Lady Mary, it turned out, was not fun at all; neither most surely was the young Earl. He talked to Stella, whom, and her diamonds, he approached gravely, feeling that the claims of beauty were as real as those of rank or personal importance, and that the qualification of youth was as worthy of being taken into consideration as that of age, for he was a philosopher about University Extension, and the great advantage it was to the lower classes to share the culture of those above them.
“Oh, I am sure I am not cultured at all,” cried Stella. “I am as ignorant as a goose. I can’t spell any big words, or do any of the things that people do.”
“You must not expect to take me in with professions of ignorance,” said the Earl with a smile. “I know how ladies read, and how much they do nowadays--perhaps in a different way from us, but just as important.”
“Oh, no, no,” cried Stella; “it is quite true, I can’t spell a bit,” and her eyes and her diamonds sparkled, and a certain radiance of red and white, sheen of satin, and shimmer of curls, and fun and audacity, and youth, made a sort of atmosphere round her, by which the grave youth, prematurely burdened by the troubles of his country and the lower classes, felt dazzled and uneasy, as if too warm a sun was shining full upon him.
“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could spell this any more than Miss Stella--here you are--sesquipedalian. Now, Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.”
Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This was a sort of thing which she understood better than University Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables--_quip_--I know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all “great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came and placed her arm within his to console him. The brother and sister lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all those fellows, was not the heroine for him.