The moment they were inside the room, Clotilde rushed into the middle, gritting her teeth together and clenching her fists.
“Oh-h-h!” she exclaimed, with a cry of suppressed passion, “I can’t bear it. I shall go mad.”
Then with a bound she dashed to the bed, striking at it and seizing the pillow in her teeth.
Marie got rid of her suppressed vitality by fiercely seizing Ruth by the shoulders, shaking her angrily, and then, as if repenting, catching her about the waist, and waltzing her round the room.
“Oh, Clo! it’s horrible,” she cried, loosing Ruth to seize her sister. “Get up, and let’s quarrel or fight, or do something. I can’t – I won’t – I shan’t – I will not bear it. It’s like being mummies in a tomb.”
Clotilde turned round, and let herself sink upon the floor, with her head leaning back against the bed, biting the counterpane and twisting it viciously with her hands.
“’Rie,” she said at last, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke, “do you know what happened in the old days to the captive maidens in the stony castles?”
“Yes; the knights came and rescued them.”
“Then, why don’t they come and rescue us? I’ll run away with the first man who asks me. I’d marry that thin wretch Joseph to-morrow if he’d have me, and I’d stick pins in him all the rest of his life to see him writhe.”
“I can’t bear it much longer,” said Marie, in a low, deep voice; “I’m nineteen, Clo, and you are turned twenty, and they treat us as if we were little children still. Ah, how I hate them both!”
“Oh, Marie,” said Ruth reproachfully, “how can you say so!”
“Because I do – I do,” she cried. “I’m not a soft, smooth thing like you. If this lasts much longer I shall poison them, so as to be hung out of my misery.”
“I shan’t,” said Clotilde. “I say I’ll marry the first man who asks me. I will marry him; I’ll make him marry me; and then – ah,” she cried fiercely, as she started up, and began pacing up and down, beautiful as some caged leopard, “once I am free, what I will do! We might as well be nuns.”
“Better,” cried Marie angrily, “for we should be real prisoners, and expect no better. Now we are supposed to be free.”
“And there’d be some nice fat old father confessors to tease. Better than the smooth-faced, saintly Paul Montaigne. Oh, how I would confess!” cried Clotilde.
“Old Paul’s a prig,” said Marie.
“He’s a humbug, I think,” said Clotilde.
“Bother your nice old fat father confessors,” cried Marie, with her eyes gleaming. “I should like them to be young, and big, and strong, and handsome.”
“And with shaven crowns,” said Clotilde maliciously. “How should you like them, Ruth?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruth simply. “I have never thought of such a thing.”
“Take that, and that, you wicked story-teller!” cried Clotilde, slapping her arms; “I know you think more about men than either of us. For my part, the man I mean to have will – ”
She stopped, for Marie laid her hand upon her lips, and they both began to prepare themselves for their walk as the grave-looking woman entered the room.
“Oh, you’re not ready, then?” she said grimly.
“No, nurse; but we shall be directly.”
“No, you needn’t; you’re not going.”
“Not going, nurse? Why?”
“The new Lancer regiment is coming to the barracks this morning, and your aunts say some of the officers may be about.”
Volume One – Chapter Two.
His Uncle’s Nephew
“Why didn’t I come? Why should I? Very kind of Lady Millet to ask me, but I’m not a society man.”
“Oh, but – ”
“Yes, I know, lad. Did the affair go off well?”
“Splendidly, only mamma left the wine to the confectioner, and the champagne – ”
“Gave you a horrible headache, eh? Serve you right; should have had toast-and-water.”
“Marcus!”
“So Malpas came, did he?”
“Yes. Bad form, too. I don’t like him, Glen. But that’s all over now. Fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants.”
“Can’t he?”
“No, of course not. I wish you had come, though.”
“Thank you! But you speak in riddles, my little Samson. What’s all over now, and what fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants? Speak out, small sage!”
“I say, Glen, I didn’t make myself.”
“True, O king!”
“’Tisn’t my fault I’m small.”
“True.”
“You do chaff me so about my size.”
“For the last time: now proceed, and don’t lisp and drawl. Who’s who? as Bailey says.”
“I thought I told you before about my sisters?”
“Often: that you have two pretty sisters – one married and one free.”
“Well, my married sister, Mrs Morrison, used, I think, to care for Major Malpas.”
“Sorry she had such bad taste.”
This in an undertone.
“Eh?”
“Go on.”
“Well, it didn’t go on or come off, as you call it.”
“As you call it, Dicky.”
“I say, don’t talk to me as if I were a bird.”
“All right. Now then, let me finish for you: mamma married the young lady to someone else, and there is just a fag-end of the old penchant left.”
“Oh, hang it, no!”
“I beg pardon! – the young lady’s, too. But, my dear Dick, I am one of the most even-tempered of men; but if you keep up that miserable fashionable drawl and lisp, I shall take hold of you and shake you.”
“But, my dear fellow – weally, Mawcus.”
“Am I to do it? Say ‘Marcus’ out plain.”
“Mawcus.”
“No! Marcus.”
“Marcus.”
“That’s better. There, hang it all, Dick, you are a soldier; for heaven’s sake be one. Try to be manly, old fellow, and pitch over those silly affectations.”
“It’s all very well for you,” said Dick Millet, in an ill-used tone. “You are naturally manly. Why, you are five feet ten at least, and broad-shouldered and strong.”
“While you are only about five feet two, and slight, and have a face as smooth as a girl’s.”
“Five feet three and a half,” said the other quickly.
“How do you know?”
“I made the sergeant put me under the standard this morning. I can’t help it if I haven’t got a heavy brown moustache like you!”
“Who said you could help it, stupid? Why, what a little gander you are, Dick! I’m eight-and-twenty, and you are