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Carron was late for breakfast the next morning, and when he came in found Brigit sitting in her mother's place, laughing and talking with Sir Henry Brinsley, who, much pleased by the manner in which his dull and endless stories were received, subsequently declared that it was all rot calling that handsome girl of Lady Kingsmead's dull; very intelligent girl indeed, as a matter of fact.
It was mid-May, and a fragrant breeze stirred the delicate curtains of Lady Kingsmead's little drawing-room in Pont Street. Lady Kingsmead, dressed in pale pink, looked in the faint light very pretty as she leaned back in her deep chair and played with the Persian cat.
When at last Brigit's arraignment ceased, Lady Kingsmead's turn came, and more feebly, less effectively, but to the best of her powers, she gave back abuse for abuse. It was not a pleasant sight. Unbridled rage never is, even when in a good cause, and these two undisciplined women had lost all dignity and said very bad things to each other.
The next few minutes were minutes that Brigit never forgot. The Italian servant, chattering and weeping, the young doctor helping her to loosen Lady Kingsmead's tight clothes; his hurried explanations and questions; the very closeness of the air, with the smell of gunpowder still faintly perceptible.
You were always such an abominable flirt! God! it's worse than hatred; it's loathing. That is unfair, dear. You know I never loved anyone but you! But you flirted, Tony; yes, you did. You nearly drove me mad with jealousy. This is unbearable. And so on, and so on, all the triste canzon. Lady Kingsmead's boudoir was a charming room done in white and pale corn-colour.
"Never mind, ducky, I've only just put it on; it will go off after a bit. It's the very newest thing in Paris. Gerald brought it to me Souvenir de Jeunesse." Brigit looked at her for a moment, but said nothing. Lady Kingsmead's unconsciousness was, as it always was when she was in a good humour, both amusing and disarming.
She did not turn, she did not smile, and the sombreness that was the dominant expression of her face was strange to see in a girl of her age. "Well " Kingsmead's small countenance, so different from hers in its look of palpitating interest and curiosity, suddenly flushed a deep and a beautiful red. "I say, old girl," he broke out, "are you going to?"
"You'll have to look out, Tony," he went on, frowning as he caught the expression in Lady Kingsmead's eyes, "she is confoundly good-looking. Beauties' daughters ought always to be plain." Lady Kingsmead flushed angrily, and was about to speak, when her daughter interrupted in a perfunctory voice: "Oh, don't, Gerald, you know she loathes being teased.
Lord Kingsmead's pristine curiosity regarding everything with which he came into contact had by no means suffered eclipse since he had been living in London. Devoted as he was to Joyselle and to his music, the little boy's passion for knowledge of all kinds seemed to increase, and there was in his small, pale, pointed face a strained, overkeen look that troubled his sister at times.
Lady Kingsmead's voice was very fretful, for Carron had done nothing but talk to her about Brigit for the last fortnight, and though she knew that his old love for herself was dead and buried, yet she enjoyed having an occasional flower of speech laid on its grave. "I really believe you are in love with her," she went on after a pause, as he did not answer. "Bosh!"
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