Part 3 (1/2)
The beautiful face grew cold and proud.
”You must pardon me,” she said, ”if I venture to consider myself the best judge of what you are pleased to call--talents. They are not of an order to benefit a hotel drawing-room.”
”Oh!” said Mrs Jefferson, feeling somewhat snubbed. ”I'm sure people would be delighted to hear you talk, even if you did rub some of their pet foibles the wrong way. I've quite enjoyed this morning, I a.s.sure you. You've diverted my thoughts from my own ailments, and stimulated my digestion. I feel like eating lunch for once. And that reminds me I must begin to dress. My fringe takes a quarter of an hour to arrange.”
She rose from the couch, her Turkish towelling drapery flowing far behind her small figure. Then she disappeared into her dressing-room.
When she emerged from thence, her fringe artistically curled, her face becomingly tinged with pearl-powder, her dress and appointments all combining to give her small person importance, and show a due regard to the exigencies of fas.h.i.+on, she found the couch which the mysterious stranger had occupied was vacant. She loitered about in the hope of seeing her emerge from one of the dressing-boxes, but she was disappointed, and as the luncheon gong was sounding through the hotel she reluctantly took her way through the carpeted corridors and turned into the main entrance, her mind in a curious condition of perplexity and excitement.
CHAPTER FOUR.
CONJECTURES.
Mrs Ray Jefferson, irrespective of a toilet of ruby velvet cut _en coeur_, and a display of diamonds calculated to make men thoughtful on the subject of speculation, and women envious on the subject of husbandly generosity (even when connected with Chemicals), was quite the feature of the Hotel drawing-room that night. She was full of her adventure of the morning, and her description of the beautiful stranger lost nothing from the picturesque language in which she clothed her narrative.
”It's very odd the Manager won't tell us her name,” she rattled on.
”I've done my level best to find out, but it's no good. I suppose she pays too well for him to risk betraying her. I'm sure she's a Russian Princess; she has a suite with her, and carries musicians and sculptors, and heaven knows who else, in her train.”
It may be noticed that Mrs Ray Jefferson had only heard of _a_ sculptor and _a_ musician, but she drifted into plurality by force of that irresistible tendency to exaggerate trifles which seems inherent in women who are given to scandal even in its mildest form.
People from all parts of the room gathered round her. A few seemed inclined to doubt her description of the stranger's personal charms, but when she applied to Mrs Masterman for confirmation, that lady, who was known to have a strict regard for truth in its most uncompromising form, emphatically agreed with her.
”Beautiful! I should think she was beautiful,” she said, in her usual surly fas.h.i.+on. ”But,”--and then came a series of those curious and condemnatory phrases with which a woman invariably finishes her praise of another woman's beauty, and which are too well known to be repeated.
”I did my best to try and persuade her to join us,” continued Mrs Jefferson, after duly agreeing with Mrs Masterman that perhaps the stranger's hair was a shade too black, and her height too tall, and her complexion too pale--and that there _was_ something uncanny in the expression of the dark wild eyes, ”more like the eyes of a horse than a human being,” was Mrs Masterman's verdict. ”But nothing would induce her. She says Society is all a sham. That we don't really amuse ourselves or enjoy ourselves, however much we pretend to! My word!
doesn't she give it hot to everything. Policy, religion, diplomacy, worldliness, theology, art. It seems to me she knows everything, and has studied human life more accurately than the wisest philosopher I've ever heard of.”
”And did you discuss all those subjects during the course of a Turkish Bath?” said a voice near her.
Mrs Jefferson started. The gentleman who had spoken was a recent arrival. She only knew him as Colonel Estcourt. He was a singularly interesting-looking man, home from India on sick leave, and the maidens, and wives, and widows, of this polyglot a.s.semblage at the Hotel were all inclined to admiration of his physical perfections, and to dissatisfaction at a certain coldness and disdainfulness of themselves, which, to use their mildest form of reproach, was ”odd and unmilitary.”
Mrs Jefferson started slightly. ”Oh, it's you, Colonel,” she said.
”Yes, we did talk about all those subjects, and I surmise if all of you people here heard her carry on against the way you live your lives, you'd feel rather small.”
”Did you?” asked Mrs Masterman unkindly.
The bath had not improved _her_ complexion, and her left foot was paining her excessively. These two facts had not combined to sweeten the natural acerbity of her temper. Mrs Ray Jefferson did not heed the question, or the smile it provoked on one or two feminine lips.
”I should like to know who she is,” she persisted. ”She's been in India too. I suppose you never met her, Colonel Estcourt? No one could forget her who had!”
That cold impa.s.sive face changed ever so slightly. ”India,” he said, ”is a somewhat vague term, and covers a somewhat large area for a possible meeting-place. Your description, Mrs Jefferson, is tantalising in the extreme to a male mind, but I fail to recognise its charming original as any personal acquaintance.”
”I suppose so,” said the little American, discontentedly. ”I'm just dying to know who she is, and therefore no one can tell me. Seems I shall have to call her 'the Mystery,' until she condescends to throw off this _incognita_ business.”
”But we are sure to see her,” interposed Orval Molyneux, the young poet.
”She must go out sometimes, I suppose.”