CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SUPPER-ROOM.
It was rather trying, in this state of things, to receive from thetriumphant baronet, with only a parenthetical 'Dear Lake, I beg yourpardon,' a rough knock on the elbow of the hand that held his glass, andto be then summarily hustled out of his place. It was no mitigation ofthe rudeness, in Lake's estimate, that Sir Harry was so engrossed andelated as to seem hardly conscious of any existence but Miss Brandon'sand his own.
Lake was subject to transient paroxysms of exasperation; but even inthese be knew how to command himself pretty well before witnesses. Hissmile grew a little stranger, and his face a degree whiter, as he setdown his glass, quietly glided a little away, and brushed off with hishandkerchief the aspersion which his coat had suffered.
In a few minutes more Miss Brandon had left the supper-room leaning uponLord Chelford's arm; and Sir Harry remained, with a glass of pinkchampagne, such as young fellows drink with a faith and comfort sowonderful, at balls and _fetes champetres_.
Sir Harry Bracton was already 'chaffing a bit,' as he expressed it, withthe young lady who assisted in dispensing the good things across thesupper-table, and was just calling up her blushes by a pretty parallelbetween her eyes and the sparkling quality of his glass, and telling herher mamma must have been sweetly pretty.
Now, Sir Harry's rudeness to Lake had not been, I am afraid, altogetheraccidental. The baronet was sudden and vehement in his affairs of theheart; but curable on short absences, and easily transferable. He hadbeen vehemently enamoured of the heiress of Brandon a year ago and more;but during an absence Mark Wylder's suit grew up and prospered, and SirHarry Bracton acquiesced; and, to say truth, the matter troubled hismanly breast but little.
He had hardly expected to see her here in this rollicking, rusticgathering. She was, he thought, even more lovely than he remembered her.Beauty sometimes seen again does excel our recollections of it. Wylderhad gone off the scene, as Mr. Carlyle says, into infinite space. Whocould tell exactly the cause of his dismissal, and why the young lady hadasserted her capricious resolve to be free?
There were pleasant theories adaptable to the circumstances; and SirHarry cherished an agreeable opinion of himself; and so, all thingsfavouring; the old flame blazed up wildly, and the young gentleman wasmore in love then, and for some weeks after the ball, than perhaps he hadever been before.
Now some men--and Sir Harry was of them--are churlish and ferocious overtheir loves, as certain brutes are over their victuals. In one of thesetender paroxysms, when in the presence of his Dulcinea, the young baronetwas always hot, short, and saucy with his own sex; and when his jealousywas ever so little touched, positively impertinent.
He perceived what other people did not, that Miss Brandon's eye once onthat evening rested for a moment on Captain Lake with a peculiarexpression of interest. This look was but once and momentary; but theyoung gentleman resented it, and brooded over it, every now and then,when the pale face of the captain crossed his eye; and two or threetimes, when the beautiful young lady's attention seemed unaccountably towander from his agreeable conversation, he thought he detected herhaughty eye moving in the same direction. So he looked that way too; andalthough he could see nothing noticeable in Stanley's demeanour, he couldhave felt it in his heart to box his ears.
Therefore, I don't think he was quite so careful as he might have been tospare Lake that jolt upon the elbow, which coming from a rival in amoment of public triumph was not altogether easy to bear like aChristian.
'Some grapes, please,' said Lake, to the young lady behind the table.
'Oh, _uncle_! Is that you, Lake?--beg pardon; but you _are_ so like mypoor dear uncle, Langton. I wish you'd let me adopt you for an uncle. Hewas such a pretty fellow, with his fat white cheeks and long nose, and helooked half asleep. Do, pray, Uncle Lake; I should like it so,' and thebaronet, who was, I am afraid, what some people would term, perhaps,vulgar, winked over his glass at the blooming confectioner, who turnedaway and tittered over her shoulder at the handsome baronet's charmingbanter.
The girl having turned away to titter, forgot Lake's grapes; so he helpedhimself, and leaning against the table, looked superciliously upon SirHarry, who was not to be deterred by the drowsy gaze of contempt withwhich the captain retorted his angry 'chaff.'
'Poor uncle died of love, or chicken pox, or something, at forty. You'renot ailing, Nunkie, are you? You do look wofully sick though; too bad tolose a second uncle at the same early age. You're near forty, eh, Nunkie?and such a pretty fellow! You'll take care of me in your will, Nunkie,won't you? Come, what will you leave me; not much tin, I'm afraid.'
'No, not much tin,' answered Lake; 'but I'll leave you what you wantmore, my sense and decency, with a request that you will use them for mysake.'
'You're a devilish witty fellow, Lake; take care your wit don't get youinto trouble,' said the baronet, chuckling and growing angrier, for hesaw the Hebe laughing; and not being a ready man, though given to banter,he sometimes descended to menace in his jocularity.
'I was just thinking your dulness might do the same for you,' drawledLake.
'When do you mean to pay Dawlings that bet on the Derby?' demanded SirHarry, his face very red, and only the ghost of his smile grinning there.'I think you'd better; of course it is quite easy.'
The baronet was smiling his best, with a very red face, and thatunpleasant uncertainty in his contracted eyes which accompaniessuppressed rage.
'As easy as that,' said Lake, chucking a little bunch of grapes full intoSir Harry Bracton's handsome face.
Lake recoiled a step; his face blanched as white as the cloth; his leftarm lifted, and his right hand grasping the haft of a table-knife.
There was just a second in which the athletic baronet stood, as it werebreathless and incredulous, and then his Herculean fist whirled in theair with a most unseemly oath: the girl screamed, and a crash of glassand crockery, whisked away by their coats, resounded on the ground.
A chair between Lake and Sir Harry impeded the baronet's stride, and hisuplifted arm was caught by a gentleman in moustache, who held so fastthat there was no chance of shaking it loose.
'D-- it, Bracton; d-- you, what the devil--don't be a--fool' and othersoothing expressions escaped this peacemaker, as he clung fast to theyoung baronet's arm.
'The people--hang it!--you'll have all the people about you.Quiet--quiet--can't you, I say. Settle it quietly. Here I am.'
'Well, let me go; that will do,' said he, glowering furiously at Lake,who confronted him, in the same attitude, a couple of yards away. 'You'llhear,' and he turned away.
'I am at the "Brandon Arms" till to-morrow,' said Lake, with white lips,very quietly, to the gentleman in moustaches, who bowed slightly, andwalked out of the room with Sir Harry.
Lake poured out some sherry in a tumbler, and drank it off. He was alittle bit stunned, I think, in his new situation.
Except for the waiters, and the actors in it, it so happened that thesupper-room was empty during this sudden fracas. Lake stared at thefrightened girl, in his fierce abstraction. Then, with his wild gaze, hefollowed the line of his adversary's retreat, and shook his earsslightly, like a man at whose hair a wasp has buzzed.
'Thank you,' said he to the maid, suddenly recollecting himself, with asort of smile; 'that will do. What confounded nonsense! He'll be quitecool again in five minutes. Never mind.'
And Lake pulled on his white glove, glancing down the file of silentwaiters-some looking frightened, and some reserved--in white ties andwaistcoats, and he glided out of the room--his mind somewhere else--likea somnambulist.
It was not perfectly clear to the gentlemen and ladies in charge of theices, chickens, and champagne, between which of the three swells who hadjust left the room the quarrel was--it had come so suddenly, and was overso quickly, like a clap of thunder. Some had not seen any, and othersonly a bit of it, being busy with plates and ice-tubs; and the few whohad seen it all did not clearly comprehend it--only it was certain that
the row had originated in jealousy about Miss Jones, the prettyapprentice, who was judiciously withdrawn forthwith by Mrs. Page, theproperest of confectioners.
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