Sir George Tressady, vol 1 | Page 7

might feel--and she had a great deal of that commodity to expend,
both on persons and institutions.
George hastened to propitiate her with the usual futilities: he had
supposed that he was in excellent time, his watch had been playing
tricks, and so on.
Mrs. Watton, who, after all, on this great day beheld in the new
member the visible triumph of her dearest principles, received these
excuses at first with stiffness, but soon thawed.
"Oh, you naughty boy, you naughty, mendacious boy!" said a sprightly
voice in Tressady's ear. "'Excellent time,' indeed! I saw you--for
shame!"
And Lady Tressady flounced away from her son, laughing over her
shoulder in one of her accustomed poses. She wore white muslin over
cherry-coloured silk. The display of neck and shoulders could hardly
have been more lavish; and the rouge on her cheeks had been overdone,
which rarely happened. George turned from her hurriedly to speak to
Lord Fontenoy.
"What a fool that woman is!" thought Mrs. Watton to herself, as her
sharp eye followed her guest. "She will make George positively dislike
her soon--and all the time she is bound to get him to pay her debts, or
there will be a smash. What! dinner? John, will you please take Lady
Tressady; Harding, will you take Mrs. Hawkins"--pointing her second
son towards a lady in black sitting stiffly on the edge of an ottoman;
"Mr. Hawkins takes Florence; Sir George"--she waved her hand
towards Miss Sewell. "Now, Lord Fontenoy, you must take me; and the
rest of you sort yourselves."
As the young people, mostly cousins, laughingly did what they were

told, Sir George held out his arm to Miss Sewell.
"I am very sorry for you," he said, as they passed into the dining-room.
"Oh! I knew it would be my turn," said Letty, with resignation. "You
see, you took Florrie last night, and Aunt Watton the night before."
George settled himself deliberately in his chair, and turned to study his
companion.
"Do you mind warning me, to begin with, how I can avoid giving you a
headache? Since this morning my nerve has gone--I want directions."
"Well--" said Letty, pondering, "let us lay down the subjects we may
talk about first. For instance, you may talk of Mrs. Hawkins."
She gave an imperceptible nod which directed his eyes to the thin
woman sitting opposite, to whom Harding Watton, a fashionable and
fastidious youth, was paying but scant attention.
George examined her.
"I don't want to," he said shortly; "besides, she would last us no time at
all."
"Oh!--on the contrary," said Letty, with malice sparkling in her brown
eye, "she would last me a good twenty minutes. She has got on my
gown."
"I didn't recognise it," said George, studying the thin lady again.
"I wouldn't mind," said Letty, in the same tone of reflection, "if Mrs.
Hawkins didn't think it her duty to lecture me in the intervals of
copying my frocks. If I disapproved of anybody, I don't think I should
send my nurse to ask their maid for patterns."
"I notice you take disapproval very calmly."
"Callously, you mean. Well, it is my misfortune. I always feel myself

so much more reasonable than the people who disapprove."
"This morning, then, you thought me a fool?"
"Oh no! Only--well--I knew, you see, that I knew better. I was
reasonable, and--"
"Oh! don't finish," said George, hastily; "and don't suppose that I shall
ever give you any more good advice."
"Won't you?"
Her mocking look sent a challenge, which he met with outward
firmness. Meanwhile he was inwardly haunted by a phrase he had once
heard a woman apply to the mental capacities of her best friend. "Her
mind?--her mind, my dear, is a shallow chaos!" The words made a neat
label, he scoffingly thought, for his own present sensations. For he
could not persuade himself that there was much profundity in his
feelings towards Miss Sewell, whatever reckless possibilities life might
seem to hold at times; when, for instance, she wore that particular pink
gown in which she was attired to-night, or when her little impertinent
airs suited her as well as they were suiting her just now. Something
cool and critical in him was judging her all the time. Ten years hence,
he made himself reflect, she would probably have no prettiness left.
Whereas now, what with bloom and grace, what with small proportions
and movements light as air, what with an inventive refinement in dress
and personal adornment that never failed, all Letty Sewell's defects of
feature or expression were easily lost in a general aspect which most
men found dazzling and perturbing enough. Letty, at any rate within
her own circle, had never yet been without partners, or lovers, or any
other form of girlish excitement that