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There was a crowd in Grosvenor Square. A good many people were still abroad, but there were enough in London to fill Mrs. Shiffney's drawing-rooms. And notorieties, beauties, and those mysterious nobodies who "go everywhere" until they almost succeed in becoming somebodies, were to be seen on every side. Charmian perceived at once that this was one of Adelaide's non-exclusive parties. Mrs.
But if she had set her affections on Heath she had made a sad mistake. His peculiarity of temperament was in accord surely with nothing in Charmian. That very fact, perhaps, had grasped her attention, had excited her curiosity, even stirred sentiment within her. Having perceived a gulf she had longed to bridge it, to set her feet on the farther side. Mrs. Mansfield was glad that Charmian was away.
As soon as he had gone, Charmian got up and turned to her mother. "Are you very angry with me, Madre?" "No. There always was a touch of the minx in you, and I suppose it is ineradicable. What have you been doing to your face?" Charmian flushed. The blood even went up to her forehead, and for once she looked confused, almost ashamed. "My face? You you have noticed something?"
He sighed, looked once more at the label, and went upstairs. He found Mrs. Mansfield there alone, reading beside the fire. She had not been very well, and her face looked thinner than usual, her eyes more intense and burning. She was dressed in white. As Claude came in she laid down her book and turned to him. He thought she looked very sad. "Charmian still out, Madre?" he asked. "Yes.
This exclusion was not owing to any desire of the mother. She was incapable of shutting any door, beyond which she did not stand alone, against her child. The generosity of her nature was large, warm, chivalrous, the link between her and Charmian very strong. The girl was wont to accept her mother's friends with a pretty eagerness.
Oh, if I could live in such a house with you, and with people like that just to look at!" "My dear!" said Mrs. Maybough. "They seem to be engaged," said Cornelia placidly, without sense of anything wrong in the appearance of the fact. "Evidently," said Mrs. Maybough. "I shouldn't care for the engagement," said Charmian. "That would be rather horrid.
"I said 'philosophical, Peter." "You probably find your situation horribly lonely here?" I went on after a pause. "Yes; it's nice and lonely, Peter." "And, undoubtedly, this cottage is very poor and mean, and er humble?" Charmian smiled and shook her head. "But then, Charmian Brown is a very humble person, sir." "And you haven't even the luxury of a mirror to dress your hair by!"
Which has your poor unfortunate husband accepted?" Charmian handed the tea. She felt Madame Sennier's hard and observant eyes they were yellow eyes, and small fixed upon her. "Claude's libretto has never been offered to anyone else," she answered. Madame Sennier slightly shrugged her shoulders. "And so Gillier is with your husband!" she observed. Apparently she was clairvoyante.
"Well, of course you'll appear after the next act with him. There's sure to be a call. And I know Gillier will be called for as well as you." His rather cold gray eyes seemed to examine the two faces before him almost surreptitiously. Then he, too, went out of the box. "A call after this act!" said Charmian.
Both of them needed movement and action, something to "take them out of themselves." A gray squirrel ran down from its tree with a waving tail and crossed just in front of them slowly. Charmian followed it with her eyes.
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