There was a brief awkward pause. Then Eva Beaulyon turned her back indifferently on the whole party and stepped out on the lawn. She was followed by Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, and both ladies gave vent to small smothered bleats of mocking laughter as they sauntered across the grass side by side. But Maryllia did not care. She had carried her point, and was satisfied. The Sunday's observance in Abbot's Manor, always rigorously insisted upon by her father, would not be desecrated by card-playing and gambling under his daughter's sway. That was enough for her. A serene content dwelt in her eyes as she watched her guests disperse and scatter themselves in sections of twos and threes all over the garden and grounds--and she said the pleasantest and kindest things when any of them passed her on their way, telling them just where to find the prettiest nooks, and where to pick the choicest fruit and flowers. Lord Charlemont watched her with a sense of admiration for her 'pluck.'
"By Jove!" he thought--"I'd rather have fronted the guns in a pitched battle than have forbidden my own guests to play Bridge on Sunday! Wants nerve,--upon my soul it does!--and the little woman's got it--you bet she has!" Aloud he said-"I'm awfully glad to be let off Bridge, Miss Vancourt! A day's respite is a positive boon!"
"Do you play it so often, then?" she asked gently. He flushed slightly.
"Too often, I'm afraid! But how can I help it? One must do something to kill time!"
"Poor Time!" said Maryllia, with a smile--"Why should he be killed? I would rather make much of him while I have him!"
Charlemont did not answer. He lit a cigar and strolled away by himself to meditate.
Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay just then re-entered the drawing-room from the garden, fanning herself vigorously with her handkerchief.
"It is so frightfully warm!" she complained--"Such a burning sun! So bad for the skin! They are picking strawberries and eating them off the plants--very nice, I daresay--but quite messy. Eva Beaulyon and two of the men have taken a boat and gone on the water. If you don't mind, Maryllia, I shall rest and massage till dinner."
"Pray do so!" returned Maryllia, kindly, smiling, despite herself; Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay's life was well-nigh, spent in 'massage' and various other processes for effacing the prints of Time from her carefully guarded epidermis--"But I was just going to ask Cicely to play us something. Won't you wait five minutes and hear her?"