
'Yes, they're jolly little animals. I wish some people would take a little more after them.'
'Now, if you interrupt I must remember bow late it is. Perhaps I ought to tell you that this work was done by a Russian countess that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs met abroad. She got into trouble with her husband, or the Government, or something. So one night, instead of returning home from a ball, she ran away to the Riviera, where she designed and worked lovely things for people who have two hundred thousand sheep in the woods of Australia. When you come to think of it, there is something that fascinates the mind in the idea of eloping with a crewel-needle from the reach of the police, or an objectionable husband.'
'Nonsense, Stella; no woman worth her salt runs away from her husband like that,' answered Ted promptly. He may have had reasons of his own for entertaining strict views on this point. 'Besides, if you knew all, you may depend it was not with a crewel-needle she eloped.'
'Well, at any rate it was with a crewel-needle she lived. And she was known as the Countess Olga. But where was I? Oh, the salon—well, you must figure to yourself that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs was drapedartistementin a wonderful Indian fabric, and that she lived in an enormous armchair covered with citron-coloured velvet. Beside her was a little octagon table carved out of Angola ivory; on it the daintiest little notebook in the world with jewelled clasps—a notebook in which to enter thebons motsof the evening.'
'What arebons mots? Have I ever heard any?'
'Oh, Ted, Ted—to think that I climbed trees with you in my infancy, and have seen you at intervals ever since, and that you should ask such a question! How shall I explain—it must be in the concrete. You remember the last time you were out riding you told me of an Oxford man who was a knock-about-hand at Strathhaye for some time, and how, speaking of the old Greeks once, he said their only idea of trade was piracy, and I answered it remained for modern times to combine the two? Well, that was something in the nature of abon mot.'
'Oh, you are always saying things of that kind. But why the dickens should the old frump want to put them in a notebook?'
'Why, indeed,' answered Stella, laughing heartily. 'Well, you see, Ted, the prosperity of a salon depends on itsbons mots—but I am obliged to confess I did not hear any. There were twenty of us, and the first part of the evening was monopolized by a Yankee newspaper-man, who sends columns of lies every week to a daily paper in New York. He stood with his back to the fire, and held forth through his nose for nearly an hour on the merits of cremation. He proved conclusively that a casket ten inches by eight would contain the calcined ashes of an adult. And then he asked the host in an audible aside for a "nip of dog's nose." What in the world is that?'
It was now Ted's turn to laugh. 'Why, it's a horrid mess made of gin and beer mixed.'
'Then that accounts for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' confusion. She told me beforehand that in striving to establish asalon d'espritshe was determined to keep the grosser pleasures of the palate in the background—to have nothing more material than macaroons and lemonade. I think Mr. Hobbs himself went to brew the unholy mixture. I am sure he would not dare to ask it from the butler, who is a magnificent creature, whose former life has been passed in the bosom of the British nobility. What can be keeping Laurette so long?'
'Oh, I dare say the kiddies have got measles or something,' answered Ted. 'Go on, Stella, tell me some more. Were there many to dinner?'
'Yes, about a dozen. These endless costly dinners are my horror. I like my food plain and unmixed, like a bird or a peasant. On one side of me there was a parched-up-looking woman, who seemed to be in a state of nervous tension about her spoons and forks. On the other a man hardly middle-aged, who gobbled away till the veins on his forehead stood out. Pastor Fiedler's nine little pigs used to dine much more peacefully, and then their grunts were so much more eloquent than anything he said.'
'I've been to Toorak House a few times,' said Ted, laughing. 'It always seemed crammed up with things from everywhere.'
'Oh yes; I should think that temples in the far East must have been rifled for screens, and rugs, and mantel-drapes. There are some things I have quite fallen in love with. One is a very old Egyptian drinking-cup—greenish-gray, in the shape of a lotus-leaf. Another is a slender Etrurian vase in jade.... But how late it is!' she cried suddenly. 'Laurette must be seeing the children through all the phases of a lingering malady. Good-night, Ted.'
'Good-night.' But he did not release her hand. 'Oh, Stella, if you would let me take one kiss—just one. You did once before, you know, when we were engaged—that afternoon in the garden at Fairacre.'
She drew back, but he had taken both her hands, and held them firmly in his.
'Let me go at once, Ted,' she cried in quick anger and something of dismay.
'Stella, when is this to come to an end? How long am I to wait and beg, and play the fool? Have pity on me. You do like me a little. That's all I want to begin with. You have thought that you might marry me; you must have thought that you would let me kiss you. There, don't look as if I frightened you. Try and make up your mind——'
'I have made up my mind,' she cried, sweeping past him, an indignant flush on her face.
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and she found Maisie fast asleep in the dressing-room, where she had been waiting her mistress's return. Stella made her go to bed at once, but she herself sat in a dressing-gown by her bedroom fire. She was angry; first at Ted and then herself. It was ridiculous of her to sit and talk with him so long. Laurette was a sneak, who had no doubt purposely stayed away. Even chaperons had not been invented without a cause. Probably the most jaded institutions of society were founded upon some battered relic of reason. But was it necessary to run full tilt against them before acknowledging this?
How absurd it was getting, this determined, endless wooing! What would be the end of it? Her anger died away as she tried to answer the question. She could not pretend to dislike Ted. She reflected on the endless variation of dulness that entered so largely into the lives of the bulk of women. After all, money was one of the greatest safeguards against that mildew of unexpectant monotony with which the years were so largely infected when once one began to find things out. She was really beginning to feel as if Ted had a right to her. Finally, she resolved that she would hasten her departure for Lullaboolagana, and there make a final, an irrevocable decision. Then she pictured herself writing to Ted; no, she would see him, it would be kinder; she would ask him to meet her in Melbourne on her way back. 'Ted, this must come to an end. You must take my final answer; I cannot marry you.' Would he call it 'coming a cropper,' and rend her with reproaches? And then a little panic seized her, that no reason she could urge would stand the tide of Ted's remonstrances. She did not acknowledge it to herself, and yet a vague consciousness underlay her musings, that the masterful way in which he had held her hands, and looked at her with ardent eyes, made some hitherto unknown chord of her nature vibrate in unison with his will. Perhaps it was a faint reminiscence in her blood of the remote ancestresses of pre-civilization, who were knocked on the head if they did not fall in with the marital arrangements made for them.