The primitive little party began at eight o'clock. By half-past eleven, the guests had retired, the master and mistress of the house has gone to bed -- and Mr and Mrs Crossmichael and Salome were left together in an empty room.
Mrs Crossmichael issued her orders to her husband. 'Go to the club, and return in half-an-hour. You needn't come in again. Wait for me in the cab.'
The one person in the way having been disposed of, the conference between the sisters began.
'Now, Salome, we can have a little talk. You have been wretchedly out of spirits all the evening.'
'You would have been out of spirits, Lois, in my place, if you had seen them come into the room together as if they were man and wife already!'
'Aggravating,' Mrs Crossmichael admitted; 'but you might have controlled yourself when you went to the piano; I never heard you play so badly. Let us get back to Mr Fitzmark. My opinion of him doesn't matter -- I may, and do, think him a poor effeminate creature, quite unworthy of such a girl as you are. The question is, what do you think? Are you, or are you not, seriously in love with him?'
'I know it's weak of me,' Salome answered piteously; 'and I haven't got any reasons to give. Oh, Lois, I do love him!'
'Stop!' said Mrs Crossmichael. 'If you begin to cry, I leave you to your fate. Stop it! stop it! I won't have your eyes dim; I won't have your nose red. I want your eyes, and I want your nose, for my argument.'
This extraordinary announcement effectually controlled the flow of Salome's tears.
'Now look at me,' the resolute lady resumed. 'Yes, you will do. You see the glass, at the other end of the room. Go, and look at yourself. I mean what I say. Go!'
Salome obeyed, and contemplated the style of beauty, immortalised by Byron in one line: 'A kind of sleepy Venus was Dudu.' The glass drew a pretty picture, presenting soft drowsy languishing grey eyes -- plentiful hair, bright with the true golden colour, as distinguished from the hideous counterfeit -- a pure pale complexion, a mild smile, and a weak little chin, made to be fondled and kissed. A more complete contrast to the brown and brisk beauty of Sophia Pillico could not have been found, through the whole range of female humanity.
'Well,' said Mrs Crossmichael, 'are you quite satisfied that you have no reason to be afraid of Sophia, on personal grounds? Yes! yes! I know it's his opinion that is of importance to us -- but I want you to be confident. Sophia is confident; and humility is thrown away upon the molly-coddle who has taken your foolish fancy. Come, and sit by me. There was a fat guest in my way, when Mr Fitzmark said good night. Did he squeeze your hand; and did he look at you -- like this?'
Mrs Crossmichael's eyes assumed an amorous expression.
Salome blushed, and said, 'Yes, he did.'
'Now another question. When you got up from the piano (Chopin would have twisted your neck, and you would have deserved it, for murdering his music) Mr Fitzmark followed you into a corner. I saw that he was tender and confidential -- did he come to the point? How stupid you are, Salome! Did he make a proposal?'
'Not exactly, in words, dear. But if you had seen how he looked at me --'
'Nonsense! He must be made to speak out -- and I will help you to do it. I want a perfect bonnet for the flower-show next month; and I have ordered my husband to take me to Paris. For you sake, I will put it off for a week; and we will come and stay here, instead -- so that I may be ready on the spot for anything that happens. No; you needn't kiss me -- you will do infinitely better if you listen to what I have too say. I have been carefully watching Sophia and your young man, and I have arrived at the conclusion that his doctor is certainly in love with him. (Haven't I told you to listen? Then why don't you let me go on?) I am equally certain, Salome, that he is not in love with her. (Will you listen?) But she flatters his conceit -- and many a woman has caught her man in that way. Besides this danger, she has one terrible advantage over you: she is his doctor. And she has the devil's own luck -- I am too excited to choose my language -- with papa and Sir John. Otto is disposed to believe in her; and papa and that wretched Alderman just get well enough to encourage him. Did you notice, at supper, that she ordered him to take this, and forbade him to take that -- and treated the poor creature like a child? Oh, I can tell you, we have no time to lose!'
'What are we to do, Lois?'
'Will you listen? This is the second of the month. Give my love to the dear old people upstairs, and say that we must have another party, a garden-party, on the fifth. It is the safest way of getting at Pillico. If I call on her, she's quite sharp enough to suspect that I have a reason for it. What's the matter now?'
Salome looked towards the door. 'Don't I hear the cab? Oh, dear, your husband has come back already!'
'Haven't I told him to wait? They say marriage strengthens girls' minds -- and I sincerely hope they are right! In all probability Mr Fitzmark will call to-morrow, to make polite inquiries.