The Nonesuch

He opened his mouth, shut it again, and turned away to pick up his hat and gloves.

“Well?” persisted Tiffany, pleased with the success of her gambit. “Pray, have you any objection?”

“No, no, not the least in the world!” he said hastily. “How should I? I only—but never mind that!”

That was quite enough to confirm Tiffany in her belief that she had roused a demon of jealousy in his breast. She never knew that his lordship, whom Laurence stigmatized as a bagpipe, snatched the first opportunity that presented itself of admitting his cousin Waldo into a joke which was much too rich to be kept to himself. “I don’t know how I contrived to keep my countenance! Laurie! Driving to an inch! Oh, lord, I shall be sick if I laugh any more!”

But Tiffany, with no suspicion that she had afforded Lindeth food for laughter, was very well satisfied. Her former suitors, who had gloomily but unresentfully watched Lindeth’s star rise, were roused to violent jealousy by Laurence; and she saw no reason to suppose that Lindeth would not be similarly stirred. For several days she was intoxicated by success, believing herself to be irresistible, and queening it over her court with ever-increasing capriciousness. And since, like Mrs Mickleby, she discarded without hesitation the ostensible reason for the Nonesuch’s daily visits, and had never for an instant suspected that he might prefer her companion to her peerless self, she was sure that he too was unable to stay away from her. This seemed so obvious that she did not pause to consider that his behaviour, when he came to Staples, was not in the least that of a man dazzled by her charms. She had always found him incalculable, and if she had thought about it at all she would have supposed that he was content merely to look at her.

Courtenay, revolted by her self-satisfaction and indignant with his friends for making such fools of themselves, told her that she was no better than a vulgar lightskirt, and prophesied that she was riding for a fall; and when she laughed said that Lord Lindeth was only the first man to become disgusted: there would be others soon enough.

“Pooh!”

“Mighty pot-sure, aren’t you? But it seems to me that we don’t see so much of Lindeth these days!”

“When I want him,” boasted Tiffany, smiling in a way which made him want to slap her, “I shall just lift a finger! Then you’ll see!”

That sent him off in a rage to represent to his mother the absolute necessity of curbing Tiffany’s flirtatious antics. “I tell you, Mama, she’s insufferable!”he declared.

“Now, Courtenay, for goodness’ sake don’t go upsetting her!” begged Mrs Underhill, alarmed. “I own I wouldn’t wish to see Charlotte being so bold as she is, but she always was caper-witted, and it ain’t as though she was carrying on with strange gentlemen that mightn’t keep the line. If I was to interfere, she wouldn’t pay a bit of heed to me—and you know what she is when she’s crossed! There’s enough trouble in the house, with Charlotte being so poorly, without us having to bear one of Tiffany’s tantrums!”

He turned appealingly to Miss Trent, but she shook her head. “I’m afraid the only remedy is for her admirers to grow cool,” she said, smiling. “She is too headstrong, and has been allowed to have her own way for too long to submit to restraint. What would you have me do? Lock her in her room? She would climb out of the window, and very likely break her neck. I think, with you, that her behaviour is unbecoming, but she has done nothing scandalous, you know, and I fancy she won’t—unless she is goaded to it.”

“How Greg, and Jack, and Arthur can make such cakes of themselves—! Lord, it puts me in such a pelter to think they should be such gudgeons that there’s no bearing it!”

“I shouldn’t let it tease you,” she said. “It’s the fashion amongst them to worship Tiffany, and fashions don’t endure for long.”

“Well, I only hope she has a rattling fall!” he said savagely. “And what have you to say to this Calver-fellow? Teaching her to drive indeed! How do we know he ain’t a loose screw?”

“We don’t, of course, but although I should prefer her not to drive out alone with him every day I have very little apprehension of his taking advantage of her childishness.”

“No, indeed!” said Mrs Underhill. “When he asked my permission, and told me I could trust him to take good care of her! He’s a very civil young man, and I’m sure I don’t know why you should have taken him in dislike!”

“Civil young man! A Bartholomew baby! It’s my belief he’s a dashed fortune-hunter!”

“Very possibly,” agreed Miss Trent, quite unmoved. “But since she’s under age we needn’t tease ourselves over that. If you imagine that Tiffany would fling her cap over the windmill for a mere commoner you can’t know her!”

Oddly enough, at that very moment, Sir Waldo, lifting an eyebrow at Laurence, was saying: “Having a touch at the heiress, Laurie?”

“No, I ain’t. If you mean the Wield chit!”

“I do. Just started in the petticoat line, I collect!”