her that's just what old Lady Mistowe would say of her cook--for I can't
stand these people's patronage. However, I shouldn't wonder if I was
invited here as a 'most original person.'"
But here Lord Algernon came up to implore her to sing them one of "those
plantation songs;" and Miss Desborough, with scarcely a change of voice
or manner, allowed herself to be led to the piano. The consul had
little chance to speak with her again, but he saw enough that evening to
convince him not only that Lord Algernon was very much in love with
her, but that the fact had been equally and complacently accepted by the
family and guests. That her present visit was only an opportunity for a
formal engagement was clear to every woman in the house--not excepting,
I fear, even the fair subject of gossip herself. Yet she seemed so
unconcerned and self-contained that the consul wondered if she really
cared for Lord Algernon. And having thus wondered, he came to the
conclusion that it didn't much matter, for the happiness of so
practically organized a young lady, if she loved him or not.
It is highly probable that Miss Sadie Desborough had not even gone so
far as to ask herself that question. She awoke the next morning with a
sense of easy victory and calm satisfaction that had, however, none of
the transports of affection. Her taste was satisfied by the love of
a handsome young fellow,--a typical Englishman,--who, if not exactly
original or ideal, was, she felt, of an universally accepted,
"hall-marked" standard, the legitimate outcome of a highly ordered,
carefully guarded civilization, whose repose was the absence of struggle
or ambition; a man whose regular features were not yet differentiated
from the rest of his class by any of those disturbing lines which people
call character. Everything was made ready for her, without care or
preparation; she had not even an ideal to realize or to modify. She
could slip without any jar or dislocation into this life which was just
saved from self-indulgence and sybaritic luxury by certain conventional
|