Page:The Better Sort (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1903).djvu/46

THE BETTER SORT "Dear no, I've but just noticed her—Outreau a moment ago put me on her. But we're both so taken, and he also wants"

"To paint her?" Lady Beldonald uncontrollably murmured.

"Don't be afraid we shall fight for her," I returned with a laugh for this tone. Mrs. Brash was still where I could see her without appearing to stare, and she mightn't have seen I was looking at her, though her protectress, I am afraid, could scarce have failed of this perception. "We must each take our turn, and at any rate she's a wonderful thing, so that, if you'll take her to Paris, Outreau promises her there"

"There?" my companion gasped.

"A career bigger still than among us, as he considers that we haven't half their eye. He guarantees her a succès fou."

She couldn't get over it. "Louisa Brash. In Paris?"

"They do see," I exclaimed, "more than we; and they live extraordinarily, don't you know? in that. But she'll do something here too."

"And what will she do?"

If, frankly, now, I couldn't help giving Mrs. Brash a longer look, so after it I could as little resist sounding my interlocutress. "You'll see. Only give her time."

She said nothing during the moment in which she met my eyes; but then: "Time, it seems to me, is exactly what you and your friend want. If you haven't talked with her"

"We haven't seen her? Oh, we see bang off—with a click like a steel spring. It's our trade; it's our life; and we should be donkeys if we made mistakes. That's the way I saw you yourself, my lady, if I may say so; that's the way, with a long pin straight through your body, I've got you. And just so I've got her." 34