“If my memory does not err, all that Midas touched turned to gold,” said Mr. Beaumaris. “I think you mean Croesus.”
“No, I don’t! Never heard of the fellow!”
“Well, most of the things I touch have a disheartening way of turning to dross,” said Mr. Beaumaris, lightly, but with a note of bitter self-mockery in his languid voice.
This was going a little too deep for his friend. “Humdudgeon, Robert! You can’t bamboozle me! If there are to be no Paphians—”
“I can’t conceive why you should have supposed there would be,” interrupted his host.
“Well, I didn’t, but I can tell you this, my boy!—that’s the latest on-dit!”
“Good God! Why?”
“Lord, how should I know? Daresay it’s because you won’t throw your glove at any of the beauties who have been setting their caps at you any time these five years. What’s more, your chères-amies are always such devilish high-flyers, dear boy, it puts notions into the heads of all the old tabbies! Think of the Faraglini!”
‘“I had rather not. The most rapacious female of my acquaintance.”
“But what a face! what a figure!”
“And what a temper!”
“What became of her?” asked his lordship. “I haven’t laid eyes on her since she left your protection.”
“I think she went to Paris. Why? Had you a fancy to succeed me?”
“No, by Jove, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense!” said his lordship frankly. “She’d have had me rolled-up within a month! What did you have to give for those match-grays she used to drive all over town?”
“I can’t remember.”
“To tell you the truth,” confided Lord Fleetwood, “I shouldn’t have thought it worth it myself—though I’m not denying she was a curst fine woman!”
“It wasn’t.”
Lord Fleetwood regarded him, half-curious, half-amused. Is anything worth while to you, Robert?” he asked quizzically,
“Yes, my horses!” retorted Mr. Beaumaris. “And, talking of horses, Charles, what the devil possessed you to buy one of Lichfield’s breakdowns?”
“That bay? Now, there’s a horse that fairly took my fancy!” said his lordship, his simple countenance lighting up with enthusiasm. “What a piece of blood and bone! No, really, Robert—!”
“If ever I find myself with a thoroughly unsound animal in my stables,” said Mr. Beaumaris ruthlessly, “I shall offer him to you in the happy certainty that he will take your fancy!”
Lord Fleetwood was still protesting with indignation and vehemence when the butler entered the room to inform his master, rather apologetically, that a carriage had broken down outside his gates, and the two ladies it bore were desirous of sheltering for a short time under his roof.
Mr. Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for an instant to harden. He said calmly: “Certainly. There should be a fire in the saloon. Tell Mrs. Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.”
The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him, exclaiming: “No, no, too shabby by half, Robert! I won’t be fobbed off so! What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?”
The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and—he ventured to think—very pretty.
“I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility, Robert!” said his lordship firmly. “Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!”
The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr. Beaumaris merely said with his usual indifference: “As you please, Charles.”
“What an ungrateful dog you are!” said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left the room. “You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!”
“I should doubt of their being Paphians,” was all Mr. Beaumaris found to say. “I thought that was what you wanted?”
“Any diversion is better than none!” replied Lord Fleetwood.
“What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.”
Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. “Now, Robert, did you think—did you think—to come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house—and no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear—”
“You are forgetting the cook.”
“But,” continued his lordship inexorably, “I ain’t amongst ’em!”
Mr. Beaumaris’s habitual aspect was one of coldness, and reserve, but sometimes he could smile in a way that not only softened the austerity of his countenance but lit his eyes with a gleam of the purest amusement. It was not the smile he kept for social occasions—a faintly sardonic curl of the lips, that one—but those who were honoured by a glimpse of it generally revised their first impressions of him. Those who had never seen it were inclined to think him a proud, disagreeable sort of a man, though only the most daring would ever have uttered aloud such a criticism of one who, besides possessing all the advantages of birth and fortune, was an acknowledged leader of society. Lord Fleetwood, no stranger to that smile, saw it dawn now, and grinned more broadly than ever.
“How can you, Charles? When you must know that almost your only claim to fashion is being noticed by me!”
Arabella entered the room to find both its occupants laughing, and thus had the felicity of seeing Mr. Beaumaris at his best. That she herself was looking remarkably pretty, with her dusky curls and charming complexion admirably set off by a high-crowned bonnet, with curled ostrich-feather tips, and crimson ribbons tied into a bow under one ear, never entered her head, since Mr. Tallant’s daughters had always been discouraged from thinking much about their appearance. She paused on the threshold, while the butler murmured her name and Miss Blackburn’s, quite unselfconscious, but looking about her with a kind of wide-eyed, innocent interest. She was very much impressed by what she saw. The house was not a large one, but she perceived that it was furnished with a good taste which was as quiet as it was expensive. Her quick scrutiny took in Lord Fleetwood, who had put up an instinctive hand to straighten the Belcher necktie he affected, and passed on to Mr. Beaumaris,
Arabella had one brother who aspired to dandyism, and she had thought that she had seen in Harrowgate gentlemen of decided fashion. She now perceived that she had much mistaken the matter. No one she had ever seen approached the elegance of Mr. Beaumaris.
Lord Fleetwood, or any of his cronies, could have recognized the tailoring of that coat of olive-green superfine at a glance; Arabella, to whom the magic name of Weston was unknown, was merely aware of a garment so exquisitely cut that it presented all the appearance of having been moulded to its wearer’s form. A very good form, too, she noted, with approval. No need of buckram wadding, such as that Knaresborough tailor had inserted into Bertram’s new coat, to fill out those shoulders! And how envious Bertram would have been of Mr. Beaumaris’s fine legs, sheathed in tight pantaloons, with gleaming Hessian boots pulled over them! Mr. Beaumaris’s shirt-points were not as high as Bertram’s, but his necktie commanded the respect of one who had more than once watched her brother’s struggles with a far less complicated arrangement. Arabella was not perfectly sure that she admired his style of hairdressing—he affected a Stanhope crop—but she did think him a remarkably handsome man, as he stood there, laughter dying on his lips, and out of his gray eyes.
It was only a moment that he stood thus. She had the impression that he was scanning her critically; then he moved forward, and bowed slightly, and begged, in a rather colourless tone, to know in what way he could be of service to her.
“How do you do?” said Arabella politely. “I beg your pardon, but the thing is that there has been an accident to my carriage, and—and it is raining, and horridly cold! The groom has rid in to Grantham, and I daresay will bring another carriage out directly, but—but Miss Blackburn has taken a chill, and we should be very much obliged if we might wait here in the warm!”