And she nods her little head, crowned with its glossy braids of chestnut hair, in a very coquettish manner, while her mother, persistently beaming a stereotyped company smile on all around her, begins to ascend the stairs, beckoning her daughter to follow. Marcia does so, and Lord Algernon Masherville escorts her.
"You—you didn't mean that!" he stammers rather feebly—"You—you don't mind my being here, do you? I'm—I'm awfully glad to see you again, you know—and—er—all that sort of thing!"
Marcia darts a keen glance at him,—the glance of an observant, clear-headed magpie.
"Oh yes! I dare say!" she remarks with airy scorn. "S'pect me to believe yew! Waal! Did yew have a good time in Pa-ar—is?"
"Fairly so," answers Lord Masherville indifferently. "I only came back two days ago. Lady Winsleigh met me by chance at the theatre, and asked me to look in to-night for 'some fun' she said. Have you any idea what she meant?"
"Of course!" says the fair New Yorker, with a little nasal laugh,—"don't yew know? We're all here to see the fisherwoman from the wilds of Norway,—the creature Sir Philip Errington married last year. I conclude she'll give us fits all round, don't yew?"
Lord Masherville, at this, appears to hesitate. His eye-glass troubles him, and he fidgets with its black string. He is not intellectual—he is the most vacillating, most meek and timid of mortals—but he is a gentleman in his own poor fashion, and has a sort of fluttering chivalry about him, which, though feeble, is better than none.
"I really cannot tell you, Miss Marcia," he replies almost nervously. "I hear—at the Club,—that—that Lady Bruce-Errington is a great beauty."
"Dew tell!" shrieks Marcia, with a burst of laughter. "Is she really though! But I guess her looks won't mend her grammar any way!"
He makes no reply, as by this time they have reached the crowded drawing-room, where Lady Winsleigh, radiant in ruby velvet and rose-brilliants, stands receiving her guests, with a cool smile and nod for mere acquaintances,—and a meaning flash of her dark eyes for her intimates, and a general air of haughty insolence and perfect self-satisfaction pervading her from head to foot. Close to her is her husband, grave, courtly, and kind to all comers, and fulfilling his duty as host to perfection,—still closer is Sir Francis Lennox, who in the pauses of the incoming tide of guests finds occasion to whisper trifling nothings in her tiny white ear, and even once ventures to arrange more tastefully a falling cluster of pale roses that rests lightly on the brief shoulder-strap (called by courtesy a sleeve) which, keeps her ladyship's bodice in place.