Mrs. Gallilee went on. "By-the-by, talking of flowers reminds one of other superfluities. Have you tried the piano in your room? Will it do?"
"The tone is quite perfect!" Carmina answered with enthusiasm. "Did you choose it?" Mrs. Gallilee looked as if she was going to say "Good Heavens!" again, and perhaps to endure it no longer. Carmina was too simple to interpret these signs in the right way. Why should her aunt not choose a piano? "Don't you like music?" she asked.
Mrs. Gallilee made a last effort. "When you see a little more of society, my child, you will know that one must like music. So again with pictures--one must go to the Royal Academy Exhibition. So again--"
Before she could mention any more social sacrifices, the servant came in with a letter, and stopped her.
Mrs. Gallilee looked at the address. The weary indifference of her manner changed to vivid interest, the moment she saw the handwriting. "From the Professor!" she exclaimed. "Excuse me, for one minute." She read the letter, and closed it again with a sigh of relief. "I knew it!" she said to herself. "I have always maintained that the albuminoid substance of frog's eggs is insufficient (viewed as nourishment) to transform a tadpole into a frog--and, at last, the Professor owns that I am right. I beg your pardon, Carmina; I am carried away by a subject that I have been working at in my stolen intervals for weeks past. Let me give you some tea. I have asked Miss Minerva to join us. What is keeping her, I wonder? She is usually so punctual. I suppose Zoe has been behaving badly again."
In a few minutes more, the governess herself confirmed this maternal forewarning of the truth. Zo had declined to commit to memory "the political consequences of the granting of Magna Charta"--and now stood reserved for punishment, when her mother "had time to attend to it." Mrs. Gallilee at once disposed of this little responsibility. "Bread and water for tea," she said, and proceeded to the business of the evening.
"I wish to speak to you both," she began, "on the subject of my son."
The two persons addressed waited in silence to hear more. Carmina's head drooped: she looked down. Miss Minerva attentively observed Mrs. Gallilee. "Why am I invited to hear what she has to say about her son?" was the question which occurred to the governess. "Is she afraid that Carmina might tell me about it, if I was not let into the family secrets?"
Admirably reasoned, and correctly guessed!
Mrs. Gallilee had latterly observed that the governess was insinuating herself into the confidence of her niece--that is to say, into the confidence of a young lady, whose father was generally reported to have died in possession of a handsome fortune. Personal influence, once obtained over an heiress, is not infrequently misused. To check the further growth of a friendship of this sort (without openly offending Miss Minerva) was an imperative duty. Mrs. Gallilee saw her way to the discreet accomplishment of that object. Her niece and her governess were interested--diversely interested--in Ovid. If she invited them both together, to consult with her on the delicate subject of her son, there would be every chance of exciting some difference of opinion, sufficiently irritating to begin the process of estrangement, by keeping them apart when they had left the tea-table.
"It is most important that there should be no misunderstanding among us," Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. "Let me set the example of speaking without reserve. We all three know that Ovid persists in remaining in London--"
She paused, on the point of finishing the sentence. Although she had converted a Professor, Mrs. Gallilee was still only a woman. There did enter into her other calculations, the possibility of exciting some accidental betrayal of her governess's passion for her son. On alluding to Ovid, she turned suddenly to Miss Minerva. "I am sure you will excuse my troubling you with family anxieties," she said--"especially when they are connected with the health of my son."
It was cleverly done, but it laboured under one disadvantage. Miss Minerva had no idea of what the needless apology meant, having no suspicion of the discovery of her secret by her employer. But to feel herself baffled in trying to penetrate Mrs. Gallilee's motives was enough, of itself, to put Mrs. Gallilee's governess on her guard for the rest of the evening.
"You honour me, madam, by admitting me to your confidence"--was what she said. "Trip me up, you cat, if you can!"--was what she thought.
Mrs. Gallilee resumed.
"We know that Ovid persists in remaining in London, when change of air and scene are absolutely necessary to the recovery of his health. And we know why. Carmina, my child, don't think for a moment that I blame you! don't even suppose that I blame my son. You are too charming a person not to excuse, nay even to justify, any man's admiration. But let us (as we hard old people say) look the facts in the face. If Ovid had not seen you, he would be now on the health-giving sea, on his way to Spain and Italy. You are the innocent cause of his obstinate indifference, his most deplorable and dangerous disregard of the duty which he owes to himself. He refuses to listen to his mother, he sets the opinion of his skilled medical colleague at defiance. But one person has any influence over him now." She paused again, and tried to trip up the governess once more. "Miss Minerva, let me appeal to You. I regard you as a member of our family; I have the sincerest admiration of your tact and good sense. Am I exceeding the limits of delicacy, if I say plainly to my niece, Persuade Ovid to go?"
If Carmina had possessed an elder sister, with a plain personal appearance and an easy conscience, not even that sister could have matched the perfect composure with which Miss Minerva replied.
"I don't possess your happy faculty of expressing yourself, Mrs. Gallilee. But, if I had been in your place, I should have said to the best of my poor ability exactly what you have said now." She bent her head with a graceful gesture of respect, and looked at Carmina with a gentle sisterly interest while she stirred her tea.
At the very opening of the skirmish, Mrs. Gallilee was defeated. She had failed to provoke the slightest sign of jealousy, or even of ill-temper. Unquestionably the most crafty and most cruel woman of the two--possessing the most dangerously deceitful manner, and the most mischievous readiness of language--she was, nevertheless, Miss Minerva's inferior in the one supreme capacity of which they both stood in need, the capacity for self-restraint.
She showed this inferiority on expressing her thanks. The underlying malice broke through the smooth surface that was intended to hide it. "I am apt to doubt myself," she said; "and such sound encouragement as yours always relieves me. Of course I don't ask you for more than a word of advice. Of course I don't expect you to persuade Ovid."
"Of course not!" Miss Minerva agreed. "May I ask for a littl