“I’ve been ’aving a talk with that gal Brandt,” chuckled the Baroness
to her husband, “she’s a regular green-’orn and swallows everything
you tell ’er. I’ve been stuffing ’er up, that she ought to marry a
Prince, with ’er looks and money, and she quite believes it. But she
ain’t bad-looking when she colours up, and I expect she’s rather a warm
customer, and if she takes a fancy to a man, ’e won’t well know ’ow to
get out of it! And if he tries to, she’ll make the fur fly. Ha! ha! ha!”

“Better leave it alone, better leave it alone!” said the stolid German,
who had had more than one battle to fight already, on account of his
wife’s match-making propensities, and considered her quite too clumsy
an artificer to engage in so delicate a game. CHAPTER V.


There was a marked difference observable in the manner of Harriet
Brandt after her conversation with the Baroness. Hitherto she had been
shy and somewhat diffident--the seclusion of her conventual life and
its religious teachings had cast a veil, as it were, between her and
the outer world, and she had not known how to behave, nor how much she
might venture to do, on being first cast upon it. But Madame Gobelli’s
revelations concerning her beauty and her prospects, had torn the veil
aside, and placed a talisman in her hands, against her secret fear. She was beautiful and dangerous--she might become a Princess if she
played her cards well--the knowledge changed the whole face of Nature
for her. She became assured, confident, and anticipatory. She began
to frequent the company of the Baroness, and without neglecting her
first acquaintances, Mrs. Pullen and her baby, spent more time in the
Gobelli’s private sitting-room than in the balcony, or public salon, a
fact for which Margaret did not hesitate to declare herself grateful. “I do not know how it is,” she confided to Elinor Leyton, “I rather
like the girl, and I would not be unkind to her for all the world, but
there is something about her that oppresses me. I seem never to have
quite lost the sensation she gave me the first evening that she came
here. Her company enervates me--I get neuralgia whenever we have been a
short time together--and she leaves me in low spirits and more disposed
to cry than laugh!”

“And no wonder,” said her friend, “considering that she has that
detestable school-girl habit of hanging upon one’s arm and dragging one
down almost to the earth! How you have stood it so long, beats me! Such
a delicate woman as you are too. It proves how selfish Miss Brandt must
be, not to have seen that she was distressing you!”

“Well! it will take a large amount of expended force to drag Madame
Gobelli to the ground,” said Margaret, laughing, “so I hope Miss Brandt
will direct that portion of her attention to her, and leave me only the
residue. Poor girl! she seems to have had so few people to love, or to
love her, during her lifetime, that she is glad to practise on anyone
who will reciprocate her affection. Did you see the Baroness kissing
her this morning?”

“I saw the Baroness scrubbing her beard against Miss Brandt’s cheek, if
you call that ‘kissing’?” replied Elinor. “The Baroness never kisses! I
have noticed her salute poor Bobby in the morning exactly in the same
manner. I have a curiosity to know if it hurts.”

“Why don’t you try it?” said Margaret. “No, thank you! I am not so curious as all that! But the Gobellis and
Miss Brandt have evidently struck up a great friendship. She will be
the recipient of the Baroness’s cast-off trinkets and laces next!”

“She is too well off for that, Elinor! Madame Lamont told me she has a
fortune in her own right, of fifteen hundred a year!”

“She will want it all to gild herself with!” said Elinor. Margaret Pullen looked at Miss Leyton thoughtfully. Did she really mean
what she said, or did her jealousy of the West Indian heiress render
her capable of uttering untruths? Surely, she must see that Harriet
Brandt was handsome--growing handsomer indeed, every day, with the pure
sea air tinting her cheeks with a delicate flush like the inside of a
shell--and that her beauty, joined to her money, would render her a
tempting morsel for the men, and a formidable rival for the women. “I do not think you would find many people to agree with your opinion,
Elinor!” she said after a pause, in answer to Miss Leyton’s last remark. “Well! I think she’s altogether odious,” replied her friend with a toss
of her head, “I thought it the first time I saw her, and I shall think
it to the last!”

It was the day that Captain Ralph Pullen was expected to arrive in
Heyst and the two ladies were preparing to go to the station to meet
him. “The Baroness has at all events done you one good turn,” continued Miss
Leyton, “she has delivered you for a few hours from your ‘Old Man of
the Sea.’ What have you been doing with yourself all the morning! I
expected you to meet me on the sands, after I had done bathing!”

“I have not stirred out, Elinor. I am uneasy about baby! She does not
seem at all well. I have been waiting your return to ask you whether I
had not better send for a doctor to see her. But I am not sure if there
is such a thing in Heyst!”

“Sure to be, but don’t send unless it is absolutely necessary. What is
the matter with her?”

The nurse was sitting by the open window with little Ethel on her lap. The infant looked much the same as usual--a little paler perhaps, but
in a sound sleep and apparently enjoying it. “She does not seem ill to me,” continued Elinor, “is she in any pain?”

“Not at all, Miss,” said the nurse, “and begging the mistress’s pardon,
I am sure she is frightening herself without cause. Baby is cutting two
more teeth, and she feels the heat. That’s all!”

“Why are you frightened, Margaret?” asked Miss Leyton. “Because her sleep is unnatural, I am sure of it,” replied Mrs. Pullen,
“she slept all yesterday, and has hardly opened her eyes to-day. It is
more like torpor than sleep. We can hardly rouse her to take her bottle
and you know what a lively, restless little creature she has always
been.”

“But her teeth,” argued Elinor Leyton, “surely her teeth account for
everything! I know my sister, Lady Armisdale, says that nothing varies
so quickly as teething children--that they’re at the point of death one
hour and quite well the next, and she has five, so she ought to know!”

“That’s quite right, Miss,” interposed the nurse, respectfully, “and
you can hardly expect the dear child to be lively when she’s in pain. She has a little fever on her too! If she were awake, she would only be
fretful! I am sure that the best medicine for her is sleep!”

“You hear what Nurse says, Margaret, but if you are nervous, why
not send for a doctor to see her! We can ask Madame Lamont as we go
downstairs who is the best here, and call on him as we go to the
station, or we can telegraph to Bruges for one, if you think it would
be better!”

“O! no! no! I will not be foolish! I will try and believe that you
and Nurse know better than myself.