CHAPTER XVIII
“LEE, darling; I am afraid you will take cold.”
Lee whirled about. Tiny, muffled in a pink dressing-gown, her brown hair hanging about her lovely imperturbable face, had entered, and was smiling at the dreamer.
“I want to be the first to kiss you,” she said. Lee gave her an enthusiastic hug and swung her up to the table.
Tiny laughed and made herself comfortable. “You look for all the world like a long white lily in your night-gown,” she said; “but I do believe you are as strong as Randolph.”
Lee threw herself backward until her finger-tips touched the floor, then writhed her slender body until she looked like a snake uncoiling. Tiny gasped.
“No wonder you are graceful,” she said. “Who taught you to do that?”
“Want to see me kick?”
“No, no,” said Tiny hurriedly. “I don’t think it is nice to kick, dear. But I am not going to scold you. I can’t realise that you are eighteen. It makes me feel a grandmother—I am twenty-four.”
“Why don’t you marry? I think it must be horrid to be an old maid.”
“How horrid ofyou, Lee. I’m not an old maid.”
“You look just sixteen; but why don’t you marry?”
“Of course you will ask till you find out. Well, Lee, considering that you are really grown-up to-day, I’ll tell you something. I’m thinking about it.”
Lee gave a little shriek of delight, sat down on the floor, and embraced her knees.
“Quick! Tell me.”
“He’s an Englishman.”
“Tiny!”
“I met him in London two years ago, and he asked me then; but I couldn’t make up my mind. It’s such a bore making up one’s mind. I didn’t bother much, but we corresponded, and it came about with less trouble than I thought it would: I wrote him last night definitely. He has been so faithful—when I think of those that have come and gone meanwhile!—and he really is very nice. Not very amusing, but,enfin, not too talkative.”
“What is his name?”
“Lord Arrowmount.”
“That makes it just perfect!”
“I wish he were not. It will be such a bore living up to things one wasn’t born to. And after the lazy freedom of California! When I was in London it seemed to me that the poor women were worked to death. I’d far rather have married an American—if it were a mere matter of nationality.”
“They won’t make you do anything over there that you don’t want to,” said Lee wisely. “Youhave the sweetest little face and the softest voice in the world, but the cool way in which you walk straight at what you want—it’s too clever!”
Tiny laughed. “It’s you that are quite too frightfully clever. Be careful, dear, that you don’t talk books to any of the young men to-night.”
“I suppose I won’t have any one to talk books with till Cecil comes,” said Lee with some viciousness. “Is Lord Arrowmount clever?”
“No, thank Heaven! He is just a nice, quiet, big, kind Englishman. He takes photographs, but I don’t mind that, as he doesn’t talk much about it; and when I said I’d rather not stand in the broiling sun with my eyes puckered up for ten minutes at a time, he never mentioned it again. I think we shall be quite happy. Of course we’ll come back to California every few years, or mother will come to us.”
“Of course. So shall I. I never could leave California for very long.”
“Englishmen are not so easy to manage as American men, but I believe that as soon as I understand Arthur I shall be able to manage him quite easily. I should simplyhateit if he were always contradicting me.”
“He won’t. I don’t know that I should care to manage Cecil. I think it must be magnificent to be lorded over by a man you love; but I should want my own way all the same. I’d storm and beg and cajole, and then of course I’d get it.”
Tiny laughed. “I don’t know much about Englishmen, but I think you know less.”
“But, you see, I shan’t meet Cecil again for several years, and by that time I shall be quite experienced. Besides, I’ve made a regular study of Randolph and Tom. I think it must be so interesting to understand men—and so useful.”
“You look so knowing—just like a baby owl.”
“There can’t be such an extraordinary amount of difference, considering that we are descended from them and speak the same language. And for that matter, I’m saturated with English literature. It’s the only one I know, and it has formed my mind. I’ve scarcely read an American novel, and never an American poem—is there one? And I know English history backwards, and adore it.”
“All the same, you are American straight into your marrow, and I feel surer and surer, the more I see of English people—and I have had two seasons and one autumn in England—that there are no two peoples on the earth so unlike.”
“Well. I think it’s very strange,” said Lee crossly. “I don’t understand it at all.”
“We are not even like the Americans of a quarter of a century ago. Why should we expect to be like our ancestors of several centuries back?”
“Oh, true, I suppose. And Cecil! If he’s anything like his letters he’s certainly not much like Randolph and Tom. But I had an idea he was going through a sort of freak stage, and would be just like other men (only nicer) when he got over it.”
“There are, doubtless, hundreds like him; and I wish you would not use slang, dear.”
“Well, I won’t. What is your Arthur?”
“A baron—nothing so very wonderful; but he has a very long descent: I looked it out in Burke. And at least I am not buying him. He knows that I have very little. I believe he is wealthy. He’s thirty-six; a very good age. I do hate boys.”
“Is he frightfully in love?”
Tiny nodded and blushed. “When an Englishman falls in love—well!”
Lee jerked her knees up to her chin and gave a gurgle of delight. “Are you in love with him?” she asked softly. “Do tell me, Tiny?”
Tiny’s massive dignity relaxed under a pink flood. “I have had other offers, you know, and some from very rich men,” she said as she slipped to the floor, “and it’s really commonplace nowadays to marry a title. Give me a kiss, and tell me you want me to be happy, and I’ll go back to bed. I’m cold.”