as to ask me, and it would have been rather difficult to refuse," faltered Zella, with the old childish feeling of guilt strong upon her, under Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's mild implacability.
"Of course, dear, and it would have been very dull for you here with Muriel gone, and all the excitement over, and only the tiring job of tidying up left."
"Oh, Aunt Marianne! Now you are making me feel horrid. Do let me stay and help you," said Zella, wondering what on earth she should do if Aunt Marianne accepted the offer.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans as a martyr was determined.
"Oh no, dear, of course it is quite out of the question for you to throw over Lady St. Craye, since you have accepted her invitation. Very kind of her to ask you, when you had only just been introduced; but she is an odd, impulsive woman."
"Of course, she is an old friend of papa's," said Zella, annoyed.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans raised her eyebrows slightly.
"Let me see," she mused: "it must be quite fifteen years since they met. I was reminding Lady St. Craye of it not so very long ago, oddly enough. I dare say that brought it to her mind, and helped her to recognize poor papa, who has changed a good deal since those days. I am glad you are going to spend a day or two with her, Zella; though I can't say that I think you will like the girl, Alison, as she calls herself," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with the inference in her tone that Alison was to blame for so calling herself.
'What is she like?" asked Zella mechanically, attaching no value whatever to her aunt's judgment, and perfectly capable of forming one of her own, but adapting herself, as ever, to what was evidently expected of her.
"My dear, she is odd," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans decidedly. "Her mother has always spoilt her, and made a great deal of fuss about her; and the result is that Alison thinks herself quite wonderful, and puts on airs and affectations which have made her thoroughly unpopular. You must have seen for yourself how very bad her manners are."
"I thought her rather good-looking," observed Zella.
"No, darling," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans firmly. "I don't say she mightn't be nice-looking if she were simple and unaffected, and like other girls; but she is not, and it quite spoils any looks she might ever have had."
The logic of this conclusion might not be irrefutable, but Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's tone of conviction was final.
"I am afraid poor Lady St. Craye has been very weak and foolish," she added compassionately; "but she is one of those women who do not feel things at all deeply, so I dare say Alison is not as much of a disappointment as she would have been to a different mother. Lady St. Craye is very shallow and frivolous, though good-natured, in her way."
Zella had been rather disposed to gather the same impression from her brief interview with Lady St. Craye, but she instinctively began to believe herself mistaken at these evidences that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's penetration had taken the same direction.
"Is Lady St. Craye at all clever?"
"No, dear, not in the least. She may talk a good deal about music and pictures in rather an affected way, but that is only a pose. She is one of those women whom I call," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with an air of originality, "a butterfly."
"I'm sure the girl isn't," said Zella, with a recollection i of the most unbutterfly-like ponderousness of Miss St. Craye's manner.
"Alison is by way of being clever; and she certainly had a great deal of money spent on her education, but I do not fancy there is much in it. A showy smattering of languages and being able to play the 'cello a little is not real cleverness, dear, as you will find out when you are older. But she pretends, rather artfully, to be very intellectual. I do not fancy you will have anything in common with her."
Zella considered inwardly that, if the atmosphere was to be intellectual, artful or otherwise, she would, on the contrary, find herself far more at home there than in the society to which Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had introduced her. But she, naturally, did not make this observation aloud.
"Very likely Lady St. Craye asked you to stay there because she likes having another girl in the house, and hopes it may be good for Alison. That girl is not at all popular, and very likely the girls whom she meets in London would not care to go and stay there and be patronized in Alison's aggravating manner. It was really rather artful of her to ask you, who are very young and inexperienced, and naturally do not know anyone in London yet."
This flattering explanation of her invitation was not shared by Zella, who preferred to think that the discerning eye of Miss St. Craye had noted an intellectual affinity between them.
Zella was quite aware that she and the average nice simple, unaffected girls eulogized by Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had nothing in common; and although theoretically Zella might look upon this as a mark of her own superiority, each practical example of it humiliated and made her feel inferior. But she was conscious now of a subtle anticipation that in Alison St. Craye's surroundings she might at least find herself acclaimed and recognized by kindred spirits.
She entered the drawing-room of the St. Crayes' house that afternoon with a firm conviction that here at last would be found the right atmosphere, that one with which she should find herself in perfect harmony, and which she had always sought, and as invariably missed, in all the varying surroundings of her short life.
The first indication of standards other than conventional ones was vouchsafed to her even on the threshold of the drawing-room.
Alison St. Craye, unsuitably dressed in a winter tweed skirt and loose Holland blouse, was vigorously pushing furniture across the parquet flooring, and clearing a space in the middle of the large, beautiful room.
Lady St. Craye, looking helpless and exquisite in an elaborate lace frock, was propelling a little velvet musics-tool rather aimlessly across the floor. At the sight of Zella she abandoned the music-stool with every appearance of relief, and trailed towards her.
"I am so very glad you have come, my dear," she said, kissing her. "How nice to see you, and what a pretty frock!"
Zefla surmised that Lady St. Craye would have found some such heartfelt exclamation to welcome a youthful guest had she been clothed in sackcloth, but she was none the less pleased by the little compliment.
Alison said: "So you have come. Good! Now, I want you to be quite candid. Are you one of those who are content to live as ornamental adjuncts—which you certainly are qualified to be—or can you work, as I work, with heart, head, and hands? If so, I warn you that I shall request your help in moving the sofa instantly, so beware that you reply with due circumspection."
In spite of her species of polysyllabic playfulness, there was a compelling earnestness about Alison St. Craye's speech that caused Zella, who hated exertion, and, moreover, was conscious of having on her prettiest frock, to reply with an eagerness that yet sounded even to her own ears curiously unconvincing:
"Oh, I would far rather help you. I love work."
Alison ejaculated her favourite " Good!" and Lady St. Craye said plaintively:
"But surely Longdon and one of the footmen could move the sofa, darling. I am sure we cannot manage it ourselves."
"We are all three able-bodied women," said Alison . coldly. "You know, I think it degrading, to both parties alike, that one human being should pay another to wait upon him hand and foot."
"You are a Socialist?"
