“Horrid yourself for thinking so,” cried her sister. “He is not a horrid man at all, he is very nice. We are going to be great—pals. Why shouldn’t we be great pals? He is a little tired of Lottie Seton and her airs, he said. He likes nice honest girls that say what they mean, and are not always bullying a fellow. Well, that is what he said. It is his language, it is not mine. You know very well that is how men speak, and Lottie Seton does just the same. I told him little thanks to him to like girls better than an old married woman, and you should have seen how he tugged his moustache and rolled in his seat with laughing. Lottie Seton must have suspected something, for she called out to us what was the joke?”
“I did not know you were on such terms with Mrs. Seton, Stella, as to call her by her Christian name.”
“Oh, we call them all by their names. Life’s too short for Missis That and Mr. This. Charlie asked me–”
“Charlie! why, you never saw him till to-day.”
“When you get to know a man you don’t count the days you’ve been acquainted with him,” said Stella, tossing her head, but with a flush on her face. She added: “I asked him to come over to lunch to-morrow and to see the garden. He said it would be rare fun to see something of the neighbourhood without Lottie Seton, who was always dragging a lot of fellows about.”
“Stella, what a very, very unpleasant man, to talk like that about the lady who is his friend, and who brought him here!”
“Oh, his friend!” cried Stella, “that is only your old-fashioned way. She is no more his friend! She likes to have a lot of men following her about everywhere, and they have got nothing to do, and are thankful to go out anywhere to spend the time; so it is just about as broad as it is long. They do it to please themselves, and there is not a bit of love lost.”
“I don’t like those kind of people,” said Katherine.
“They are the only kind of people,” Stella replied.
This conversation took place from one room to another, the door standing open while the girls performed a hasty toilette. All the picnic people had been parted with at the gate with much demonstration of friendship and a thousand thanks for a delightful day. Only the midge had deposited its occupants at the door. The two old cats were never to be got rid of. They were at that moment in another room, making themselves tidy, as they said, with the supercilious aid of Katherine’s maid. Stella did not part with hers in any circumstances, though she was about to dine in something very like a dressing-gown with her hair upon her shoulders. Mr. Tredgold liked to see Stella with her hair down, and she was not herself averse to the spectacle of the long rippled locks falling over her shoulders. Stella was one of the girls who find a certain enjoyment in their own beauty even when there is nobody to see.
“It was a very pleasant party on the whole to be such an impromptu,” said Mrs. Shanks; “your girls, Mr. Tredgold, put such a spirit in everything. Dear girls! Stella is always the most active and full of fun, and Katherine the one that looks after one’s comfort. Don’t you find the Stanleys, Kate, a little heavy in hand?—excellent good people, don’t you know, always a stand-by, but five of them, fancy! Marion that is always at her drawing, and Edith that can talk of nothing but the parish, and that little romp Evelyn who is really too young and too childish! Poor Mr. Stanley has his quiver too full, poor man, like so many clergymen.”
“If ever there was a man out of place—the Rector at a picnic!” said Miss Mildmay, “with nobody for him to talk to. I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Tredgold, he thinks Kate is such a steady creature, he wants her for a mother to his children; now see if I am not a true prophet before the summer is out.”
Mr. Tredgold’s laugh, which was like the tinkling of a tin vessel, reached Katherine’s ear at the other end of the table, but not the speech which had called it forth.
“Papa, the officers are coming here to-morrow to lunch—you don’t mind, do you?—that is, Charlie Somers and Algy Scott. Oh, they are nice enough; they are dreadfully dull at Newport. They want to see the garden and anything there is to see. You know you’re one of the sights of the island, papa.”
“That is their fun,” said the old man. “I don’t know what they take me for, these young fellows that are after the girls. Oh, they’re all after the girls; they know they’ve got a good bit of money and so forth, and think their father’s an easy-going old fool as soft as—Wait till we come to the question of settlements, my good ladies, wait till then; they’ll not find me so soft when we get there.”
“It is sudden to think of settlements yet, Mr. Tredgold. The Rector, poor man, has got nothing to settle, and as for those boys in the garrison, they never saw the dear girls till to-day.”
“Ah, I know what they are after,” said Mr. Tredgold. “My money, that is what they are all after. Talk to me about coming to see over the garden and so forth! Fudge! it is my money they are after; but they’ll find I know a thing or two before it comes to that.”
“Papa,” said Stella, “you are just an old suspicious absurd—What do they know about your money? They never heard your name before. Of course they had heard of me. The other battalion were all at the Ryde ball, and took notes. They thought I was an American, that shows how little they know about you.”
“That means, Stella,” said Miss Mildmay, “everything that is fast and fly-away. I wouldn’t brag of it if I were you.”
“It means the fashion,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Dear Stella is like that, with her nice clothes, and her way of rushing at everything, and never minding. Now Katherine is English, no mistake about her—a good daughter, don’t you know—and she’ll make an excellent wife.”
“But the man will have to put down his money, piece for piece, before he shall have her, I can tell you,” said the master of the house. “Oh, I’m soft if you like it, and over-indulgent, and let them have all their own way; but there’s not a man in England that stands faster when it comes to that.”
Stella gave her sister a look, and a little nod of her head; her eyes danced and her hair waved a little, so light and fluffy it was, with that slight gesture. It seemed to say, We shall see! It said to Katherine, “You might stand that, but it will not happen with me.” The look and the gesture were full of a triumphant defiance. Stella was not afraid that she would ever feel the restraining grip of her father’s hand; and then she thought of that other grip upon her fingers, and shook her shiny hair about her ears more triumphant still.
CHAPTER IV
Stella, however, courageous as she was, was not bold enough to address Sir Charles and his companion as Charlie and Algy when they appeared, not next day, but some days later; for their engagements with Mrs. Seton and others of their friends were not so lightly to be pushed aside for the attraction of her society as the girl supposed. It was a little disappointing to meet them with their friends, not on the same sudden level of intimacy which had been developed by the picnic, and to be greeted indifferently, “like anybody else,” after that entertainment and its sudden fervour of acquaintance. When, however, Mrs. Seton left the hotel, and the young men had no longer that resource in their idleness, they appeared at the Cliff without further invitation, and with an evident disposition to profit by its hospitality which half flattered and half offended the girls.
“They have never even left cards,” said Katherine, after the picnic, “but now that their friends have gone they remember that you asked them, Stella.”
“Well,” cried Stella, “that is so much the more friendly. Do you suppose they haven’t hundreds of places to go to? And when they choose us, are we to be disagreeable? I shan’t be so at least.”
She ran downstairs indeed wreathed with smiles, and received them with an eager gratification, which was very flattering to the young men, who opened their eyes at the luxury of the luncheon and gave each other a look which said that here was something worth the trouble. Old Mr. Tredgold, in his shabby coat and his slippers, was a curious feature in the group; but it was by no means out of keeping