THE others had been so absorbed that they had not seen Jean Martle approach, and she, on her side, was close to them before appearing to perceive a stranger in the gentleman who held Effie in his lap and whom she had the air of having assumed, at a greater distance, to be Anthony Bream. Effie’s reach towards her friend was so effective that, with Vidal’s obligation to rise, it enabled her to slip from his hands and rush to avail herself of the embrace offered her, in spite of a momentary arrest, by Jean. Rose, however, at the sight of this movement, was quicker than Jean to catch her; she seized her almost with violence, and, holding her as she had held her before, dropped again upon the bench and presented her as a yielding captive. This act of appropriation was confirmed by the flash of a fine glance a single gleam, but direct which, how ever, producing in Jean’s fair face no retort, had only the effect of making her look, in gracious recognition, at Dennis. He had evidently, for the moment, nothing but an odd want of words to meet her with; but this, precisely, gave her such a sense of having disturbed a scene of intimacy that, to be doubly courteous, she said:
“Perhaps you remember me. We were here together ”
“Four years ago perfectly,” Rose broke in, speaking for him with an amenity that might have been intended as a quick corrective of any impres sion conveyed by her grab of the child. “ Mr. Vidal and I were just talking of you. He has come back, for the first time since then, to pay us a little visit.”
“Then he has things to say to you that I’ve rudely interrupted. Please excuse me I’m off again,” Jean went on to Dennis. “ I only came for the little girl.” She turned back to Rose. “ I’m afraid it’s time I should take her home.”.
Rose sat there like a queen-regent with a baby sovereign on her knee. “ Must I give her up to you? ”
“I’m responsible for her, you know, to Gorham,” Jean returned.
Rose gravely kissed her little ward, who, now that she was apparently to be offered the entertain ment of a debate in which she was so closely concerned, was clearly prepared to contribute to it the calmness of impartial beauty at a joust. She was just old enough to be interested, but she was just young enough to be judicial; the lap of her present friend had the compass of a small child-world, and she perched there in her loveliness as if she had been Helen on the walls of Troy. “ It’s not to Gorman I’m responsible,” Rose presently answered.
Jean took it good-humouredly. “ Are you to Mr. Bream? ”
“I’ll tell you presently to whom.” And Rose looked intelligently at Dennis Vidal.
Smiled at in alternation by two clever young women, he had yet not sufficiently to achieve a jocose manner shaken off his sense of the strange climax of his conversation with the elder of them. He turned away awkwardly, as he had done four years before, for the hat it was one of the privileges of such a colloquy to make him put down in an odd place. “ I’ll go over to Bounds,” he said to Rose. And then to Jean, to take leave of her: “I’m stay ing at the other house.”
“Really? Mr. Bream didn’t tell me. But I must never drive you away. You’ve more to say to Miss Armiger than I have. I’ve only come to get Effie,” Jean repeated.
Dennis at this, brushing off his recovered hat, gave way to his thin laugh. “ That apparently may take you some time! ”
Rose generously helped him off. “ I’ve more to say to Miss Martle than I’ve now to say to you. I think that what I’ve already said to you is quite enough.
“Thanks, thanks quite enough. I’ll just go over.”
“You won’t go first to Mrs. Beever? ”
“Not yet I’ll come in this evening. Thanks, thanks!” Dennis repeated with a sudden dramatic gaiety that was presumably intended to preserve appearances to acknowledge Rose’s aid and, in a spirit of reciprocity, cover any exposure she might herself have incurred. Raising his hat, he passed down the slope and disappeared, leaving our young ladies face to face.
Their situation might still have been embarrassing had Rose not taken immediate measures to give it a lift. “ You must let me have the pleasure of making you the first person to hear of a matter that closely corfcerns me.” She hung fire, watching her companion; then she brought out: “ I’m engaged to be married to Mr. Vidal.”
“Engaged?” Jean almost bounded forward, holding up her relief like a torch.
Rose greeted with laughter this natural note. “He arrived half an hour ago, for a supreme appeal and it has not, you see, taken long. I’ve just had the honour of accepting him.”
Jean’s movement had brought her so close to the bench that, though slightly disconcerted by its action on her friend, she could only, in consistency, seat herself. “ That’s very charming I congratu late you.”
“It’s charming of you to be so glad,” Rose returned. “ However, you’ve the news in all its freshness.”
“I appreciate that too,” said Jean. “ But fancy my dropping on a conversation of such impor tance! ”
“Fortunately you didn’t cut it short. We had settled the question. He had got his answer.”
“If I had known it I would have congratulated Mr. Vidal,” Jean pursued.
“You would have frightened him out of his wits he’s so dreadfully shy,” Rose laughed.
“Yes I could see he was dreadfully shy. But the great thing,” Jean candidly observed, “ is that he was not too dreadfully shy to come back to you.”
Rose continued to be moved to mirth. “ Oh, I don’t mean with me I He’s as bold with me as I am for instance with you.” Jean had riot touched the child, but Rose smoothed our her ribbons as if to redress some previous freedom. “ You’ll think that says everything. I can easily imagine how you judge my frankness,” she added. “ But of course I’m grossly immodest I always was.”
Jean wistfully watched her light hands play here and there over Effie’s adornments. “ I think you’re a person of great courage if you’ll let me also be frank. There’s nothing in the world I admire so much for I don’t consider that I’ve, myself, a great deal. I daresay, however, that I should let you know just as soon if I were engaged.”
“Which, unfortunately, is exactly what you’re not!” Rose, having finished her titivation of the child, sank comfortably back on the bench. “Do you object to my speaking to you of that?” she asked.
Jean hesitated; she had only after letting them escape become conscious of the reach of her words, the inadvertence of which showed how few waves of emotion her scene with Paul Beever had left to subside. She coloured as she replied: “ I don’t know how much you know.”
“I know everything,” said Rose. “ Mr. Beever has already told me.”
Jean’s flush, at this, deepened. “ Mr. Beever already doesn’t care! ”
“That’s fortunate for you, my dear! Will you let me tell you,” Rose continued, “how much I do?” Jean again hesitated, looking, however, through her embarrassment, very straight and sweet. “ I don’t quite see that it’s a thing you should tell me or that I’m really obliged to hear. It’s very good of you to take an interest ”
“But however good it may be, it’s none of my business: is that what you mean?” Rose broke in. “ Such an answer is doubtless natural enough. My having hoped you would accept Paul Beever, and above all my having rather publicly expressed that hope, is an apparent stretch of discretion that you’re perfectly free to take up. But you must allow me to say that the stretch is more apparent than real. There’s discretion and discretion and it’s all a matter of motive. Perhaps you can guess mine ............