The Three Miss Kings. Ada Cambridge

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СКАЧАТЬ long train rustling over the carpet in a queenly manner, and a gracious welcome in her pale blue eyes, he found himself looking at her critically – comparing her complacent demeanour with the simple dignity of Elizabeth King, and her artificial elegance with the wild-flower grace of Eleanor, who was also tall and fair – and her studied sprightliness with Patty's inspired vigour – and her countenance, that was wont to be so attractive, with Patty's beautiful and intellectual face.

      "Ah!" said Mrs. Aarons, shaking hands with him impressively, "you have remembered my existence, then, at last! Do you know how many weeks it is since you honoured me with your company? —five. And I wonder you can stand there and look me in the face."

      He said it had been his misfortune and not his fault – that he had been so immersed in business that he had had no time to indulge in pleasure.

      "Don't tell me. You don't have business on Friday evenings," said Mrs. Aarons promptly.

      "Oh, don't I?" retorted Mr. Brion (the fact being that he had spent several Friday evenings on his balcony, smoking and listening to his neighbours' music, in the most absolute and voluptuous idleness). "You ladies don't know what a press-man's life is – his nose to the grindstone at all hours of the night and day."

      "Poor man! Well, now you are here, come and sit down and tell me what you have been doing."

      She took a quick glance round the room, saw that her guests were in a fair way to support the general intercourse by voluntary contributions, set the piano and a thin-voiced young lady and some "Claribel" ditties going, and then retired with Paul to a corner sofa for a chat. She was inclined to make much of him after his long absence, and he was in a mood to be more effusive than his wont. Nevertheless, the young man did not advance, as suspicious observers supposed him to be doing, in the good graces of his charming friend – ready as she was to meet him half-way.

      "Of course I wanted very much to see you – it seems an awful time since I was here – but I had another reason for coming to-night," said Paul, when they had comfortably settled themselves (he was the descendant of countless gentlefolk and she had not even a father that she could conveniently call her own, yet was she constrained to blush for his bad manners and his brutal deficiency in delicacy and tact). "I want to ask a favour of you – you are always so kind and good – and I think you will not mind doing it. It is not much – at least to you – but it would be very much to them – "

      "To whom?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, with a little chill of disappointment and disapproval already in her voice and face. This was not what she felt she had a right to expect under the present combination of circumstances.

      "Three girls – three sisters, who are orphans – in a kind of way, wards of my father's," explained Paul, showing a disposition to stammer for the first time. "Their name is King, and they have come to live in Melbourne, where they don't know anyone – not a single friend. I thought, perhaps, you would just call in and see them some day – it would be so awfully kind of you, if you would. A little notice from a woman like you would be just everything to them."

      "Are they nice? – that is to say, are they the sort of people whom one would – a – care to be responsible for – you know what I mean? Are they ladies?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, who, by virtue of her own extraction, was bound to be select and exclusive in her choice of acquaintances.

      "Most certainly," replied Paul, with imprudent warmth. "There can be no manner of doubt about that. Born ladies."

      "I don't ask what they were born," she said quickly, with a toss of the head. "What are they now? Who are their connections? What do they live on?"

      Paul Brion gave a succinct and graphic sketch of the superficial history and circumstances of his father's "wards," omitting various details that instinct warned him might be accounted "low" – such, for instance, as the fact that the single maidservant of the house they lived in was nothing more to them than their medium of communication with the front door. He dwelt (like the straightforward blunderer that he was) on their personal refinement and their high culture and accomplishments, how they studied every day at the Public Library, taking their frugal lunch at the pastry-cook's – how they could talk French and German like "natives" – how they played the piano in a way that made all the blood in one's veins tingle – how, in short, they were in all things certain to do honour and credit to whoever would spread the wing of the matron and chaperon over them. It seemed to him a very interesting story, told by himself, and he was quite convinced that it must touch the tender woman's heart beating under that pretty dress beside him.

      "You are a mother yourself," he said (as indeed she was – the mother of four disappointing little Aaronses, who were all long-nosed and narrow-eyed and dark, each successive infant more the image of its father than the last), "and so you can understand their position – you know how to feel for them." He thought this an irresistible plea, and was unprepared for the dead silence with which it was received. Glancing up quickly, he saw that she was by no means in the melting mood that he had looked for.

      "Of course, if you don't wish it – if it will be troubling you too much – " he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself together.

      "It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you have stayed away for five weeks."

      "Why I have stayed away – oh! I understand. But I told you they were living alone, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their house – it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their society."

      "Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is that it?"

      The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous – at least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays. Will that do?"

      "I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.

      "It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will please you."

      And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done, believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.

      CHAPTER X.

      THE FIRST INVITATION

      Mrs. Aarons kept her promise, and called upon the Kings on Saturday. Mrs. M'Intyre saw her get down at the gate of No. 6, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, watched the brougham which had brought her trundling slowly up and down the street for half-an-hour, and then saw her get into it and drive off; which facts, communicated to Paul Brion, gave him the greatest satisfaction.

      He did not see his neighbours for several days after. He heard their piano, and their footsteps and voices on the verandah; but, whenever he essayed to go outside his own room for a breath of fresh air, they were sure to retire into theirs immediately, like mice into a hole when the cat has frightened them. At last he came across them in an alley of the Fitzroy Gardens, as he and they were converging upon Myrtle Street from different points. They were all together as usual – the majestic Elizabeth in the middle, with her younger sisters on either side of her; and they were walking home from an organ recital in the Town Hall to their tea, and a cosy evening over a new book, having spent most of the morning at the Public Library, and had their mid-day dinner at Gunsler's. As he caught sight of them, he was struck by the change in their outward appearance that a few weeks of Melbourne experience had brought about, and СКАЧАТЬ