very entertaining.
They were all rather late for dinner, and Lady Grantham was waiting for them in the drawing-room. Frank and his father were down before Edith, and Lady Grantham was making remarks on their personal appearance.
"You look very, hot and red," she was saying to her son, "and I really wish you would brush your hair better. I don't know what young men are coming to, they seem to think that everything is to be kept waiting for them."
Frank's attitude was one of serene indifference.
"Go on, go on," he said; "I don't mind."
Edith was five minutes later. Lady Grantham remarked on the importance of being in time for dinner, and hoped they wouldn't all die from going to bed too soon afterwards. Frank apologised for his mother.
"Don't mind her, Miss Staines," he said, "they're only her foreign manners. She doesn't know how to behave. It's all right. I'm going to take you in, mother. Are we going to have grouse?"
That evening Miss Grantham and Edith "talked Dodo," as the latter called it, till the small hours.
She produced Dodo's letter, and read extracts.
"Of course, we sha'n't be married till after next November," wrote Dodo. "Jack wouldn't hear of it, and it would seem very unfeeling. Don't you think so? It will be odd going back to Winston again. Mind you come and stay with us at Easter."
"I wonder if Dodo ever thinks with regret of anything or anybody," said Edith. "Imagine writing like that—asking me if I shouldn't think it unfeeling."
"Oh, but she says she would think it unfeeling," said Miss Grantham. "That's so sweet and remembering of her."
"But don't you see," said Edith, "she evidently thinks it is so good of her to have feelings about it at all. She might as well call attention to the fact that she always puts her shoes and stockings on to go to church."
"There's a lot of women who would marry again before a year was out if it wasn't for convention," said Miss Grantham.
"That's probably the case with Dodo," remarked Edith. "Dodo doesn't care one pin for the memory of that man. She knows it, and she knows I know it. Why does she say that sort of thing to me? He was a good man, too, and I'm not sure that he wasn't great. Chesterford detested me, but I recognised him."
"Oh, I don't think he was great," said Miss Grantham. "Didn't he always strike you as a little stupid?"
"I prefer stupid people," declared Edith roundly. "They are so restful. They're like nice; sweet, white bread; they quench your hunger as well as pâté de foie gras, and they are much better for you."
"I think they make you just a little thirsty," remarked Miss Grantham. "I should have said they were more like cracknels. Besides, do you think that it's an advantage to associate with people who are good for you? It produces a sort of rabies in me. I want to bite them."
"You like making yourself out worse than you are, Grantie," said Edith.
"I think you like making Dodo out worse than she is," returned Nora. "I always used to think you were very fond of her."
"I am fond of her," said Edith; "that's why I'm dissatisfied with her."
"What a curious way of showing your affection," said Miss Grantham. "I love Dodo, and if I was a man I should like to many her."
"Dodo is too dramatic," said Edith. "She never gets off the stage; and sometimes she plays to the gallery, and then the stalls say, 'How cheap she's making herself.' She has the elements of a low comedian about her."
"And the airs of a tragedy queen, I suppose," added Miss Grantham.
"Exactly," said Edith; "and the consequence is that she as a burlesque sometimes: She is her own parody."
"Darling Dodo," said Grantie with feeling. "I do want to see her again."
"All her conduct after his death," continued Edith, "that was the tragedy queen; she shut herself up in that great house, quite alone, for two months, and went to church with a large prayer-book every morning, at eight. But it was burlesque all the same. Dodo isn't sorry like that. The gallery yelled with applause."
"I thought it was so sweet of her," murmured Grantie. "I suppose I'm gallery too."
"Then she went abroad," continued Edith, "and sat down and wept by the waters of Aix. But she soon took down her harp. She gave banjo parties on the lake, and sang coster songs."
"Mrs. Vane told me she recovered her spirits wonderfully at Aix," remarked Miss Grantham.
"And played baccarat, and recovered other people's money," pursued Edith. "If she'd taken the first train for Aix after the funeral, I should have respected her."
"Oh, that would have been horrid," said Miss Grantham; "besides, it wouldn't have been the season."
"That's true," said Edith. "Dodo probably remembered that."
"Oh, you sha'n't abuse Dodo any more," said Miss Grantham. "I think it's perfectly horrid of you. Go and play me something."
Perhaps the thought of Chesterford was in Edith's mind as she sat down to the piano, for she played a piece of Mozart's "Requiem," which is the saddest music in the world.
Miss Grantham shivered a little. The long wailing notes, struck some chord, within her, which disturbed her peace of mind.
"What a dismal thing," she said, when Edith had finished. "You make me feel like Sunday evening after a country church."
Edith stood looking out of the window. The moon was up, and the great stars were wheeling in their courses through the infinite vault. A nightingale was singing loud in the trees, and the little mysterious noises of night stole about among the bushes. As Edith thought of Chesterford she remembered how the Greeks mistook the passionate song of the bird for the lament of the dead, and it did not seem strange to her. For love, sometimes goes hand-in-hand with death.
She turned back into the room again.
"God forgive her," she said, "if we cannot."
"I'm not going to bed with that requiem in my ears," said Miss Grantham. "I should dream of hearses."
Edith went to the piano, and broke into a quick, rippling movement.
Miss Grantham listened, and felt she ought to know what it was.
"What is it?" she said, when Edith had finished.
"It is the scherzo from the 'Dodo Symphony,'" she said. "I composed it two years ago at Winston."
Chapter Sixteen
Dodo had written to Edith from Zermatt, where she was enjoying herself amazingly. Mrs. Vane was there, and Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Spencer, and Prince Waldenech and Jack. As there would have been some natural confusion in the hotel if Dodo had called herself Lady Chesterford, when
