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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 399
wasn't it provoking? Ah, poor Philip! How that little sour
yellow mother-in-law elect did scowl at him when he came with
rather a shamefaced look to pay his duty to his sweetheart on the
day after the ball ! Mrs. Baynes had caused her daughter to dress
with extra smartness, had forbidden the poor child to go out, and
coaxed her, and wheedled her, and dressed her with I know not what
ornaments of her own, with a fond expectation that Lord Headbury,
that the yellow young Spanish attaché, that the sprightly Prussian
secretary, and Walsingham Hely, Charlotte's partners at the ball,
would certainly call; and the only equipage that appeared at
Madame Smolensk's gate was a hack cab, which drove up at evening,
and out of which poor Philip's well-known tattered boots came
striding. Such a fond mother as Mrs. Baynes may well have been
out of humour.
As for Philip, he was unusually shy and modest. He did not
know in what light his friends would regard his escapade of the
previous evening. He had been sitting at home all the morning in
state, and in company with a Polish colonel, who lived in his hotel,
and whom Philip had selected to be his second in case the battle of
the previous night should have any suite. He had left that colonel
in company with a bag of tobacco and an order for unlimited beer,
whilst he himself ran up to catch a glimpse of his beloved. The
Bayneses had not heard of the battle of the previous night. They
were full of the ball, of Lord Estridge's affability, of the Golconda
Ambassador's diamonds, of the appearance of the Royal princes who
honoured the fete, of the most fashionable Paris talk in a word.
Philip was scolded, snubbed, and coldly received by mamma ; but
he was used to that sort of treatment, and greatly relieved by finding
that she was unacquainted with his own disorderly behaviour.
He did not tell Charlotte about the quarrel : a knowledge of it
might alarm the little maiden ; and so for once our friend was
discreet, and held his tongue.
But if he had any influence with the editor of Galignani's
Messenger, why did he not entreat the conductors of that admirable
journal to forego all mention of the fracas at the Embassy ball ?
Two days after the fete, I am sorry to say, there appeared a paragraph
in the paper narrating the circumstances of the fight. And
the guilty Philip found a copy of that paper on the table before
Mrs. Baynes and the General when he came to the Champs Elysées
according to his wont. Behind that paper sat Major-General
Baynes, C.B., looking confused, and beside him his lady frowning
like Rhadamanthus. But no Charlotte was in the room.