CHAPTER XIV
THE PURPLE EMPRESS
Colonel De Vigne once more wore his most magisterial air when afterbreakfast on the following morning he drew Dinah aside.
She looked at him with swift apprehension, even with a tinge of guilt.His lecture of the previous morning was still fresh in her mind. Could hehave seen her on the ice with Sir Eustace on the previous night, sheasked herself? Surely, surely not!
Apparently he had, however; for his first words were admonitory.
"Look here, young lady, you're making yourself conspicuous with thatthree-volume-novel baronet: You don't want to be conspicuous, I suppose?"
Her face burned crimson at the question. Then he had seen, or at least hemust know, something! She stood before him, too overwhelmed for speech.
"You don't, eh?" he insisted, surveying her confusion with grimrelentlessness.
"Of course not!" she whispered at last.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Very well then! Don't let there be anymore of it! You've been a good girl up till now but the last two daysseem to have turned your head. I shan't be able to give a good report toyour mother when we get home if this sort of thing goes on."
Dinah's heart sank still lower. The thought of the return home had begunto dog her like an evil dream.
With a great effort she met the Colonel's stern gaze. "I am very sorry,"she faltered. "But--but Lady Grace did say I might go and see Mrs.Everard--the invalid sister--yesterday."
"I know she did. She thought you had been flirting with Sir Eustace longenough."
Dinah's sky began to clear a little. "Then you don't mind my going to seeher?" she said.
"So long as you are not there too often," conceded the Colonel. "Theyounger brother is a nice little chap. There is no danger of your gettingup to mischief with him."
Dinah's face burned afresh at the suggestion. He evidently did notactually know; but he suspected very strongly. Still it was a greatrelief to know that all intercourse with these wonderful new friends ofhers was not to be barred.
"There was some talk of a sleigh-drive this afternoon," she ventured,after a moment. "Mr. Studley is taking his sister and she asked me to gotoo. May I?"
"You accepted, I suppose?" demanded the Colonel.
"I said I thought I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly shecaught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Doplease--please--let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't everhave any fun again when this is over."
"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you cango--you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. Andremember--no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it.Is that understood?"
Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about futureprohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she wasbeginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace aswas at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. Infact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that shedid not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To goout sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked oflife that day.
It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, andshe spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ingwith Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very farone, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique ashe descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.
She recalled the brief conversation that the brothers had held in herhearing the night before, and marvelled at the memory of Scott's attitudetowards him.
"He isn't a bit afraid of him," she reflected. "In fact he behavesexactly as if he were the bigger of the two."
This phenomenon puzzled her very considerably, for Scott was whollylacking in the pomposity that characterizes many little men. She wonderedwhat had been the subject of their discussion. It had been connected withIsabel, she felt sure. She was glad to think that she had Scott toprotect her, for there was something of tyranny about the elder brotherfrom which she shrank instinctively, his magnetism notwithstanding, andthe thought of poor, tragic Isabel being coerced by it was intolerable.
The memory of the latter's resolution to make the acquaintance of the deVignes recurred to her as she and Billy returned for luncheon. Would shecarry it out? She wondered. The look that Scott had flung at the oldnurse dwelt in her mind. It would evidently be an extraordinary move ifshe did.
They reached the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from therink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah.Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment Dinahheard her name.
The group parted, and she saw Isabel Everard, very tall and stately in adeep purple coat, standing with Lady Grace de Vigne.
Billy gave her a push. "Go on! They're calling you."
And Dinah found the strange sad eyes upon her, alight with a smile ofwelcome. She went forward impetuously, and in a moment Isabel's coldhands were clasped upon her warm ones.
"I have been waiting for you, dear child," the low voice said. "What haveyou been doing?"
Dinah suddenly felt as if she were standing in the presence of aprincess. Isabel in public bore herself with a haughtiness fully equal tothat displayed by Sir Eustace, and she knew that Lady Grace was impressedby it.
"I would have come back sooner if I had known," she said, closely holdingthe long, slender fingers.
"My dear, you are woefully untidy now you have come," murmured LadyGrace.
But Isabel gently freed one hand to put her arm about the girl. "To meshe is--just right," she said, and in her voice there sounded the musicof a great tenderness. "Youth is never tidy, Lady Grace; but there isnothing in the world like it."
Lady Grace's eyes went to her daughter whose faultless apparel andperfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarumappearance.
"I do not altogether agree with you in that respect, Mrs. Everard," shesaid, with a smile. "I think young girls should always aim at beingpresentable. But I quite admit that it is more difficult for some thanfor others. Dinah, my dear, Mrs. Everard has been kind enough to ask youto lunch in her sitting-room with her, and to go for a sleigh-driveafterward; so you had better run and get respectable as quickly as youcan."
"Oh, how kind you are!" Dinah said, with earnest eyes uplifted. "You knowhow I shall love to come, don't you?"
"I thought you might, dear," Isabel said. "Scott is coming to keep uscompany. He has arranged for a sleigh to be here in an hour. We are goingfor a twelve-mile round, so we must not be late starting. It gets so coldafter sundown."
"I had better go then, hadn't I?" said Dinah.
"I am coming too," Isabel said. Her arm was still about her. It remainedso as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Lady Grace! I will take great care ofthe child. Thank you for allowing her to come."
She bowed with regal graciousness and moved away, taking Dinah with her.
"Exit Purple Empress!" murmured a man in the background close to Rose."Who on earth is she? I haven't seen her anywhere before."
Rose uttered her soft, artificial laugh. "She is Sir Eustace Studley'ssister. Rather peculiar, I believe, even eccentric. But I understand theyare of very good birth."
"That covers a multitude of sins," he commented. "She's been a mightyhandsome woman in her day. She must be many years older than Sir Eustace.She looks more like his mother than his sister."
"I believe she is actually younger," Rose said. "They say she has neverrecovered from the sudden death of her husband some years ago, but I knownothing of the circumstances."
"A very charming woman," said Lady Grace, joining them. "We have hadquite a long chat together. Yes, her manner is a little strange, slightlyabstracted, as if she were waiting for something or someone. But a veryeasy companion on the whole. I think you will like her, Rose dear."
"She's dead nuts on Dinah," observed Billy with a
chuckle. "She don'tlook at anyone else when she's got Dinah."
Lady Grace smiled over his head and took no verbal notice of the remark.
"They are a distinguished-looking family," she said. "Run and wash yourhands, Billy. Are you thinking of ski-ing this afternoon, Rose?"
"You bet!" murmured Billy, under his breath. He too had seen the distantfigure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.
"It depends," said Rose, non-committally.
"Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning," saidher mother. "We must see what they say about it."
Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back. "Heads Sir Eustace andtails Captain Brent," he muttered to the man who had commented uponIsabel's beauty. "Heads it is!"
Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of hiscompanion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?"
Billy's green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment. "You did, Lady Grace.And I'm going. Good-bye!"
He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.
"A very unmannerly little boy!" observed Lady Grace, with severity."Come, my dear Rose! We must go in."
"I don't like either the one or the other," said Rose, with a veryunusual touch of petulance. "They are always in the way."
"I fully agree with you," said Lady Grace acidly. "But it is for thefirst and last time in their lives. I have already told the Colonel so.He will never ask them to accompany us again."
"Thank goodness for that!" said Rose, with restored amiability. "Ofcourse I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit."
"Which is very nearly reached," said Lady Grace.