Jack hardly knew why he was taking to Bessie of little frolicsome Flossie Meredith, the Irish lassie, who was not in the least like Bessie McPherson, except that she was sweet, and loving, and true, and said what she thought, and would have darned a coat or scrubbed the floor, if necessary. He only knew that he liked sitting by Bessie and that if he sat he must talk, and so he kept on and only arose to go when he heard the rattling of tea-cups outside and guessed that Mrs. Buncher might be preparing to bring up luncheon.
About half-past four that afternoon Mrs. Buncher was amazed to see a smart carriage, with handsome horses and servants in livery, drive up before her door and still more amazed to see her lodgers take their seats in it, Bessie and her father, side by side, and Jack Trevellian opposite them, with his back to the driver. It was a glorious June afternoon, and the park was, if possible, gayer and more crowed than on the previous day. The excitement incident upon the passing of the princess had subsided, when the carriage turned in at the Marble Arch and joined the moving throng, which Jack scarcely noticed, so absorbed was he in watching Bessie's face as it sparkled and shone with eager joy and excitement. How beautiful she was in spite of the brown linen and the sleeve puffs which had so annoyed Neil, and while watching her Jack felt his heart thrill with a strange feeling he had never experienced before in all his intercourse with women, and found himself mentally subtracting fifteen from thirty, and feeling rather appalled at the result.
After they had been in the park ten minutes or more and were nearing a curve, he saw a sudden flush in Bessie's face and a gleam of triumph in her blue eyes as she looked ahead of her. Neil was coming from the opposite direction, he was sure, and in a moment the McPherson turn-out appeared, with Neil sitting as Jack sat, his back to the horses and his mother and Blanche opposite. The latter saw Bessie first, and giving her a haughty stare, spoke quickly to Lady Jane, whose stare was even more haughty and supercilious. Neither bowed even to Jack, but Neil lifted his hat with such a look of undisguised astonishment and disapproval on his face that Jack laughed merrily, for he understood perfectly how chagrined Neil was to see him there with Bessie. And Neil was chagrined and out of sorts, and called himself a sneak, and a coward, while to Jack he gave the name fool with an adjective prefixed. He did not even hear what his mother and Blanche were saying of Bessie until he caught the words from the former, "She has rather a pretty face;" then he roused up and rejoined: "Rather a pretty face! I should think she had. It is the loveliest face I ever saw, and I'd rather have it beside me in the park than all the faces in London!"