Lady Maresfield had given her boy a push in his plump back and had said to him, "Go and speak to her now; it's your chance." She had for a long time wanted this scion to make himself audible to Rose Tramore, but the opportunity was not easy to come by.The case was complicated.Lady Maresfield had four daughters, of whom only one was married.It so happened moreover that this one, Mrs.Vaughan-Vesey, the only person in the world her mother was afraid of, was the most to be reckoned with.The Honourable Guy was in appearance all his mother's child, though he was really a simpler soul.He was large and pink; large, that is, as to everything but the eyes, which were diminishing points, and pink as to everything but the hair, which was comparable, faintly, to the hue of the richer rose.He had also, it must be conceded, very small neat teeth, which made his smile look like a young lady's.He had no wish to resemble any such person, but he was perpetually smiling, and he smiled more than ever as he approached Rose Tramore, who, looking altogether, to his mind, as a pretty girl should, and wearing a soft white opera-cloak over a softer black dress, leaned alone against the wall of the vestibule at Covent Garden while, a few paces off, an old gentleman engaged her mother in conversation.Madame Patti had been singing, and they were all waiting for their carriages.To their ears at present came a vociferation of names and a rattle of wheels.The air, through banging doors, entered in damp, warm gusts, heavy with the stale, slightly sweet taste of the London season when the London season is overripe and spoiling.
Guy Mangler had only three minutes to reestablish an interrupted acquaintance with our young lady.He reminded her that he had danced with her the year before, and he mentioned that he knew her brother.
His mother had lately been to see old Mrs.Tramore, but this he did not mention, not being aware of it.That visit had produced, on Lady Maresfield's part, a private crisis, engendered ideas.One of them was that the grandmother in Hill Street had really forgiven the wilful girl much more than she admitted.Another was that there would still be some money for Rose when the others should come into theirs.Still another was that the others would come into theirs at no distant date; the old lady was so visibly going to pieces.There were several more besides, as for instance that Rose had already fifteen hundred a year from her father.The figure had been betrayed in Hill Street; it was part of the proof of Mrs.Tramore's decrepitude.Then there was an equal amount that her mother had to dispose of and on which the girl could absolutely count, though of course it might involve much waiting, as the mother, a person of gross insensibility, evidently wouldn't die of cold-shouldering.
Equally definite, to do it justice, was the conception that Rose was in truth remarkably good looking, and that what she had undertaken to do showed, and would show even should it fail, cleverness of the right sort.Cleverness of the right sort was exactly the quality that Lady Maresfield prefigured as indispensable in a young lady to whom she should marry her second son, over whose own deficiencies she flung the veil of a maternal theory that HIS cleverness was of a sort that was wrong.Those who knew him less well were content to wish that he might not conceal it for such a scruple.This enumeration of his mother's views does not exhaust the list, and it was in obedience to one too profound to be uttered even by the historian that, after a very brief delay, she decided to move across the crowded lobby.Her daughter Bessie was the only one with her; Maggie was dining with the Vaughan-Veseys, and Fanny was not of an age.Mrs.Tramore the younger showed only an admirable back--her face was to her old gentleman--and Bessie had drifted to some other people; so that it was comparatively easy for Lady Maresfield to say to Rose, in a moment: "My dear child, are you never coming to see us?""We shall be delighted to come if you'll ask us," Rose smiled.
Lady Maresfield had been prepared for the plural number, and she was a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert."I'm sure Guy is longing for another dance with you," she rejoined, with the most unblinking irrelevance.
"I'm afraid we're not dancing again quite yet," said Rose, glancing at her mother's exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were muffled in crape.
Lady Maresfield leaned her head on one side and seemed almost wistful."Not even at my sister's ball? She's to have something next week.She'll write to you."Rose Tramore, on the spot, looking bright but vague, turned three or four things over in her mind.She remembered that the sister of her interlocutress was the proverbially rich Mrs.Bray, a bankeress or a breweress or a builderess, who had so big a house that she couldn't fill it unless she opened her doors, or her mouth, very wide.Rose had learnt more about London society during these lonely months with her mother than she had ever picked up in Hill Street.The younger Mrs.Tramore was a mine of commerages, and she had no need to go out to bring home the latest intelligence.At any rate Mrs.Bray might serve as the end of a wedge."Oh, I dare say we might think of that," Rose said."It would be very kind of your sister.""Guy'll think of it, won't you, Guy?" asked Lady Maresfield.
"Rather!" Guy responded, with an intonation as fine as if he had learnt it at a music hall; while at the same moment the name of his mother's carriage was bawled through the place.Mrs.Tramore had parted with her old gentleman; she turned again to her daughter.
Nothing occurred but what always occurred, which was exactly this absence of everything--a universal lapse.She didn't exist, even for a second, to any recognising eye.The people who looked at her--of course there were plenty of those--were only the people who didn't exist for hers.Lady Maresfield surged away on her son's arm.
