The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [170]
They shook hands with the politeness of slight acquaintance, and sat down, Hawkins thinking he had never seen her look so pretty or so smart, and wondering what he was going to talk to her about. It was evidently going to be war to the knife, he thought, as he embarked haltingly upon the weather, and found that he was far less at his ease than he had expected to be.
“Yes, it’s warmer here than it was in England,” said Francie, looking languidly at the rings on her left hand; “we were persihed there after Paris.”
She felt that the familiar mention of such names must of necessity place her in a superior position, and she was so stimulated by their associations with her present grandeur that she raised her eyes, and looked at him. Their eyes met with as keen a sense of contact as if their hands had suddenly touched, and each, with a perceptible jerk, looked away.
“You say that Paris was hot, was it?” said Hawkins, with something of an effort. “I haven’t been there since I went with some people the year before last, and it was as hot then as they make it. I thought it rather a hole.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Francie, chillingly; “Mr. Lambert and I enjoyed it greatly. You’ve been here all the spring, I suppose?”
“Yes; I haven’t been out of this place, except for Punchestown, since I came back from leave;” then with a reckless feeling that he would break up this frozen sea of platitudes, “since that time that I met you on the pier at Kingstown.”
“Oh yes,” said Francie, as if trying to recall some unimportant incident; “you were there with the Dysarts, weren’t you?”
Hawkins became rather red. She was palpably overdoing it, but that did not diminish the fact that he was being snubbed, and though he might, in a general and guarded way, have admitted that he deserved it, he realised that he bitterly resented being snubbed by Francie.
“Yes,” he said, with an indifference as deliberately exaggerated as her own, “I tavelled over with them. I remember how surprised we were to see you and Mr. Lambert there.”
She felt the intention on his part to say something disagreeable, and it stung her more than the words.
“Why were you surprised?” she asked coolly.
“Well—er—I don’t exactly know,” stammered Mr. Hawkins, a good deal taken aback by the directness of the inquiry; “we didn’t exactly know where you were—thought Lambert was at Lismoyle, you know.” He bagan to wish he had brought Cursiter with him; no one could have guessed that she would have turned into such a cat and given herself such airs; her ultra-refinement, and her affected accent, and her exceeding prettiness, exasperated him in a way that he could not have explained, and though the visit did not fail of excitement, he could not flatter himself that he was taking quite the part in it that he had expected. Certainly Mrs. Lambert was not maintaining the role that he had allotted her; huffiness was one thing, but infernal swagger was quite another. It is painful for a young man of Mr. Hawkins’ type to realise that an affection that he has inspired can wane and even die, and Francie’s self-possession was fast robbing him of his own.
“I hear that your regiment is after being ordered to India?” she said cheerfully, when it became apparent that Hawkins could find no more to say.
“Yes, so they say; next trooping season will about see us I expect, and they’re safe