"Yes, I see," he answered, offering her his hand after he had greeted her father with his most graceful, courtly manner. "I see you are. I wonder now if you are doing it well. I used to have some experience in such matters when I was roughing it in Australia. I am a beautiful darner; let me try my hand, please;" and taking the coat from her before she had time to recover from her astonishment, he seated himself upon a chair and began industriously to ply the needle, while Bessie looked on amazed.
"You see I am quite a tailor," he said, pushing his thick brown hair back from his white forehead, and flashing upon her one of those rare smiles with which he always obtained the mastery and made friends even of his enemies.
How charming he was, and he never seemed to see the humble room, the faded carpet, the dingy oil-cloth, or the coarse hair-cloth furniture which had offended Neil and made him call the place a hole. Of course, Jack did see them all; he could not help that, but he acted as if he had all his life been accustomed to just such surroundings, and was so familiar and affable that both Bessie and her father were more charmed with him than on the previous day.
"By the way," he said at last, when the coat was mended and approved, "I met Neil at the station; he had been here, I suppose?"
"Yes," Bessie replied, a painful flush suffusing her cheeks as she recalled what her father had said of Neil.
"I am half afraid he has forestalled me, then," Jack continued. "I came to ask you and your father to drive with me in the park this afternoon; that is, if Neil is not ahead of me."
"Oh, Mr. Trevellian," Bessie cried, turning her bright face to him, while the glad tears sprang to her eyes, and she forgot that until yesterday she did not know there was such a person as this elegant man making himself so much at home with them; forgot everything except the pleasure it would be to drive with her father in Hyde Park, and "be one of them," as she expressed it to herself.
"Then Neil has not asked you, and you will go with me?" Jack said, addressing himself to Archie, who replied: "If Bessie likes--yes; and I thank you so much. You are giving my little girl a greater pleasure than you can ever guess."
Meanwhile the color had all faded from Bessie's face, leaving it very pale, as she stood with clasped hands and wide-open eyes, looking first at herself in the glass and then at Jack. She was thinking of her old linen dress and hat, and of her father's clothes. Neil was ashamed of them, her father had said, and she believed him, though it hurt her cruelly to do so. Would not Mr. Trevellian be ashamed of them too, when he came to realize the contrast there was between them and the people of his set who daily frequented the park?