The Hoyden | Page 7

say," says Mrs.
Bethune, turning to Lady Rylton.
"I really don't know--and as it has to be trade, I can't see that it

matters," says Lady Rylton, frowning.
"Nothing matters, if you come to think of it," says Mrs. Bethune. "Go
on, Margaret--you were in the middle of a sermon; I dare say we shall
endure to the end."
"I was saying that Miss Bolton is only a child."
"She is seventeen. She told us about it last night at dinner. Gave us
month and day. It was very clever of her. We ought to give her
birthday-gifts, don't you think? And yet you call her a child!"
"At seventeen, what else?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Margaret," says Lady Rylton pettishly; "and,
above all things, don't be old-fashioned. There is no such product
nowadays as a child of seventeen. There isn't time for it. It has gone out!
The idea is entirely exploded. Perhaps there were children aged
seventeen long ago--one reads of them, I admit, but it is too long ago
for one to remember. Why, I was only eighteen when I married your
uncle."
"Pour uncle!" says Mrs. Bethune; her tone is full of feeling.
Lady Rylton accepts the feeling as grief for the uncle's death; but
Margaret, casting a swift glance at Mrs. Bethune, wonders if it was
meant for grief for the uncle's life--with Lady Rylton.
"He was the ugliest man I ever saw, without exception," says Lady
Rylton placidly; "and I was never for a moment blind to the fact, but he
was well off at that time, and, of course, I married him. I wasn't in love
with him." She pauses, and makes a little apologetic gesture with her
fan and shoulders. "Horrid expression, isn't it?" says she. "In love! So
terribly bourgeois. It ought to be done away with. However, to go on,
you see how admirably my marriage turned out. Not a hitch anywhere.
Your poor dear uncle and I never had a quarrel. I had only to express a
wish, and it was gratified."
"Poor dear uncle was so clever," says Mrs. Bethune, with lowered lids.
Again Margaret looks at her, but is hardly sure whether sarcasm is
really meant.
"Clever? Hardly, perhaps," says Lady Rylton meditatively. "Clever is
scarcely the word."
"No, wise--wise is the word," says Mrs. Bethune.
Her eyes are still downcast. It seems to Margaret that she is inwardly
convulsed with laughter.

"Well, wise or not, we lived in harmony," says Lady Rylton with a sigh
and a prolonged sniff at her scent-bottle. "With us it was peace to the
end."
"Certainly; it was peace at the end," says Mrs. Bethune solemnly.
It was, indeed, a notorious thing that the late Sir Maurice had lived in
hourly fear of his wife, and had never dared to contradict her on any
subject, though he was a man of many inches, and she one of the
smallest creatures on record.
"True! true! You knew him so well!" says Lady Rylton, hiding her eyes
behind the web of a handkerchief she is holding. One tear would have
reduced it to pulp. "And when he was----" She pauses.
"Was dead?" says Margaret kindly, softly.
"Oh, _don't,_ dear Margaret, _don't!"_ says Lady Rylton, with a
tragical start. "That dreadful word! One should never mention death! It
is so rude! He, your poor uncle--he left us with the sweetest resignation
on the 18th of February, 1887."
"I never saw such resignation," says Mrs. Bethune, with deep emphasis.
She casts a glance at Margaret, who, however, refuses to have anything
to do with it. But, for all that, Mrs. Bethune is clearly enjoying herself.
She can never, indeed, refrain from sarcasm, even when her audience is
unsympathetic.
"Yes, yes; he was resigned," says Lady Rylton, pressing her
handkerchief to her nose.
"So much so, that one might almost think he was glad to go," says Mrs.
Bethune, nodding her head with beautiful sympathy.
She is now shaking with suppressed laughter.
"Yes; glad. It is such a comfort to dwell on it," says Lady Rylton, still
dabbing her eyes. "He was happy--quite happy when he left me."
"I never saw anyone so happy," says Mrs. Bethune.
Her voice sounds choking; no doubt it is emotion. She rises and goes to
the window. The emotion seems to have got into her shoulders.
"All which proves," goes on Lady Rylton, turning to Margaret, "that a
marriage based on friendship, even between two young people, is often
successful."
"But surely in your case there was love on one side," says Miss Knollys,
a little impatiently. "My uncle----"
"Oh, he adored me!" cries she ecstatically, throwing up her pretty

hands, her vanity so far overcoming her argument that she grows
inconsistent. "You know," with a little simper, "I was a belle in my