"Did I not see her out hunting with you once or twice early in the season?""You saw her out hunting, no doubt, and I was there. I did not specially bring her. She was staying here, and rode one of Albury's horses.""Take her top and bottom, and all round," said Captain Glomax, "she is the prettiest little thing I've seen for many a day.
When she curtseyed to Sir Harry in the drawing-room I almost thought that I should like to be a marrying man myself." Stubbs did not carry on the conversation, having felt displeased rather than otherwise by the admiration expressed.
"I didn't quite understand before", said Sir Harry to his wife that night, "what it was that made Jonathan so furious about that girl; but I think I see it now.""Fine feathers make fine birds," said his wife, laughing.
"Feathers ever so fine," said Sir Harry, "don't make well-bred birds.""To tell the truth," said Lady Albury, "I think we shall all have to own that Jonathan has been right."This took place upstairs, but before they left the drawing-room Lady Albury whispered a few words to her young friend. "We have had a terrible trouble about you, Ayala.""A trouble about me, Lady Albury? I should be so sorry.""It is not exactly your fault -- but we haven't at all known what to do with that unfortunate man.""What man?" asked Ayala, forgetful at the moment of all men except Colonel Stubbs.
"You naughty girl! Don't you know that my brother-in-law is broken-hearted about you?""Captain Batsby!" whispered Ayala, in her faintest voice.
"Yes; Captain Batsby. A Captain has as much right to be considered as a Colonel in such a matter as this." Here Ayala frowned, but said nothing. "Of course, I can't help it, who may break his heart, but poor Ben is always supposed to be at Stalham just at this time of the year, and now I have been obliged to tell him one fib upon another to keep him away. When he comes to know it all, what on earth will he say to me?""I am sure it has not been my fault," said Ayala.
"That's what young ladies always say when gentlemen break their hearts."When Ayala was again in her room, and had got rid of the buxom female who came to assist her in taking off her new finery, she was aware of having passed the evening triumphantly. She was conscious of admiration. She knew that Sir Harry had been pleased by her appearance. She was sure that Lady Albury was satisfied with her, and she had seen something in the Colonel's glance that made her feel that he had not been indifferent. But in their conversation at the dinner table he had said nothing which any other man might not have said, if any other man could have made himself as agreeable. Those hunting days were all again described with their various incidents, with the great triumph over the brook, and Twentyman's wife and baby, and fat Lord Rufford, who was at the moment sitting there opposite to them; and the ball in London, with the lady who was thrown out of the window; and the old gentleman and the old lady of today who had been so peculiar in their remarks. There had been nothing else in their conversation, and it surely was not possible that a man who intended to put himself forward as a lover should have talked in such fashion as that! But then there were other things which occurred to her.
Why had there been that tear in his eye? And that "cela va sans dire" which had come from Lady Albury in her railing mood --what had that meant? Lady Albury, when she said that, could not have known that the Colonel had changed his purpose.
But, after all, what is a dress, let it be ever so pretty? The Angel of Light would not care for her dress, let her wear what she might. Were he to seek her because of her dress, he would not be the Angel of Light of whom she had dreamed. It was not by any dress that she could prevail over him. She did rejoice because of her little triumph -- but she knew that she rejoiced because she was not an Angel of Light herself. Her only chance lay in this, that the angels of yore did come down from heaven to ask for love and worship from the daughters of men.
As she went to bed, she determined that she would still be true to her dream. Not because folk admired a new frock would she be ready to give herself to a man who was only a man -- a man of the earth really; who had about him no more than a few of the real attributes of an Angel of Light.