CHAPTER VII.

NEIL’S DISCOMFORTURE.

Meanwhile Neil was driving on in no very enviable frame of mind.  Bessie’s startling demonstration had annoyed him more than he liked to confess.  Why had she made such a spectacle of herself? and how oddly she had looked standing there in that old linen gown with her hat hanging down her back—­and such a hat!  He had noticed it in the gardens and thought it quite out of style, and had even detected that the ribbons had been ironed!  But he did not think as much about it, or her gown either, when he was alone with her, as he did now when there was all his world to see and Blanche to criticise, as she did unsparingly.

“I thought you once told me she was very pretty,” she said:  “but I think her a fright in that dowdy dress, and bare-headed, too!  Did it to show her hair, no doubt!  There is probably some of her mother’s nature in her.”

Neil could have sworn, he was so angry with Blanche and with all the world, especially Bessie, who had got him into this mess.  He tried to make himself believe that he had intended to take Bessie and her father for a drive in the park, but he should not do it now.  Probably the linen gown was the only one Bessie had brought with her, and the elegant Neil McPherson, who thought so much of one’s personal appearance and what Mrs. Grundy would say, could not face the crowd with that gown at his side, even if Bessie were in it.  She would never know it, perhaps, but she had lost her chances with Neil, who nevertheless, hated himself for his foolish pride, and when the drive, which he shortened as much as possible, was over, he left Blanche to go home alone, and taking a cab drove straight to Oxford street and bought a lovely navy-blue silk and a pretty chip hat, with a wreath of eglantines around it.  These he ordered sent to Bessie, at No. ——­ Abingdon road, and then, feeling that he was a pretty good fellow after all, he started for home, where to his surprise, he found his cousin Jack.

“Why, Jack!” he exclaimed; “I thought you were in Ireland!  When did you return?”

“This morning; and, as you see, have lost no time in paying my respects to you all,” Jack answered, as he rose from his seat by Blanche and went forward, with his easy, patronizing manner, which always exasperated Neil; it had in it such an air of superiority over him, as if he were a mere boy, to be noticed and made much of.

There was always a show of friendship between these two, but no genuine liking.  Still, they were now very gracious to each other, and talked together until dinner was announced, when Jack offered his arm to Blanche, to whom he devoted himself so assiduously that Neil was jealous at once, even though for Blanche herself he did not care a penny.  And he knew Jack did not either, except as she was surrounded by the golden halo of ten thousand a year.  Neil had not made up his mind whether he wanted that ten thousand with the incumbrance, or not; but he certainly did not want Jack to get it, and his brow grew cloudy, and he became very silent, until Jack startled him by saying: