on the way home, cool evening shadows slanting across the road, alicia declared that she had really enjoyed herself.
“captain archinard is quite jolly. he has seen everybody and everything under the sun. he is most entertaining, and lord allan is remarkably uncallow.”
“he thinks of standing for parliament next year. a nice, steady, honest young fellow. how do you like the archinards, peter?”
“the child—hilda—is a dear child.”
“she is awfully pretty,” said alicia, who could afford to be generous; “i like that colorless type.”
“she is delicate, i am afraid,” said mary.
“she has the mouth of a botticelli madonna and the eyes of a gainsborough; you know the portrait of sheridan’s wife at dulwich?”
alicia had never been to dulwich. mary assented.
“the other one—the ugly one—is very clever,” alicia went on; she was in a good temper evidently. not that alicia was ever exactly bad-tempered. “she said some very clever things and looked more.”
“she is too clever perhaps,” mary remarked. “as for mrs. archinard, i should like to slap her. i think that my conventionality is of a tolerant order, but mrs. archinard’s efforts at ?sthetic originality make me feel grimly conventional.”
“mary! mary! how delightful to hear such uncharitable remarks from you. i should rather like to slap her too, though she struck me as awfully conventional.”
“oh, she is, practically. it is the artistic argot that bores one so much.”
“she is awfully self-satisfied too. dear me, peter, i wish we had driven after all. i hate the next half-mile. it is just uphill enough to be irritating—fatigue without realizing exactly the cause of it. why didn’t we drive, peter?”
“i thought we all preferred walking. you are a very energetic young person as a rule.”
“not for tiresome country roads. they should be got over as quickly as possible.”
“well, we will cut through the beech-woods as we came.”
“oh dear,” alicia yawned, “how tired i am already of those tiresome beech-woods. i wish it were autumn and that the hunting had begun. captain archinard gives me glowing accounts, and promises me a lead for the first good run. we must fill the house with people then, peter.”
“the house shall be filled to overflowing. perhaps you would like some one now. mrs. laughton and her girls; you like them, don’t you?”
alicia wrinkled up her charming nose.
“can’t say i do. i’ve stopped with them too much perhaps. they bore me. i am afraid no one would come just now, everything is so gay in london. i wish i were there.”
alicia was not there because the doctor had strongly advised country air and the simple inaction of country life. alicia had lost her baby only three weeks after its birth—two months ago—and had herself been very ill.
“but i think i shall write to some people and ask them to take pity on me,” she added, as they walked slowly through the woods. “sir john, and mr. and mrs. damian, gladys le breton, and lord calverly.”
“well!” peter spoke in his usual tone of easy acquiescence.
mary walked on a little ahead. what good did it do to trouble her brother uselessly by her impatient look? but how could peter yield so placidly? mary respected him too much to allow herself an evil thought of his wife; but alicia was a person to be talked about. mary did not doubt that she had been talked about already, and would be more so if she were not careful.
lord calverly and sir john dangling attendance would infallibly cause comment on any woman—let alone the beautiful mrs. odd. yet peter said, “well!”
