第11章

CONFIDENCES

The shadows silently lengthened on the lawn.

The home-coming rooks circled and cawed around the tall elm trees.

The sun-dial pointed to six o'clock.

Myra Ingleby rose and stood with the slanting rays of the sun full in her eyes, her arms stretched over her head.The artist noted every graceful line of her willowy figure.

"Ah, bah!" she yawned."It is so perfect out here, and I must go in to my maid.Jane, be advised in time.Do not ever begin facial massage.You become a slave to it, and it takes up hours of your day.Look at me."They were both looking already.Myra was worth looking at.

"For ordinary dressing purposes, I need not have gone in until seven; and now I must lose this last, perfect hour.""What happens?" asked Jane."I know nothing of the process.""I can't go into details," replied Lady Ingleby, "but you know how sweet I have looked all day? Well, if I did not go to my maid now, Ishould look less sweet by the end of dinner, and at the close of the evening I should appear ten years older.""You would always look sweet," said Jane, with frank sincerity; "and why mind looking the age you are?""My dear, 'a man is as old as he feels; a woman is as old as she looks,'" quoted Myra.

"I FEEL just seven," said Garth.

"And you LOOK seventeen," laughed Myra.

"And I AM twenty-seven," retorted Garth; "so the duchess should not call me 'a ridiculous child.' And, dear lady, if curtailing this mysterious process is going to make you one whit less lovely to-night, I do beseech you to hasten to your maid, or you will spoil my whole evening.I shall burst into tears at dinner, and the duchess hates scenes, as you very well know!"Lady Ingleby flapped him with her garden hat as she passed.

"Be quiet, you ridiculous child!" she said."You had no business to listen to what I was saying to Jane.You shall paint me this autumn.

And after that I will give up facial massage, and go abroad, and come back quite old."She flung this last threat over her shoulder as she trailed away across the lawn.

"How lovely she is!" commented Garth, gazing after her."How much of that was true, do you suppose, Miss Champion?""I have not the slightest idea," replied Jane."I am completely ignorant on the subject of facial massage.""Not much, I should think," continued Garth, "or she would not have told us.""Ah, you are wrong there," replied Jane, quickly."Myra is extraordinarily honest, and always inclined to be frank about herself and her foibles.She had a curious upbringing.She is one of a large family, and was always considered the black sheep, not so much by her brothers and sisters, as by her mother.Nothing she was, or said, or did, was ever right.When Lord Ingleby met her, and Isuppose saw her incipient possibilities, she was a tall, gawky girl, with lovely eyes, a sweet, sensitive mouth, and a what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-next expression on her face.He was twenty years her senior, but fell most determinedly in love with her and, though her mother pressed upon him all her other daughters in turn, he would have Myra or nobody.When he proposed to her it was impossible at first to make her understand what he meant.His meaning dawned on her at length, and he was not kept waiting long for her answer.Ihave often heard him tease her about it.She looked at him with an adorable smile, her eyes brimming over with tears, and said: 'Why, of course.I'll marry you GRATEFULLY, and I think it is perfectly sweet of you to like me.But what a blow for mamma!' They were married with as little delay as possible, and he took her off to Paris, Italy, and Egypt, had six months abroad, and brought her back--this! I was staying with them once, and her mother was also there.We were sitting in the morning room,--no men, just half a dozen women,--and her mother began finding fault about something, and said: 'Has not Lord Ingleby often told you of it?' Myra looked up in her sweet, lazy way and answered: 'Dear mamma, I know it must seem strange to you, but, do you know, my husband thinks everything I do perfect.' 'Your husband is a fool!' snapped her mother.'From YOUR point of view, dear mamma,' said Myra, sweetly.""Old curmudgeon!" remarked Garth."Why are people of that sort allowed to be called 'mothers'? We, who have had tender, perfect mothers, would like to make it law that the other kind should always be called 'she-parents,' or 'female progenitors,' or any other descriptive title, but not profane the sacred name of mother!"Jane was silent.She knew the beautiful story of Garth's boyhood with his widowed mother.She knew his passionate adoration of her sainted memory.She liked him best when she got a glimpse beneath the surface, and did not wish to check his mood by reminding him that she herself had never even lisped that name.

Garth rose from his chair and stretched his slim figure in the slanting sun-rays, much as Myra had done.Jane looked at him.As is often the case with plain people, great physical beauty appealed to her strongly.She only allowed to that appeal its right proportion in her estimation of her friends.Garth Dalmain by no means came first among her particular chums.He was older than most of them, and yet in some ways younger than any, and his remarkable youthfulness of manner and exuberance of spirits sometimes made him appear foolish to Jane, whose sense of humour was of a more sedate kind.But of the absolute perfection of his outward appearance, there was no question; and Jane looked at him now, much as his own mother might have looked, with honest admiration in her kind eyes.

Garth, notwithstanding the pale violet shirt and dark violet tie, was quite unconscious of his own appearance; and, dazzled by the golden sunlight, was also unconscious of Jane's look.

"Oh, I say, Miss Champion!" he cried, boyishly."Isn't it nice that they have all gone in? I have been wanting a good jaw with you.