Thelma
be so?"
He laughed. "I believe you would do it if I asked you!" he said.
"But, of course! I am quite happy alone with you. I care nothing for
this party,--what is it to me if you do not wish to go?"
He kissed her again. "Thelma, don't spoil me too much! If you let me
have my own way to such an extent, who knows what an awful domestic
tyrant I may become! No, dear--we must go tonight--there's no help for
it. You see we've accepted the invitation, and it's no use being
churlish. Besides, after all"--he gazed at her admiringly--"I want them
to see my Norwegian rose! Come along! The carriage is waiting."
They passed out into the hall, where Britta was in attendance with a
long cloak of pale-blue plush lined with white fur, in which she
tenderly enveloped her beloved "Froeken," her rosy face beaming with
affectionate adoration as she glanced from the fair diamond-crowned head
down to the point of a small pearl-embroidered shoe that peeped beneath
the edge of the rich, sheeny white robe, and saw that nothing was
lacking to the most perfect toilette that ever woman wore.
"Good-night, Britta!" said Thelma kindly. "You must not sit up for me.
You will be tired."
Britta smiled--it was evident she meant to outwatch the stars, if
necessary, rather than allow her mistress to be unattended on her
return. But she said nothing--she waited at the door while Philip
assisted his wife into the carriage--and still stood musingly under the
wide portico, after they had driven away.
"Hadn't you better come in, Miss Britta?" said the butler
respectfully,--he had a great regard for her ladyship's little maid.
Britta, recalled to herself, started, turned, and re-entered the hall.
"There will be many fine folks there to-night, I suppose?" she asked.
The butler rubbed his nose perplexedly. "Fine folks at Winsleigh House?
Well, as far as clothes go, I dare say there will. But there'll be no
one like her ladyship--no one!" And he shook his grey head emphatically.
"Of course not!" said Britta, with a sort of triumphant defiance. "We
know that very well, Morris! There's no one like her ladyship anywhere
in the wide world! But I tell you what--I think a great many people will
be jealous of her."
Morris smiled. "You may take your oath of that, Miss Britta," he said
with placid conviction. "Jealous! Jealous isn't the word for it! Why,"
and he surveyed Britta's youthful countenance with fatherly interest,
"you're only a child as it were, and you don't know the world much. Now,
I've been five and twenty years in this family, and I knew Sir Philip's
mother, the Lady _Eulalie_--he named his yacht after her. Ah! she was a
sweet creature--she came from Austria, and she was as dark as her
present ladyship is fair. Wherever she went, I tell you, the women were
ready to cry for spite and envy of her good looks--and they would say
anything against her they could invent. That's the way they go on
sometimes in society, you know."
"As bad as in Bosekop," murmured Britta, more to herself than to him,
"only London is a larger place." Then raising her voice again, she said,
"Perhaps there will be some people wicked enough to hate her ladyship,
Morris?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Morris philosophically. "I shouldn't wonder
at all! There's a deal of hate about one way or another,--and if a lady
is as beautiful as an angel, and cuts out everybody wherever she goes,
why you can't expect the other ladies to be very fond of her. 'Tisn't in
human nature--at least not in feminine human nature. Men don't care much
about their looks, one way or the other, unless they're young
chaps--then one has a little patience with them and they come all
right."
But Britta had become meditative again. She went slowly up into her
mistress's room and began arranging the few trifles that had been left
in disorder.
"Just fancy!"--she said to herself--"some one may hate the Froeken even
in London just as they hated her in Bosekop, because she is so unlike
everybody else. _I_ shall keep my eyes open,--and _I_ shall soon find
out any wickedness against her! My beautiful, dear darling! I believe
the world is a cruel place after all,--but _she_ shan't be made unhappy
in it, if I can help it!"
And with this emphatic declaration, she kissed a little shoe of Thelma's
that she was just putting by--and, smoothing her curls, went down to her
supper.
CHAPTER XX.
"Such people there are living and flourishing in the
world,--Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless,--let us have at them,
dear friends, with might and main!"--THACKERAY.
Who can adequately describe the thrilling excitement attending an
aristocratic "crush,"--an extensive, sweeping-off-of-old-cores "at
home,"--that scene of bewildering confusion which might be appropriately
set forth to the minds of the vulgar in the once-popular ditty, "Such a
getting-up-stairs I never did see!" Who can paint in sufficiently
brilliant colors the mere _outside_ of a house thus distinguished by
this strange festivity, in which there is no actual pleasure,--this
crowding of carriages--this shouting of small boys and policemen?--who
can, in words, delineate the various phases of lofty indignation and
offense on the countenances of pompous coachmen, forced into contention
with vulgar but good-natured "cabbys"--for right of way? . . . who can
sufficiently set forth the splendors of a striped awning avenue, lined
on both sides with a collection of tropical verdure, hired for the
occasion at so much per dozen pots, and illuminated with Chinese
lanterns! Talk of orange groves in Italy and the languid light of a
southern moon! What are they compared to the marvels of striped awning?
Mere trees--mere moonlight--(poor products of Nature!) do not excite
either wonder or envy--but, strange to say, an awning avenue invariably
does! As soon as it is erected in all its bland suggestiveness, no
matter at what house, a small crowd of street-arabs and nursemaids
collect to stare at it,--and when tired of staring, pass and repass
under it with peculiar satisfaction; the beggar, starving for a crust,
lingers doubtfully near it, and ventures to inquire of the
influenza-smitten crossing-sweeper whether it is a wedding or a party?
And if Awning Avenue means matrimony, the beggar waits to see the guests
come out; if, on the contrary, it stands for some evening festivity, he
goes, resolving to return at the appointed hour, and try if he cannot
persuade one "swell" at least to throw him a penny for his night's
supper. Yes--a great many people endure sharp twinges of discontent at
the sight of Awning Avenue,--people who can't afford to give parties,
and who wish they could,--pretty, sweet girls who never go to a dance in
their lives, and long with all their innocent hearts for a
glimpse,--just _one_ glimpse!--of what seems to them inexhaustible,
fairy-like delight,--lonely folks, who imagine in their simplicity that
all who are privileged to pass between the lines of hired tropical
foliage aforementioned, must perforce be the best and most united of
friends--hungry men and women who picture, with watering mouths, the
supper-table that lies _beyond_ the awning, laden with good things, of
the very names of which they are hopelessly ignorant,--while now and
then a stern, dark-browed Thinker or two may stalk by and metaphorically
shake his fist at all the waste, extravagance, useless luxury, humbug,
and hypocrisy Awning Avenue usually symbolizes, and may mutter in his
beard, like an old-fashioned tragedian, "A time _will_ come!" Yes, Sir
Thinker!--it will most undoubtedly--it _must_--but not through you--not
through any mere human agency. Modern society contains within itself the
seed of its own destruction,--the most utter Nihilist that ever swore
deadly oath need but contain his soul in patience and allow the seed to
ripen. For God's justice is as a circle that slowly surrounds an evil
and as slowly closes on it with crushing and resistless force,--and
feverish, fretting humanity, however nobly inspired, can do nothing
either to hasten or retard the round, perfect, absolute and Divine Law.
So let the babes of the world play on, and let us not frighten them with
stories of earthquakes; they are miserable enough as it is, believe
it!--their toys are so brittle, and snap in their feeble hands so
easily, that one is inclined to pity them! And Awning Avenue, with its
borrowed verdure and artificial light, is frequently erected for the use
of some of the most wretched among the children of the earth,--children
who have trifled with and lost everything,--love, honor, hope, and
faith, and who are travelling rapidly to the grave with no consolation
save a few handfuls, of base coin, which they must, perforce, leave
behind them at the last.
So it may be that the crippled crossing-sweeper outside Winsleigh House
is a very great deal happier than the master of that stately mansion. He
has a new broom,--and Master Ernest Winsleigh has given him two oranges,
and a rather bulky stick of sugar candy. He is a _protege_ of
Ernest's--that bright handsome boy considers it a "jolly shame"--to have
only one leg,--and has said so with much emphasis,--and though the
little sweeper himself has never regarded his affliction quite in that
light, he is exceedingly grateful for the young gentleman's patronage
and sympathy thus frankly expressed. And on this particular night of the
grand reception he stands, leaning on his broom and munching his candy,
a delighted spectator of the scene in Park Lane,--the splendid
equipages, the prancing horses, the glittering liveries, the excited
cabmen, the magnificent toilettes of the ladies, the solemn and resigned
deportment of the gentlemen,--and he envies none of them--not he! Why
should he? His oranges are in his pocket--untouched as yet--and it is
doubtful whether the crowding guests at the Winsleigh supper-table shall
find anything there to yield them such entire enjoyment as he will
presently take in his humble yet refreshing desert. And he is pleased as
a child at a pantomime--the Winsleigh "at home" is a show that amuses
him,--and he makes sundry remarks on "'im" and "'er" in a meditative
_sotto voce_. He peeps up Awning Avenue heedless of the severe eye of
the policeman on guard,--he sweeps the edge of the crimson felt
foot-cloth tenderly with his broom,--and if he has a desire ungratified,
it is that he might take a peep just for a minute inside the front door,
and see how "they're all a'goin' it!"
And how _are_ they a'goin' it! Well, not very hilariously, if one may
judge by the aspect of the gentlemen in the hall and on the
stairs,--gentlemen of serious demeanor, who are leaning, as though
exhausted, against the banisters, with a universal air of profound
weariness and dissatisfaction. Some of these are young fledglings of
manhood,--callow birds who, though by no means innocent,--are more or
less inexperienced,--and who have fluttered hither to the snare of Lady
Winsleigh's "at home," half expecting to be allowed to make love to
their hostess, and so have something to boast of afterwards,--others are
of the middle-aged complacent type, who, though infinitely bored, have
condescended to "look in" for ten minutes or so, to see if there are any
pretty women worth the honor of their criticism--others again (and these
are the most unfortunate) are the "nobodies"--or husbands, fathers, and
brothers of "beauties," whom they have dutifully escorted to the scene
of triumph, in which they, unlucky wights! are certainly not expected to
share. A little desultory conversation goes on among these
stair-loungers,--conversation mingled with much dreary yawning,--a
trained opera-singer is shaking forth chromatic roulades and trills in
the great drawing-room above,--there is an incessant stream of people