  That solemn piece of upholstery the curtain of the ComÉdie FranÇaise had fallen upon the first act of the piece, and our two Americans had taken advantage of the interval to pass out of the huge hot theatre in company with the other occupants of the stalls. But they were among the first to return, and they beguiled the rest of the intermission with looking at the house, which had lately been cleansed of its historic cobwebs and ornamented with frescoes illustrative of the classic drama. In the month of September the audience at the ThÉÂtre FranÇais is comparatively thin, and on this occasion the drama—L’AventuriÈre of Emile Augier—had no pretensions to novelty. Many of the boxes were empty, others were occupied by persons of provincial or nomadic appearance. The boxes are far from the stage, near which our spectators were placed; but even at a distance Rupert Waterville was able to appreciate details. He was fond of appreciating details, and when he went to the theatre he looked about him a good deal, making use of a dainty but remarkably powerful glass. He knew that such a course was wanting in true distinction and that it was indelicate to level at a lady an instrument often only less injurious in effect than a double-barrelled pistol; but he was always very curious, and was sure, in any case, that at that moment, at that antiquated play—so he was pleased to qualify the masterpiece of a “Not a single pretty woman,” he remarked at last to his friend; an observation which Littlemore, sitting in his place and staring with a bored expression at the new-looking curtain, received in perfect silence. He rarely indulged in these optical excursions; he had been a great deal in Paris and had ceased to vibrate more than a few times a day; he believed the French capital could have no more surprises for him, though it had had a good many in former days. Waterville was still in the stage of surprise; he suddenly expressed this emotion. “By Jove, I beg your pardon, I beg her pardon! There is after all a woman who may be called”—he paused a little, inspecting her—“an approach to a beauty!” “How near an approach?” Littlemore responded. “An unusual kind—an indescribable kind.” Littlemore was not heeding his answer, but presently heard himself appealed to. “I say, I wish very much you’d do me a favour.” “I did you a favour in coming here,” said Littlemore. “It’s insufferably hot, and the play’s like a dinner that has been dressed by the kitchen-maid. The actors are all doublures.” “It’s simply to answer me this: is she respectable now?” Waterville demanded, inattentive to his friend’s epigram. Littlemore gave a groan, without turning his head. “You’re always wanting to know if they’re respectable. What on earth can it matter?” “I’ve made such mistakes—I’ve lost all confidence,” said poor Waterville, to whom European civilisation had not ceased to be a novelty and who “Simply for looking at them it doesn’t matter, I suppose,” Waterville ingenuously sighed. “You stare at them all alike,” Littlemore went on, still without moving; “except indeed when I tell you they aren’t decent—then your eyes, my dear man, grow as large as saucers.” “If your judgement’s against this lady I promise never to look at her again. I mean the one in the third box from the passage, in white, with the red flowers,” the younger man said as Littlemore slowly rose and stood beside him. “The fellow with her is leaning forward. It’s he who makes me doubt. Will you have the glass?” Littlemore looked about him without concentration. “No, thank you, I can see without staring. The young man’s a very good young man,” he presently reported. “Very indeed, but he’s several years younger than she. Wait till she turns her head.” She turned it very soon—she apparently had been speaking to the ouvreuse, at the door of the box—and presented her face to the public; a fair harmonious face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, a low brow ornamented with delicate rings of black hair and ears marked by the sparkle of diamonds sufficiently large “Do you know her?” his friend asked as he directed the little instrument. He made no answer; he only looked in silence; then he gave the glass back. “No, she’s not respectable.” And he dropped again into his seat. As Waterville remained standing he added: “Please sit down; I think she saw me.” “Don’t you want her to see you?” pursued the interrogator, promptly complying. Littlemore hesitated. “I don’t want to spoil her game.” By this time the entr’acte was at an end and the curtain going up. It had been Waterville’s idea that they should go to the theatre. Littlemore, who was always for not going anywhere, had recommended that, the evening being lovely, they should simply sit and smoke at the door of the Grand CafÉ in comparatively pensive isolation. Nevertheless Waterville enjoyed the second act even less than he had done the first, which he thought heavy. He began to wonder whether his companion would wish to stay to the end; a useless line of speculation, for now that he had got to the theatre Littlemore’s aversion to change would certainly keep him from moving. Waterville also wondered what he knew about the lady in the box. Once or twice he glanced at his friend, and then was sure the latter wasn’t following the play. He was thinking of something else; he was thinking of that woman. When the curtain fell again he sat in his place, making way for his neighbours, as usual, to edge past him, grinding his knees—his legs were long—with their own protuberances. When the two men were alone in the stalls he spoke. “I think I should like to see her again, after all.” He spoke in fact as if Littlemore gave him a glance of good-natured compassion. “I don’t mean I want to keep letting that off at her. I mean I should rather like to see her as I used to.” “And how did you use to?” asked Waterville with no art now. “On the back piazza at San Pablo.” And as his comrade, in receipt of this information, only stared he went on: “Come out where we can breathe and I’ll tell you more.” They made their way to the low and narrow door, more worthy of a rabbit-hutch than of a great theatre, by which you pass from the stalls of the ComÉdie to the lobby, and as Littlemore went by first his ingenuous friend behind him could see that he glanced up at the box in the occupants of which they were interested. The more interesting of these had her back to the house; she was apparently just leaving the box, after her companion; but as she hadn’t put on her mantle it was evident they weren’t quitting the theatre. Littlemore’s pursuit of fresh air didn’t lead him to the street; he had passed his arm into Waterville’s and when they reached the fine frigid staircase that ascends to the public foyer he began silently to mount it. Littlemore was averse to active pleasures, but his friend reflected that now at least he had launched himself—he was going to look for the lady whom, with a monosyllable, he appeared to have classified. The young man resigned himself for the moment to asking no questions, and the two strolled together into the shining saloon where Houdon’s admirable statue of “It seems comical to see her here! The last time was in New Mexico.” “In New Mexico?” “At San Pablo.” “Oh on the back piazza,” said Waterville, putting things together. He had not been aware of the position of San Pablo, for if on the occasion of his lately being appointed to a subordinate diplomatic post in London he had been paying a good deal of attention to European geography he had rather neglected that of his own country. They hadn’t spoken loud and weren’t standing near her, but suddenly, as if she had heard them, the lady in white turned round. Her eye caught Waterville’s first, and in that glance he saw that if she was aware of something it wasn’t because they had “I’ve been here for some time,” Littlemore said, going forward rather deliberately to shake hands with her. He took it alertly, yet was more serious than she, keeping his eye on her own as if she had been just a trifle dangerous. Such was the manner in which a duly discreet person would have approached some glossy graceful animal which had an occasional trick of biting. “No; here and there—in Europe generally.” “Well, it’s queer I haven’t met you.” “Better late than never!” said Littlemore. His smile was a little fixed. “Well, you look very natural,” the lady went on. “So do you—or very charming—it’s the same thing,” he answered, laughing and evidently wishing to be easy. It was as if, face to face and after a considerable lapse of time, he had found her more imposing than he expected when, in the stalls below, he determined to come and meet her. As he spoke the young man who was with her gave up his inspection of Voltaire and faced about listlessly, without looking at his companion’s acquaintances. “I want to introduce you to my friend,” she went on. “Sir Arthur Demesne—Mr. Littlemore. Mr. Littlemore—Sir Arthur Demesne. Sir Arthur Demesne’s an Englishman—Mr. Littlemore’s a countryman of mine, an old friend. I haven’t seen him for years. For how long? Don’t let’s count—I wonder you knew me,” she continued, addressing this recovered property. “I’m fearfully changed.” All this was said in a clear gay tone which was the more audible as she spoke with an odd sociable slowness. The two men, to do honour to her introduction, silently exchanged a glance; the Englishman perhaps coloured a little. He was very conscious of his companion. “I haven’t introduced you to many people yet,” she dropped. “Oh I don’t mind,” said Sir Arthur Demesne. “Well, it’s queer to see you!” she pursued, with her charming eyes still on Littlemore. “You’ve changed, too—I can see that.” “Not where you’re concerned.” “That’s what I want to find out. Why don’t you introduce your friend? I see he’s dying to know me!” And then when he had proceeded with this ceremony, Littlemore showed her a face intended to express more than what he had hitherto permitted himself; if its meaning had been put into words these would have been: “Ah, but by which name?” She answered the unspoken question, putting out her hand as she had done to Littlemore. “Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Waterville. I’m Mrs. Headway—perhaps you’ve heard of me. If you’ve ever been in America you must have heard of me. Not so much in New York, but in the Western cities. You are an American? Well then we’re all compatriots—except Sir Arthur Demesne. Let me introduce you to Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur Demesne, Mr. Waterville—Mr. Waterville, Sir Arthur Demesne. Sir Arthur Demesne’s a member of Parliament: don’t he look young?” She waited for no judgement on this appeal, but suddenly made another as she moved her bracelets back over long loose gloves. “Well, Mr. Littlemore, what are you thinking of?” He was thinking that he must indeed have forgotten her name, for the one she had pronounced awakened no association. But he could hardly tell her that. “I’m thinking of San Pablo.” “The back piazza at my sister’s? Oh don’t; it was too horrid. She has left now. I believe every one has left.” The member of Parliament drew out his watch with the air of a man who could take no part in these domestic reminiscences; he appeared to combine a generic self-possession with a degree of individual shyness. He said something about its being time they should go back to their seats, but Mrs. Headway paid no attention to the remark. Waterville wished “I’m devoted to the ComÉdie FranÇaise”—Waterville rose as well. “Dreadfully bad house; we didn’t hear a word,” said Sir Arthur Demesne. “Ah, yes, the sad far boxes!” murmured Waterville. “I’m rather disappointed,” Mrs. Headway went on. “But I want to see what becomes of that woman.” “DoÑa Clorinde? Oh I suppose they’ll shoot her. They generally shoot the women in French plays,” Littlemore said. “It will remind me of San Pablo!” cried Mrs. Headway. “Ah, at San Pablo the women did the shooting.” “They don’t seem to have killed you!” she returned archly. “No, but I’m riddled with wounds.” “Well, this is very remarkable”—the lady reverted to Houdon’s statue. “It’s beautifully modelled.” “You’re perhaps reading M. de Voltaire,” Littlemore suggested. “No; but I’ve purchased his works.” “They’re not proper reading for ladies,” said the young Englishman severely, offering his arm to his charge. “Ah, you might have told me before I had bought them!” she exclaimed in exaggerated dismay. “A hundred and fifty? I’ve only bought two.” “Perhaps two won’t hurt you!” Littlemore hopefully contributed. She darted him a reproachful ray. “I know what you mean—that I’m too bad already! Well, bad as I am you must come and see me.” And she threw him the name of her hotel as she walked away with her Englishman. Waterville looked after the latter with a certain interest; he had heard of him in London and had seen his portrait in Vanity Fair. It was not yet time to go down, in spite of this gentleman’s saying so, and Littlemore and his friend passed out to the balcony of the foyer. “Headway—Headway? Where the deuce did she get that name?” Littlemore asked as they looked down into the flaring dusk. “From her husband I suppose,” his friend suggested. “From her husband? From which? The last was named Beck.” “How many has she had?” the younger man inquired, anxious to hear how it was Mrs. Headway wasn’t respectable. “I haven’t the least idea. But it wouldn’t be difficult to find out, as I believe they’re all living. She was Mrs. Beck—Nancy Beck—when I knew her.” “Nancy Beck!” cried Waterville, aghast. He was thinking of her delicate profile, like that of a pretty Roman empress. There was a great deal to be explained. Littlemore explained it in a few words before they returned to their places, admitting indeed that he wasn’t yet able to clear up her present appearance. She was a memory of his Western days; he had seen her last some six years before. He had known her very At San Pablo she was staying with her sister, whose actual spouse—she too had been divorced—the principal man of the place, kept a bank (with the aid of a six-shooter), and who had never suffered Nancy to want for a home during her unattached periods. Nancy had begun very young; she must be about thirty-seven to-day. That was all he meant by her not being respectable. Her chronology was rather mixed; her sister at least had once told him that there was one winter when she didn’t know herself who was Nancy’s husband. She had gone in “Some of those barbaric women are wonderful,” Littlemore said. “Like her, they only want a chance.” He hadn’t been in love with her—there never was anything of that sort between them. There might have been of course, but as happened there wasn’t. Headway would have been then the successor of Beck; perhaps there had been others between. She was in no sort of “society”; she only had a local reputation (“the well-known Texan belle,” the newspapers called her—the other editors, to whom she wasn’t married), though indeed in that spacious “She didn’t strike me as affected,” Waterville demurred, feeling a vague impulse to view her in becoming lights. They were in their places before the play went on again, and they both gave another glance at Mrs. Headway’s box. She now was leaning back behind the slow movements of her fan and evidently watching Littlemore as if she had waited to see him come in. Sir Arthur Demesne sat beside her, rather gloomily resting a round pink chin upon a high stiff collar; neither of them seemed to speak. “Are you sure she makes him happy?” Waterville asked. “Yes—that’s the way those people show it.” “But does she go about alone with him at that rate? Where’s her husband?” “I suppose she has divorced him.” “And does she want to marry the Baronet?” Waterville went on as if his companion was omniscient. It amused Littlemore for the moment to appear so. “He wants to marry her, I guess.” “And be divorced like the others?” “Oh no; this time she has got what she wants,” said Littlemore as the curtain rose. He suffered three days to elapse before he called at the HÔtel Meurice, which she had designated, and we may occupy this interval in adding a few words to the story we have taken from his lips. George Littlemore’s residence in the Far West had been of the usual tentative sort—he had gone there to replenish a pocket depleted by youthful extravagance. His first attempts had failed; the days had pretty well passed when a fortune was to be picked up even by a young man who might be supposed to have inherited from an honourable father, lately removed, some of those fine abilities, mainly dedicated to the importation of tea, to which the elder Mr. Littlemore was It was before he saw himself successful that he
His delay in going to see her was nevertheless calculated; there were more reasons for it than we need at once go into. When he did go, however, Mrs. Headway was at home and he was scarce surprised to find Sir Arthur Demesne in her sitting-room. There was something in the air that spoke of the already ample stretch of this gentleman’s visit. Littlemore thought probable that, given the circumstances, he would now bring it to a close; he must have learned from their hostess that this welcomed compatriot was an old and familiar friend. He might of course have definite rights—he had every appearance of it, but the more they were rooted the more gracefully he could afford to waive them. Littlemore made these reflexions while the friend in possession faced him without sign of departure. Mrs. Headway was very gracious—she had ever the manner of having known you a hundred years; she scolded Littlemore extravagantly for not having been to see her sooner, but this was only a form of the gracious. By daylight she looked a little faded, but there was a spirit in her that rivalled the day. She had the best rooms in the hotel and an air of extreme opulence and prosperity; her courier sat outside, in the antechamber, and she evidently knew how to live. She attempted to include Sir Arthur in the conversation, but though the young man remained in his place he failed to But after a time Mrs. Headway spoke to the point. “My dear Sir Arthur, I wish very much you’d go.” The member of Parliament got up and took his hat. “I thought I should oblige you by staying.” “To defend me against Mr. Littlemore? I’ve known him since I was a baby—I know the worst he can do.” She fixed her charming smile on her retreating visitor and added with much unexpectedness: “I want to talk to him about my past!” “That’s just what I want to hear,” said Sir Arthur, with his hand on the door. “We’re going to talk American; you wouldn’t understand us! He speaks in the English style,” she explained in her little sufficient way as the Baronet, who announced that at all events he would come back in the evening, let himself out. “He doesn’t know about your past?” Littlemore inquired, trying not to make the question sound impertinent. “Oh yes; I’ve told him everything; but he doesn’t understand. One has to hold an Englishman by the head, you know, and kind of force it down. He has never heard of a woman being—” But here Mrs. Headway checked herself, while Littlemore filled out the blank. “What are you laughing at? It doesn’t matter,” she went on; “there are more things in the world than those people have heard of. However, I like them very much; at least I like him. He’s such a regular gentleman; do you know what I “Do you mean I’m not a regular gentleman?” Littlemore asked. “No indeed; you used to be out there. I think you were the only one—and I hope you are still. That’s why I recognised you the other night—I might have cut you, you know.” “You can still, if you like. It’s not too late.” “Oh no, that’s not what I want. I want you to help me.” “To help you?” Mrs. Headway fixed her eyes for a moment on the door. “Do you suppose that man is there still?” “The member of Parliament?” “No, I mean Max. Max is my courier,” said Mrs. Headway with some impressiveness. “I haven’t the least idea. I’ll see if you like.” “No—in that case I should have to give him an order, and I don’t know what in the world to ask him to do. He sits there for hours; with my simple habits I afford him no employment. I’m afraid I’ve no grand imagination.” “The burden of grandeur!” said Littlemore. “Oh yes, I’m very grand for clothes and things. But on the whole I like it. I’m only afraid he’ll hear. I talk so very loud. That’s another thing I’m trying to get over.” “Why do you want to be different?” “Well, because everything else is so,” Mrs. Headway bravely pleaded. “Did you hear that I had lost my husband?” she went on abruptly. “Do you mean—a—Mr.—?” and Littlemore paused with an effect that didn’t seem to come home to her. “I mean Mr. Headway,” she said with dignity. “You had been through a good deal of marriage before that,” her old friend ventured to observe. She rested her eyes on him with extravagant intensity and without a change of colour. “Not so much, not so much!—” “Not so much as might have been thought?” “Not so much as was reported. I forget whether I was married when I saw you last.” “It was one of the reports,” said Littlemore. “But I never saw Mr. Beck.” “You didn’t lose much; he was too mean to live. I’ve done certain things in my life that I’ve never understood; no wonder others can’t do much with them. But that’s all over! Are you sure Max doesn’t hear?” she asked quickly. “Not at all sure. But if you suspect him of listening at the keyhole I’d send him away.” “I don’t think he does that. I’m always rushing to the door.” “Then he doesn’t hear. I had no idea you had so many secrets. When I parted with you Mr. Headway was in the future.” “Well, now he’s in the past. He was a pleasant man—I can understand my doing that. But he only lived a year. He had neuralgia of the heart; he left me very well off.” She mentioned these various facts as if they were quite of the same order. “I’m glad to hear that. You used to have expensive tastes.” “I’ve plenty of money,” said Mrs. Headway. “Mr. Headway had property at Denver, which has increased immensely in value. After his death I tried New York. But I don’t take much stock in New York.” Littlemore’s hostess spoke these last words in a tone that reeked of some strong experience. “I Littlemore was much struck with all this; he was greatly enlivened by Mrs. Headway. “Then you’re travelling with that young man?” he pursued, with the coolness of a person who wishes to make his entertainment go as far as possible. She folded her arms as she leaned back in her chair. “Look here, Mr. Littlemore; I’m about as sweet-tempered as I used to be in America, but I know a great deal more. Of course I ain’t travelling with that young man. He’s only a good friend.” “He isn’t a good lover?” Littlemore ventured. “Do people travel—publicly—with their lovers? I don’t want you to laugh at me—I want you to help me.” Her appeal might, in its almost childish frankness, have penetrated; she recognised his wisdom. “As I tell you, I’ve taken a great fancy to this grand old Europe; I feel as if I should never go back. But I want to see something of the life. I think it would suit me—if I could get started a little. George Littlemore,” she added in a moment—“I may as well be real, for I ain’t at all ashamed. I want to get into society. That’s what I’m after!” He settled himself in his chair with the feeling of a man who, knowing that he will have to pull, seeks to obtain a certain leverage. It was in a tone of light jocosity, almost of encouragement, however, that he repeated: “Into society? It seems to me you’re in it already, with the big people over here for your adorers.” “That’s just what I want to know—if they are big,” she promptly said. “Is a Baronet much?” “So they’re apt to think. But I know very little about it.” “I? Never in the world! Where did you get that idea? I care no more about society than about Max’s buttons.” Mrs. Headway’s countenance assumed for a moment a look of extreme disappointment, and Littlemore could see that, having heard of his silver-mine and his cattle-ranch, and knowing that he was living in Europe, she had hoped to find him eminent in the world of fashion. But she speedily took heart. “I don’t believe a word of it. You know you’re a real gentleman—you can’t help yourself.” “I may be a gentleman, but I’ve none of the habits of one.” Littlemore had a pause and then added: “I guess I’ve sat too much on back piazzas.” She flushed quickly; she instantly understood—understood even more than he had meant to say. But she wished to make use of him, and it was of more importance that she should appear forgiving—especially as she had the happy consciousness of being so—than that she should punish a cruel speech. She would be wise, however, to recognise everything. “That makes no difference—a gentleman’s always a gentleman.” “Ah, not the way a lady’s always a lady!” he laughed. “Well, talking of ladies, it’s unnatural that, through your sister, you shouldn’t know something about European society,” said Mrs. Headway. At the mention of his sister, made with a studied lightness of reference which he caught as it passed, Littlemore was unable to repress a start. “What in the world have you to do with my sister?” he would have liked to say. The introduction of this relative was disagreeable to him; she belonged quite to another order of ideas, and it was out of the question Mrs. Headway should ever make her “Well, I mean English society; I mean the society your sister lives in; that’s what I mean,” said his hostess, who was quite prepared to be definite. “I mean the people I saw in London last May—the people I saw at the opera and in the park, the people who go to the Queen’s drawing-rooms. When I was in London I stayed at that hotel on the corner of Piccadilly—the one looking straight down Saint James’s Street—and I spent hours together at the window there looking at the people in the carriages. I had a carriage of my own, and when I wasn’t at my window I was riding all around. I was all alone; I saw every one, but I knew no one—I had no one to tell me. I didn’t know Sir Arthur then—I only met him a month ago at Homburg. He followed me to Paris—that’s how he came to be my guest.” Serenely, prosaically, without a breath of the inflation of vanity, she made this last assertion: it was as if she were used to being followed or as if a gentleman one met at Homburg would inevitably follow. In the same tone she went on: “I attracted a good deal of attention in London—I could easily see that.” “You’ll do that wherever you go,” Littlemore said—insufficiently enough, as he felt. “I don’t want to attract so much; I think it’s vulgar.” She spoke as if she liked to use the word. She was evidently open to new sources of pleasure. “Every one was looking at you the other night at the theatre,” Littlemore continued. “How can you hope to escape notice?” “I don’t want to escape notice. People have always looked at me and I guess they always will. But there are different ways of being looked at, and I He sat there face to face with her and for some time said nothing. He had a mixture of feelings, and the memory of other places, other hours, was stealing over him. There had been of old a very considerable absence of interposing surfaces between these two—he had known her as one knew people only amid the civilisation of big tornadoes and back piazzas. He had liked her extremely in a place where it would have been ridiculous to be difficult to please. But his sense of this fact was somehow connected with other and such now alien facts; his liking for Nancy Beck was an emotion of which the sole setting was a back piazza. She presented herself here on a new basis—she appeared to want to be classified afresh. Littlemore said to himself that this was too much trouble; he had taken her at the great time in that way—he couldn’t begin at this late hour to take her in another way. He asked himself if she were going to be a real bore. It wasn’t easy to suppose her bent on ravage, but she might become tiresome if she were too disposed to be different. It made him rather afraid when she began to talk about European society, about his sister, to pronounce things vulgar. Littlemore was naturally merciful and decently just; but there was in his composition an element of the indolent, the sceptical, perhaps even the brutal, which made him decidedly prefer the simplicity of their former terms of intercourse. He had no particular need to see a woman rise again, as the mystic process was called; he didn’t believe in women’s rising again. He believed in their not going down, thought it perfectly possible and eminently desirable; but held it was much better for society that the divisions, the categories, the differing “Oh if there’s anything you want you’ll have it,” he said in answer to her last remark. “You’ve always had what you want.” “Well, I want something new this time. Does your sister reside in London?” “My dear lady, what do you know about my sister?” Littlemore asked. “She’s not a woman you’d care in the least for.” His old friend had a marked pause. “You don’t really respect me!” she then abruptly and rather gaily cried. It had one of her “Texan” effects of drollery; so that, yes, evidently, if he wished to preserve the simplicity of their former intercourse she was willing to humour him. “Ah, my dear Mrs. Beck—!” he vaguely protested, using her former name quite by accident. At San Pablo he—and apparently she—had never thought whether he respected her or not. That never came up. “That’s a proof of it—calling me by that hateful name! Don’t you believe I’m married? I haven’t been fortunate in my names,” she pensively added. “You make it very awkward when you say such mad things. My sister lives most of the year in the country; she’s very simple, rather dull, perhaps “You ought to be ashamed to run down your sister!” Mrs. Headway made prompt answer. “You told me once—at San Pablo—that she was the nicest woman you knew. I made a note of that, you see. And you told me she was just my age. So that makes it rather inglorious for you if you won’t introduce me!” With which she gave a laugh that perhaps a little heralded danger. “I’m not in the least afraid of her being dull. It’s all right, it’s just refined and nice, to be dull. I’m ever so much too exciting.” “You are indeed, ever so much! But nothing is more easy than to know my sister,” said Littlemore, who knew perfectly that what he said was untrue. And then as a diversion from this delicate topic he brought out: “Are you going to marry Sir Arthur?” “Don’t you think I’ve been married about enough?” “Possibly; but this is a new line, it would be different. An Englishman—that’s a new sensation.” “If I should marry it would be a European,” she said judiciously. “Your chance is very good—they’re all marrying Americans.” “He would have to be some one fine, the man I should marry now. I have a good deal to make up, you know. That’s what I want to learn about Sir Arthur. All this time you haven’t told me.” “I’ve nothing in the world to tell—I’ve never heard of him. Hasn’t he told you himself?” “Nothing at all; he’s very modest. He doesn’t brag nor ‘blow’ nor make himself out anything great. That’s what I like him for: I think it’s in such good taste. I do love good taste!” said Mrs. “How can I help you? I’m no one here, you know—I’ve no power.” “You can help me by not preventing me. I want you to promise not to prevent me.” She continued to give him her charming conscious eyes, which seemed to look far into his own. “Good Lord, how could I prevent you?” “Well, I’m not quite sure of how. But you might try.” “Oh I’m too lazy and too stupid,” Littlemore said. “Yes,” she replied, musing as she still looked at him. “I think you’re too stupid. But I think you’re also too kind,” she added more graciously. She was almost irresistible when she said such a thing as that. They talked for a quarter of an hour longer, and at last—as if she had had scruples—she spoke to him of his own marriage, of the death of his wife, matters to which she alluded more felicitously (as he thought) than to some other points. “If you’ve a little girl you ought to be very happy; that’s what I should like to have. Lord, I should make her a nice woman! Not like me—in another style!” When he rose to leave her she made a great point of his coming again—she was to be some weeks longer in Paris. And he must bring Mr. Waterville. “Your English friend won’t like that—our coming very often,” Littlemore reminded her as he stood with his hand on the door. But she met this without difficulty. “I don’t know what he has to do with it.” “Neither do I. Only he must be in love with you.” “That doesn’t give him any right. Mercy, if I had “Of course you’d have had a terrible life. Even doing as you please you’ve had rather an agitated one,” Littlemore pursued. “But your young Englishman’s sentiments appear to give him the right to sit there, after one comes in, looking blighted and bored. That might become very tiresome.” “The moment he becomes tiresome I send him away. You can trust me for that.” “Oh it doesn’t matter after all.” Our friend was perfectly conscious that nothing would suit him less than to have undisturbed possession of Mrs. Headway. She came out with him into the antechamber. Mr. Max, the courier, was fortunately not there. She lingered a little; she appeared to have more to say. “On the contrary he likes you to come,” she then continued; “he wants to study my friends.” “To study them?” “He wants to find out about me, and he thinks they may tell him something. Some day he’ll ask you right out ‘What sort of a woman is she anyway?’” “Hasn’t he found out yet?” “He doesn’t understand me,” said Mrs. Headway, surveying the front of her dress. “He has never seen any one like me.” “I should imagine not!” “So he’ll just try to find out from you.” “Well then he shall find out,” Littlemore returned. “I’ll just tell him you’re the most charming woman in Europe.” “That ain’t a description! Besides, he knows it. He wants to know if I’m respectable.” “Why should he fuss about it?” Littlemore asked—not at once. “Respectable? I’ll tell him you’re adorable!” She stood a moment longer. “Ah, you’re no use!” she rather harshly wailed. And she suddenly turned away and passed back into her sitting-room, with the heavy rustle of her far-trailing skirts.
“Elle ne doute de rien!” Littlemore said to himself as he walked away from the hotel; and he repeated the phrase in talking about her to Waterville. “She wants to be right,” he added; “but she’ll never really succeed. She has begun too late, she’ll never get on the true middle of the note. However, she won’t know when she’s wrong, so it doesn’t signify!” And he more or less explained what he meant by this discrimination. She’d remain in certain essentials incurable. She had no delicacy; no discretion; no shading; she was a woman who suddenly said to you, “You don’t really respect me!” As if that were a thing for a woman to say! “It depends upon what she meant by it.” Waterville could always imagine alternatives. “The more she meant by it the less she ought to say it!” Littlemore declared. But he returned to the HÔtel Meurice and on the next occasion took this companion with him. The secretary of legation, who had not often been in close quarters with pretty women whose respectability, or whose lack of it, was so frankly discussable, was prepared to find the well-known Texan belle a portentous type. He was afraid there might be danger in her, but on the whole he felt armed. The object of his devotion at present was his country, or at least the Department of State; he had no intention of One of her surprises was, that after that first visit she said no more to Littlemore about Mrs. Dolphin. He did her perhaps the grossest injustice, but he had quite expected her to bring up this lady whenever they met. “If she’ll only leave Agnes alone she may do what she will,” he said to Waterville, expressing his satisfaction. “My sister would never look at her, and it would be very awkward to have to tell her so.” She counted on aid; she made him feel this simply by the way she looked at him; but for the moment she demanded no definite service. She held her tongue but waited, and her patience itself was a deeper She succeeded perfectly in maintaining harmony between Sir Arthur Demesne and her American visitors, who spent much less time in her drawing-room. She had easily persuaded him that there were no grounds for jealousy and that they had no wish, as she said, to crowd him out; for it was ridiculous to be jealous of two persons at once, and Rupert Waterville, after he had learned the way to her favour and her fireside, presented himself as often as his original introducer. The two indeed usually came together and they ended by relieving their competitor of a part of the weight of his problem. This amiable and earnest but slightly fatuous young man, who had not yet made up his mind, was sometimes rather oppressed with the magnitude of the undertaking, and when alone with Mrs. Headway occasionally found the tension of his thoughts quite painful. He was very slim and straight and looked taller than his height; He had never seen anything like Mrs. Headway; he hardly knew by what standard to measure her. She was not at all the English lady—not one of those with whom he had been accustomed to converse; yet it was impossible not to make out in her a temper and a tone. He might have been sure she was provincial, but as he was much under her charm he compromised by pronouncing her only foreign. It was of course provincial to be foreign; but this was after all a peculiarity which she shared with a great many nice people. He wasn’t wild, and his mother had flattered herself that in this all-important matter he wouldn’t be perverse; yet it was far from regular that he should have taken a fancy to an American widow, five years older than himself, who knew no one and who sometimes didn’t appear to understand exactly who he was. Though he believed in no alternative to the dignity of the British consciousness, it was precisely her foreignness that pleased him; she seemed as little as possible of his own race and creed; there wasn’t a touch of Warwickshire in her composition. She was
Rupert Waterville, in the midst of intercourse in which every one perhaps had a good many mental reserves, never forgot that he was in a representative position, that he was official and responsible; and he asked himself more than once how far he was sure it was right, as they said in Boston, to countenance Mrs. Headway’s claim to the character even of the American lady thrown to the surface by the late inordinate spread of excavation. In his own way as puzzled as poor Sir Arthur, he indeed flattered himself he was as particular as any Englishman could be. Suppose that after all this free association the well-known Texan belle should come over to London and ask at the Legation to be presented to the Queen? It would be so awkward to refuse her—of course they would have to refuse her—that he was very careful to make no tacit promises. She might construe anything as a tacit promise—he knew how the smallest gestures of diplomatists were studied and interpreted. It was his effort, therefore, to be really diplomatic in his relations with this attractive but dangerous woman. The party of four used often to dine together—Sir Arthur pushed his confidence so far—and on these occasions their fair friend, availing herself of one of the privileges of a femme du monde even at the most expensive restaurant, used to wipe her glasses with her napkin. One evening when after polishing a “She has been very delicate with you,” Waterville returned to this. “She hasn’t been at all pressing of late.” “It’s only because she has given me up. She thinks I’m a brute.” “I wonder what she thinks of me,” Waterville pensively said. “Oh, she counts upon you to introduce her to the American Minister at the Court of Saint James’s,” Littlemore opined without mercy. “It’s lucky for you our representative here’s absent.” “Well, the Minister has settled two or three difficult questions and I suppose can settle this one. I shall do nothing but by the orders of my chief.” He was very fond of alluding to his chief. “Oh, but what have you told them?” “That she lives at the HÔtel Meurice and wants to know nice people.” “They’re flattered, I suppose, at your thinking them nice, but they don’t go,” said Waterville. “I spoke of her to Mrs. Bagshaw, and Mrs. Bagshaw has promised to go.” “Ah,” Waterville murmured; “you don’t call Mrs. Bagshaw nice! Mrs. Headway won’t take up with Mrs. Bagshaw.” “Well, then, that’s exactly what she wants—to be able to cut some one!” Waterville had a theory that Sir Arthur was keeping Mrs. Headway as a surprise—he meant perhaps to produce her during the next London season. He presently, however, learned as much about the matter as he could have desired to know. He had once offered to accompany his beautiful compatriot to the Museum of the Luxembourg and tell her a little about the modern French school. She had not examined this collection, in spite of her resolve to see everything remarkable—she carried her “Murray” in her lap even when she went to see the great tailor in the Rue de la Paix, to whom, as she said, she had given no end of points—for she usually went to such places with Sir Arthur, who was indifferent to the modern painters of France. “He says there are much better men in England. I must wait for the Royal Academy next year. He seems to think one can wait for anything, but I’m not so good at waiting as he. I can’t afford to wait—I’ve waited long enough.” So much as this Mrs. Headway said on the occasion of her arranging with Rupert Waterville that they should some day visit the Luxembourg together. She “I wonder if she knows how that sounds?” Waterville again throbbingly brooded. “I don’t believe she would do it if she knew how it sounds.” And he also drew the moral that when one was a well-known Texan belle there was no end to the things one had to learn: so marked was the difference between being well-known and being well-bred. Clever as she was, Mrs. Headway was right in saying she couldn’t afford to wait. She must learn, she must live quickly. She wrote to Waterville one day to propose that they should go to the Museum on the morrow; Sir Arthur’s mother was in Paris, on her way to Cannes, where she was to spend the winter. She was only passing through, but she would be there three days, and he would naturally give himself up to her. She appeared to have the properest ideas as to what a gentleman would propose to do for his mother. She herself, therefore, should be free, and she named the hour at which she should expect him to call for her. He was punctual to the appointment, and they drove across the river in a large high-hung barouche in which she constantly rolled about Paris. With Mr. Max on the box—the courier sported enormous whiskers—this vehicle had an appearance of great respectability, though Sir Arthur assured her (what she repeated to her other friends) that in London next year they would do the thing much better for her. It struck her other friends, of course, that this backer was prepared to go very far; which on the whole was what Waterville would have expected of him. Littlemore simply remarked that at San Pablo she drove herself about in a ramshackle buggy with muddy wheels and a mule very often in the shafts. Waterville throbbed afresh as he asked himself if the mother of a Tory M.P. would really consent to know her. She “She’s staying at the HÔtel du Rhin, and I’ve made him feel that he mustn’t leave her while she’s here,” Mrs. Headway said as they drove up the narrow Rue de Seine. “Her name’s Lady Demesne, but her full title’s the Honourable Lady Demesne, as she’s a Baron’s daughter. Her father used to be a banker, but he did something or other for the Government—the Tories, you know they call them—and so he was raised to the peerage. So you see one can be raised! She has a lady with her as a companion.” Waterville’s neighbour gave him this information with a seriousness that made him smile; he tried to measure the degree to which it wouldn’t have occurred to her that he didn’t know how a Baron’s daughter was addressed. In that she was truly provincial; she had a way of exaggerating the value of her intellectual acquisitions and of assuming that others had shared her darkness. He noted, too, that she had ended by suppressing poor Sir Arthur’s name altogether and designating him only by a sort of conjugal pronoun. She had been so much and so easily married that she was full of these misleading references to gentlemen.
They walked through the gallery of the Luxembourg, and, except that Mrs. Headway directed her beautiful gold face-À-main to everything at once and to nothing long enough, talked, as usual, rather too loud and bestowed too much attention on the bad copies and strange copyists that formed a circle round several indifferent pictures, she was an agreeable companion and a grateful recipient of “tips.” She was quick to understand, and Waterville was sure that before she left the gallery she had made herself mistress of a new subject and was quite prepared to compare the French school critically with the London exhibitions of the following year. As he had remarked more than once with Littlemore, she did alternate in the rummest stripes. Her conversation, her personality, were full of little joints and seams, all of them very visible, where the old and the new had been pieced and white-threaded together. When they had passed through the different rooms of the palace Mrs. Headway proposed that instead of returning directly they should take a stroll in the adjoining gardens, which she wished very much to see and was sure she should like. She had quite seized the difference between the old Paris and the new, and felt the force of the romantic associations of the Latin quarter as perfectly as if she had enjoyed all the benefits of modern culture. The autumn sun was warm in the alleys and terraces “Everything in France is a picture—even things that are ugly,” Waterville replied. “Everything makes a subject.” “Well, I like France!” she summed up with a small incongruous sigh. Then suddenly, from an impulse more conceivably allied to such a sound, she added: “He asked me to go and see her, but I told him I wouldn’t. She may come and see me if she likes.” This was so abrupt that Waterville was slightly confounded; then he saw she had returned by a short cut to Sir Arthur Demesne and his “Perhaps she won’t,” said Waterville perversely. “I don’t think it’s that.” “I know it ain’t. I know what it is. It’s just regular European refinement. He doesn’t want to show off; he’s too much of a gentleman. He doesn’t want to dazzle me—he wants me to like him for himself. Well, I do like him,” she added in a moment. “But I shall like him still better if he brings his mother. They shall know that in America.” “Do you think it will make an impression in America?” Waterville amusedly asked. “It will show I’m visited by the British aristocracy. They won’t love that.” “Surely they grudge you no innocent pleasure,” the young man laughed. “They grudged me common politeness—when I was in New York! Did you ever hear how they treated me when I came on from my own section?” Waterville stared; this episode was quite new to him. His companion had turned toward him; her pretty head was tossed back like a flower in the wind; there was a flush in her cheek, a more questionable charm in her eye. “Ah, my dear New Yorkers, they’re incapable of rudeness!” he cried. “You’re one of them, I see. But I don’t speak of the men. The men were well enough—though they did allow it.” “Allow what, Mrs. Headway?” He was quite thrillingly in the dark. She wouldn’t answer at once; her eyes, glittering a little, were fixed on memories still too vivid. “What did you hear about me over there? Don’t pretend you heard nothing.” He had heard nothing at all; there had not been a “There are plenty of spicy old women, who settled I was a bad bold thing. They found out I was in the ‘gay’ line. They discovered I was known to the authorities. I am very well known all out West—I’m known from Chicago to San Francisco; if not personally, at least by reputation. I’m known to all classes. People can tell you out there. In New York they decided I wasn’t good enough. Not good enough for New York! What do you say to that?”—it rang out for derision. Whether she had struggled with her pride before making her avowal her confidant of this occasion never knew. The strange want of dignity, as he felt, in her grievance seemed to indicate that she had no pride, and yet there was a sore spot, really a deep wound, in her heart which, touched again, renewed its ache. “I took a house for the winter—one of the handsomest houses in the place—but I sat there all alone. They thought me ‘gay,’ me gay there on Fifty-Eighth Street without so much as a cat!” Waterville was embarrassed; diplomatist as he was he hardly knew what line to take. He couldn’t see the need or the propriety of her overflow; though the incident appeared to have been most curious and he was glad to know the facts on the best authority. It was the first he did know of this remarkable woman’s having spent a winter in his native city—which was virtually a proof of her having come and gone in complete obscurity. It was vain for him to pretend he had been a good deal away, for he had been appointed to his post in London only six months before, and Mrs. Headway’s social failure ante-dated “I had plenty of men—but men don’t count. If they’re not a positive help they’re a hindrance, so that the more you have the worse it looks. The women simply turned their backs.” “They were afraid of you—they were jealous,” the young man produced. “It’s very good of you to try and patch it up; all I know is that not one of them crossed my threshold. No, you needn’t try and tone it down; I know perfectly how the case stands. In New York, if you please, I didn’t go.” “So much the worse for New York!” cried Waterville, who, as he afterwards said to Littlemore, had got quite worked up. “And now you know why I want to get into society over here?” She jumped up and stood before him; with a dry hard smile she looked down at him. Her smile itself was an answer to her question; it expressed a sharp vindictive passion. There was an abruptness in her movements which left her companion quite behind; but as he still sat there returning her glance he felt he at last in the light of that smile, the flash of that almost fierce demand, understood Mrs. Headway. She turned away to walk to the gate of the garden, and he went with her, laughing vaguely and uneasily at her tragic tone. Of course she expected him to serve, all obligingly, all effectively, her rancour; but his female relations, his mother and his sisters, his innumerable cousins, had been a party to the slight she had suffered, and he reflected as he walked along that after all they had been right. They had been For a moment she appeared not to understand, then she broke out: “Well, I suppose I haven’t good manners; at any rate I’m not satisfied! Of course I don’t talk right—I know that very well. But let me get where I want to first—then I’ll look after the details. If I once get there I shall be perfect!” she cried with a tremor of passion. They reached the gate of the garden and stood a moment outside, opposite the low arcade of the OdÉon, lined with bookstalls, at which Waterville cast a slightly wistful glance, waiting for Mrs. Headway’s carriage, which had drawn up at a short distance. The whiskered Max had seated himself within and, on the tense elastic cushions, had fallen into a doze. The carriage got into motion without his waking; he came to his senses only as it stopped again. He started up staring and then without confusion proceeded to descend. “I’ve learned it in Italy—they call it the siesta,” “Well, I should think you had and they might!” this lady replied, laughing amicably as she got into the vehicle, where Waterville placed himself beside her. It was not a surprise to him that she spoiled her courier; she naturally would spoil her courier. But civilisation begins at home, he brooded; and the incident threw an ironic light on her desire to get into society. It failed, however, to divert her thoughts from the subject she was discussing with her friend, for as Max ascended the box and the carriage went on its way she threw out another note of defiance. “If once I’m all right over here I guess I can make New York do something! You’ll see the way those women will squirm.” Waterville was sure his mother and sisters wouldn’t squirm; but he felt afresh, as the carriage rolled back to the HÔtel Meurice, that now he understood Mrs. Headway. As they were about to enter the court of the hotel a closed carriage passed before them, and while a few moments later he helped his companion to alight he saw that Sir Arthur Demesne had stepped from the other vehicle. Sir Arthur perceived Mrs. Headway and instantly gave his hand to a lady seated in the coupÉ. This lady emerged with a certain slow impressiveness, and as she stood before the door of the hotel—a woman still young and fair, with a good deal of height, gentle, tranquil, plainly dressed, yet distinctly imposing—it came over our young friend that the Tory member had brought his principal female relative to call on Nancy Beck. Mrs. Headway’s triumph had begun; the dowager Lady Demesne had taken the first step. Waterville wondered whether the ladies in New York, notified by some magnetic wave, were beginning to be convulsed. Mrs. Headway, quickly conscious of what “I should like to introduce my mother—she wants very much to know you.” He approached Mrs. Headway; the lady had taken his arm. She was at once simple and circumspect; she had every resource of the English matron. Mrs. Headway, without advancing a step, put out a hand as if to draw her quickly closer. “I declare you’re too sweet!” Waterville heard her say. He was turning away, as his own business was over; but the young Englishman, who had surrendered his companion, not to say his victim, to the embrace, as it might now almost be called, of their hostess, just checked him with a friendly gesture. “I daresay I shan’t see you again—I’m going away.” “Good-bye then,” said Waterville. “You return to England?” “No—I go to Cannes with my mother.” “You remain at Cannes?” “Till Christmas very likely.” The ladies, escorted by Mr. Max, had passed into the hotel, and Waterville presently concluded this exchange. He smiled as he walked away, making it analytically out that poor Sir Arthur had obtained a concession, in the domestic sphere, only at the price of a concession. The next morning he looked up Littlemore, from whom he had a standing invitation to breakfast, and who, as usual, was smoking a cigar and turning over a dozen newspapers. Littlemore had a large apartment and an accomplished cook; he got up late and wandered about his rooms all the morning, stopping from time to time to look out of his windows, which overhung the Place de la Madeleine. They had not been seated many minutes at breakfast when the But once more he was to feel how little he might ever enlighten this comrade. “He came last night to bid me good-bye,” Littlemore said. Again Waterville wondered. “Very civil of him, then, all of a sudden.” “He didn’t come from civility—he came from curiosity. Having dined here he had a pretext for calling.” “I hope his curiosity was satisfied,” our young man generously dropped. “Well, I suspect not. He sat here some time, but we talked only about what he didn’t want to know.” “And what did he want to know?” “Whether I know anything against Nancy Beck.” Waterville stared. “Did he call her Nancy Beck?” “We never mentioned her; but I saw what he was after and that he quite yearned to lead up to her. I wouldn’t do it.” “Ah, poor man!” Waterville sighed. “I don’t see why you pity him,” said Littlemore. “Mrs. Beck’s admirers were never pitied.” “Well, of course he wants to marry her.” “Let him do it then. I’ve nothing to say to it.” “He believes there’s something about her, somewhere in time or space, that may make a pretty big mouthful.” “Let him leave it alone then.” “How can he if he’s really hit?”—Waterville spoke as from sad experience. “Ah, my dear fellow, he must settle it himself. He has no right at any rate to put me such a question. There was a moment, just as he was going, when he had it on his tongue’s end. He stood there in the doorway, he couldn’t leave me—he was going to Waterville assisted at this passage with intense interest. “And if he had asked you, what would you have said?” “What do you think?” “Well, I suppose you’d have said that his question wasn’t fair.” “That would have been tantamount to admitting the worst.” “Yes,” Waterville brooded again, “you couldn’t do that. On the other hand if he had put it to you on your honour whether she’s a woman to marry it would have been very awkward.” “Awkward enough. Luckily he has no business to put things to me on my honour. Moreover, nothing has passed between us to give him the right to ask me any questions about Mrs. Headway. As she’s a great friend of mine he can’t pretend to expect me to give confidential information.” “You don’t think she’s a woman to marry, all the same,” Waterville returned. “And if a man were to try to corner you on it you might knock him down, but it wouldn’t be an answer.” “It would have to serve,” said Littlemore. “There are cases where a man must lie nobly,” he added. Waterville looked grave. “What cases?” “Well, where a woman’s honour’s at stake.” “I see what you mean. That’s of course if he has been himself concerned with her.” “Himself or another. It doesn’t matter.” “I think it does matter. I don’t like false swearing,” said Waterville. “It’s a delicate question.” They were interrupted by the arrival of the servant “It would be a great responsibility.” “Responsibility or not, it would be very amusing.” “Do you mean, then, to give her a leg up?” “Heaven forbid! But I mean to bet on her.” Waterville gave his companion a serious glance; he thought him strangely superficial. The alternatives looked all formidable, however, and he sighed as he laid down his fork.
The Easter holidays that year were unusually genial; mild watery sunshine assisted the progress of the spring. The high dense hedges, in Warwickshire, were like walls of hawthorn embedded in banks of primrose, and the finest trees in England, springing out of them with a regularity which suggested conservative principles, began more densely and downily to bristle. Rupert Waterville, devoted to his duties and faithful in attendance at the Legation, had had little time to enjoy the rural hospitality that shows the English, as he had promptly learned to say, at their best. Freshly yet not wildly exotic he had repeatedly been invited to grace such scenes, but had had hitherto to practise with reserve the great native art of “staying.” He cultivated method and kept the country-houses in reserve; he would take them up in their order, after he should have got a little more used to London. Without hesitation, however, he had accepted the appeal from Longlands; it had come to him in a simple and familiar note from Lady Demesne, with whom he had no acquaintance. He knew of her return from Cannes, where she had spent the whole winter, for he had seen it related in a Sunday newspaper; yet it was with a certain surprise that he heard from her in these informal terms. “Dear Mr. Waterville, my son tells me you will perhaps be able to come down here on the seventeenth to spend two He had seen Mrs. Headway; she had written him, a fortnight before from an hotel in Cork Street, to say she had arrived in London for the season and should be happy to see him. He had called on her, trembling with the fear that she would break ground about her presentation at Court; but he was agreeably surprised by her overlooking for the hour this topic. She had spent the winter in Rome, travelling directly from that city to England, with just a little stop in Paris to buy a few clothes. She had taken much satisfaction in Rome, where she had made many friends; she assured him she knew half the Roman nobility. “They’re charming people; they’ve only one fault, they stay too long,” she said. And in answer to his always slower process, “I mean when they come to see you,” she explained. “They used to come every evening and then wanted to stay till the next day. They were all princes and counts. I used to give them cigars and cocktails—nobody else did. I knew as many people as I wanted,” she added in a moment, feeling perhaps again in her visitor the intimate intelligence with which six months before he had listened to her account of her discomfiture in New York. “There were lots of English; I knew all the English and I mean to visit them here. The Americans waited to see what the English would do, so as to do the opposite. Thanks to that I was spared some precious specimens. There are, you know, some fearful ones. Besides, in Rome society doesn’t matter if you’ve a feeling for the ruins and the Campagna; I found I had an immense feeling for the Campagna. I was always mooning round in some damp old temple. It reminded me a good deal of the country round San Pablo—if it hadn’t been for the “What do you suppose she’s up to in Rome?” Waterville had asked; his imagination failing him here, as he was not yet in possession of that passage. “I haven’t the least idea. And I don’t care!” Littlemore had added in a moment. Before leaving London he had further mentioned that Mrs. Headway, on his going to take leave of her in Paris, had made another and rather an unexpected attack. “About the society business—she said I must really do something: she couldn’t go on that way. And she appealed to me in the name—I don’t think I quite know how to say it.” “I should be ever so glad if you’d try,” Waterville had earnestly said, constantly reminding himself that Americans in Europe were after all, in a degree, to a man in his position, as the sheep to the shepherd. “Well, in the name of the affection we had formerly entertained for each other.” “The affection?” “So she was good enough to call it. But I deny it all. If one had to have an affection for every woman one used to sit up ‘evenings’ with—!” And Littlemore had paused, not defining the result of such an obligation. Waterville had tried to imagine what it would be; while his friend had embarked for New York without telling him how, in the event, he had resisted Mrs. Headway’s attack. At Christmas Waterville knew of Sir Arthur’s return to England and believed he also knew that the Baronet hadn’t gone down to Rome. He had a theory that Lady Demesne was a very clever woman—clever enough to make her son do what she It was agreeable to him to arrive at an English country-house at the close of the day. He liked the drive from the station in the twilight, the sight of the fields and copses and cottages, vague and lonely in contrast to his definite lighted goal; the sound of the wheels on the long avenue, which turned and wound repeatedly without bringing him to what he reached “We’re waiting for Mrs. Headway.” “Ah, she has arrived?” Waterville had quite forgotten this attraction. “She came at half-past five. At six she went to dress. She has had two hours.” “Let us hope the results will be proportionate,” the young man laughed. “Oh the results—I don’t know!” Lady Demesne murmured without looking at him; and in these simple words he found the confirmation of his theory that she was playing a deep game. He weighed the question of whom he should sit next to at dinner, and hoped, with due deference to Mrs. Headway’s charms, that he might abut on a less explored province. The results of a toilet she had protracted through two hours were presently visible. She appeared on the staircase which descended to the hall and which, for three minutes, as she came down rather slowly, facing the people beneath, placed her in considerable relief. Waterville, as he watched her, felt the great importance of the moment for her: it represented her entrance into English society. Well, she entered English society in good shape, as Nancy Beck would have said; with a brave free smile, suggestive of no flutter, on her lips, and with the trophies of the Rue de la Paix trailing behind her. She made a portentous rumour as she moved. People turned their eyes to her; there was soon a perceptible diminution of talk; though talk hadn’t been particularly audible. She Mrs. Headway was opposite, at a little distance; she had been taken in, as Waterville learned from his neighbour, by a General, a gentleman with a lean aquiline face and a cultivated whisker, and she had on the other side a smart young man of an identity In the drawing-room, after dinner, he went up to her, but she gave him no greeting. She only faced him with an expression he had never seen before—a strange bold expression of displeasure. It made her fearfully common. “Why have you come down here?” she asked. “Have you come to watch me?” Waterville coloured to the roots of his hair. He knew it was terribly little like a diplomatist, but he was unable to control his heat. He was justly shocked, he was angry and in addition he was mystified. “I came because I was asked.” “Who asked you?” “The same person who asked you, I suppose—Lady Demesne.” “She’s an old cat!” And Nancy Beck turned away from him. He turned from her as well. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve such treatment. It was a complete surprise; he had never seen her like that before. She was a very vulgar woman; that was the way people dealt with each other, he supposed, on
If she was strange, at any rate he hadn’t come to the end of her strangeness. The next day was a Sunday and uncommonly fine; he was down before breakfast and took a walk in the park, stopping to gaze at the thin-legged deer on the remoter slopes, who reminded him of small pin-cushions turned upside down, and wandering along the edge of a large sheet of ornamental water which had a temple in imitation of that of Vesta on an island in the middle. He thought at this time no more of Mrs. Headway; he only reflected that these stately objects had for at least a hundred years furnished a background to a great deal of heavy history. Further reflexion would perhaps have suggested to him that she might yet become a feature in the record that so spread itself. Two or three ladies failed to appear at breakfast; the well-known Texan belle was one of them. “She tells me she never leaves her room till noon,” he heard Lady Demesne say to the General, her companion of the previous evening, who had asked about her. “She takes three hours to dress.” “She’s a monstrous clever woman!” the General declared. “To do it in three hours?” “No, I mean the way she keeps her wits about her.” “Yes; I think she’s very clever,” said Lady Demesne on a system in which our young man “You must give me an hour or two before you go, you know; I really think there are some things you’ll care for.” Sir Arthur spoke as if Waterville would be very fastidious; he seemed to wish to do the right thing by him. On the Sunday morning after breakfast he inquired if he should care to go to church; most of the ladies and several of the men were going. “It’s just as you please, you know; but there’s rather a pretty walk across the fields and a curious little church—they say of King Stephen’s time.” Waterville knew what this meant; it was already a treasure. Besides, he liked going to church, above all when he sat in the Squire’s pew, which was sometimes as big as a boudoir and all fadedly upholstered “I really don’t know,” said his host with an abrupt change of tone—as if he inquired into the movements of the housekeeper. “The English are awfully queer!” Waterville consoled himself with secretly exclaiming; to which wisdom, since his arrival among them, he had had recourse whenever he encountered a gap in the consistency of things. The church was even a rarer treasure than Sir Arthur’s description of it, and Waterville felt Mrs. Headway had been a fool not to come. He knew what she was after—she wished to study English life so that she might take possession of it; and to pass in among a hedge of bobbing rustics and sit among the monuments of the old Demesnes would have told her a great deal about English life. If she wished to fortify herself for the struggle she had better come to that old church. When he returned to Longlands—he had walked back across the meadows with the archdeacon’s lady, who was a vigorous pedestrian—it wanted half an hour of luncheon and he was unwilling to go indoors. He remembered he had not yet seen the gardens, and wandered away in search of them. They were on a scale that enabled him to find them without difficulty, and they looked as if they had been kept up unremittingly for a century or two. He hadn’t advanced very far between their blooming borders when he heard a voice that he recognised, and a moment after, at the turn of an alley, came upon Mrs. Headway, who was attended by the master of the scene. She was bareheaded beneath her parasol, which she flung back, stopping short as she beheld her compatriot. “Oh it’s Mr. Waterville come to spy me out as “Hallo, you’ve come home from church?” Sir Arthur said, pulling out his watch. Waterville was struck with his coolness. He admired it; for, after all, he noted, it must have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He felt rather an ass, and wished he had kept hold of Mrs. April, to give him the air of having come for her sake. Mrs. Headway was looking adorably fresh in attire that Waterville, who had his ideas on such matters, felt sure wouldn’t be regarded as the proper thing for a Sunday morning in an English country-house: a nÉgligÉ of white flounces and frills interspersed with yellow ribbons—a garment Madame de Pompadour might have sported to receive Louis XV., but probably wouldn’t have worn for a public airing. The sight of this costume gave the finishing touch to his impression that she knew on the whole what she was about. She would take a line of her own; she wouldn’t be too accommodating. She wouldn’t come down to breakfast; she wouldn’t go to church; she would wear on Sunday mornings little elaborately informal dresses and look dreadfully un-British and un-Protestant. Perhaps after all this was best. She began to talk with a certain volubility. “Isn’t this too lovely? I walked all the way from the house. I’m not much at walking, but the grass in this place is like a parlour. The whole thing’s driving me wild. Sir Arthur, you ought to go and look after the Ambassador; it’s shameful the way I’ve kept you. You don’t trouble about the Ambassador? You said just now you had scarcely spoken to him, and you must make that right up. I never saw such a way of neglecting your guests. Is it the usual style over here? Go and take him out to ride or make him play a game of billiards. Mr. Waterville will Our young man sharply resented her charge. “I had no idea whatever you were here.” “We weren’t hiding,” said Sir Arthur quietly. “Perhaps you’ll see Mrs. Headway back to the house. I think I ought to look after old Davidoff. I believe luncheon’s at two.” He left them, and Waterville wandered through the gardens with Mrs. Headway. She at once sought again to learn if he had come there to “dog” her; but this inquiry wasn’t accompanied, to his surprise, with the acrimony she had displayed the night before. He was determined not to let that pass, however; when people had treated him in that way they shouldn’t be allowed to forget it. “Do you suppose I’m always thinking of you?” he derisively demanded. “You’re out of my mind sometimes. I came this way to look at the gardens, and if you hadn’t spoken to me should have passed on.” Mrs. Headway was perfectly good-natured; she appeared not even to hear his defence. “He has got two other places,” she simply rejoined. “That’s just what I wanted to know.” He wouldn’t nevertheless be turned from his grievance. That mode of reparation to a person whom you had insulted which consisted in forgetting you had done so was doubtless largely in use on back piazzas; but a creature of any spirit required a different form. “What did you mean last night by accusing me of having come down here to watch you? Pardon me if I tell you I think you grossly rude.” The sting of the imputation lay in the fact that there was a certain amount of truth in it; yet for a moment Mrs. Headway, looking very blank, failed to recover it. “She’s a barbarian, after all,” thought “Oh,” she cried suddenly, “I remember—I was angry with you! I didn’t expect to see you. But I didn’t really mind about it at all. Every now and then I get mad like that and work it off on any one that’s handy. But it’s over in three minutes and I never think of it again. I confess I was mad last night; I could have shot the old woman.” “‘The old woman’?” “Sir Arthur’s mother. She has no business here anyway. In this country when the husband dies they’re expected to clear out. She has a house of her own ten miles from here and another in Portman Square; so she ain’t in want of good locations. But she sticks—she sticks to him like a strong plaster. It came over me as I kind of analysed that she didn’t invite me here because she liked me, but because she suspects me. She’s afraid we’ll make a match and she thinks I ain’t good enough for her son. She must think I’m in a great hurry to make him mine. I never went after him, he came after me. I should never have thought of anything if it hadn’t been for him. He began it last summer at Homburg; he wanted to know why I didn’t come to England; he told me I should have great success. He doesn’t know much about it anyway; he hasn’t got much gumption. But he’s a very nice man all the same; it’s very pleasant to see him surrounded by his—” And Mrs. Headway paused a moment, her appreciation ranging: “Surrounded by all his old heirlooms. I like the old place,” she went on; “it’s beautifully mounted; I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve seen. I thought Lady Demesne well-impressed; she left a card on me in London and very soon after wrote to me to ask me here. But I’m very quick; I sometimes see things in a flash. I saw something “To help her?” Waterville echoed. “To tell her about me. To give her information she can make use of against me. You may give her all you like!” Waterville was almost breathless with the attention he had paid this extraordinary burst of confidence, and now he really felt faint. He stopped short; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps and then, stopping too, turned and shone at him in the glow of her egotism. “You’re the most unspeakable woman!” he wailed. She seemed to him indeed a barbarian. She laughed at him—he felt she was laughing at his expression of face—and her laugh rang through the stately gardens. “What sort of a woman’s that?” “You’ve got no delicacy”—he’d keep it up. She coloured quickly, though, strange to say, without further irritation. “No delicacy?” “You ought to keep those things to yourself.” They reached the house by the time she had developed her idea, which gave Waterville a pretext more than sufficient for detaining her in the portico. “Do you mean to say Sir Arthur has told you this?” he inquired almost sternly. “I don’t see why he shouldn’t—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to every one.” “To every one? I say it to you and to George Littlemore—when I get nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I’m afraid of him. I’m not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I’m all alone—I haven’t got any one. I must have some comfort, mustn’t I? Sir Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that was what made me guess his idea.” “I’m much obliged to him,” said Waterville rather bewildered. “So mind you answer for me. Don’t you want me to take your arm to go in?” “You’re a most extraordinary combination!” he gave to all the winds as she stood smiling at him. “Oh come, don’t you fall in love with me!” she cried with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, she passed in before him. That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, he wandered into the library, where he felt certain he should find some superior bindings. There was no one in the room and he spent a happy half-hour among treasures of old reading and triumphs of old morocco. He had a great esteem for good literature, he held that it should have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself face to face with Lady “Dull? Why they’re as bright as the day they were bound.” And he turned on her the glittering panels of his folio. “I’m afraid I haven’t looked at them for a long time,” she murmured, going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear pane the park stretched away, the menace of night already mantling the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as if Nature herself had been bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Her ladyship was no easy person for talk; spontaneity had never come to her, and to express herself might have been for her modesty like some act of undressing in public. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a noble convention. You might have pitied her for the sense of her living tied so tight, with consequent moral cramps, to certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem tired, like a person who had undertaken too much. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know she had appealed to him without the trouble of announcing it. She had been accustomed to expect people would suppose things, to save her questions and explanations. Waterville made some haphazard remark about the beauty of the evening—in point of fact the weather had changed for the worse—to which she “Anything I can tell you—I shall be delighted!” the young man declared. She gave him a pleading look that seemed to say: “Please be very simple—very simple indeed.” Then she glanced about her as if there had been other people in the room; she didn’t wish to appear closeted with him or to have come on purpose. There she was at any rate, and she proceeded. “When my son told me he should ask you to come down I was very glad. I mean of course we were delighted—” And she paused a moment. But she next went on: “I want to ask you about Mrs. Headway.” “Ah, here it is!” cried Waterville within himself. But he could show no wincing. “Ah yes, I see!” “Do you mind my asking you? I hope you don’t mind. I haven’t any one else to ask.” “Your son knows her much better than I do.” He said this without intention of malice, simply to escape from the difficulties of the situation, but after he had spoken was almost frightened by his mocking sound. “I don’t think he knows her. She knows him—which is very different. When I ask him about her he merely tells me she’s fascinating. She is fascinating,” said her ladyship with inimitable dryness. “So I think, myself. I like her very much,” Waterville returned cheerfully. “You’re in all the better position to speak of her then.” “To speak well of her,” the young man smiled. “Of course—if you can. I should be delighted to hear you do that. That’s what I wish—to hear some good of her.” It might have seemed after this that nothing could “Every one seems to like her,” said Lady Demesne with an unstudied effect of pathos. “She’s certainly very amusing.” “She’s very good-natured. I think she has no end of good intentions.” “What do you mean by good intentions?” asked Lady Demesne very sweetly. “Well, it strikes me she wants to be friendly and pleasant.” “Indeed she does! But of course you have to defend her. She’s your countrywoman.” “To defend her I must wait till she’s attacked,” Waterville laughed. “That’s very true. I needn’t call your attention to the fact that I’m not attacking her,” his hostess observed. “I should never attack a person staying in this house. I only want to know something about her, and if you can’t tell me perhaps at least you can mention some one who will.” “She’ll tell you herself. Tell you by the hour!” “What she has told my son? I shouldn’t understand it. My son doesn’t understand it.” She had a full pause, a profusion of patience; then she resumed disappointedly: “It’s very strange. I rather hoped you might explain it.” He turned the case over. “I’m afraid I can’t explain Mrs. Headway,” he concluded. “I see you admit she’s very peculiar.” Even to this, however, he hesitated to commit himself. “It’s too great a responsibility to answer you.” He allowed he was very disobliging; he knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. “You know why I ask you these things then?” “I think I’ve an idea,” said Waterville, persisting in irrelevant laughter. His laugh sounded foolish in his own ears. “If you know that, I think you ought to assist me.” Her tone changed now; there was a quick tremor in it; he could feel the confession of distress. The distress verily was deep; it had pressed her hard before she made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry for her and determined to be very serious. “If I could help you I would. But my position’s very difficult.” “It’s not so difficult as mine!” She was going all lengths; she was really appealing to him. “I don’t imagine you under obligations to Mrs. Headway. You seem to me so different,” she added. He was not insensible to any discrimination that told in his favour; but these words shocked him as if they had been an attempt at bribery. “I’m surprised you don’t like her,” he ventured to bring out. She turned her eyes through the window. “I don’t think you’re really surprised, though possibly you try to be. I don’t like her at any rate, and I can’t fancy why my son should. She’s very pretty and appears very clever; but I don’t trust her. I It was plain enough she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement; her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. “Are you very sure there’s danger?” Waterville asked. “Has he proposed to her and has she jumped at him?” “If I wait till they settle it all it will be too late. I’ve reason to believe that my son’s not engaged, but I fear he’s terribly entangled. At the same time he’s very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a great sense of honour. He’s not satisfied about her past life; he doesn’t know what to think of what we’ve been told. Even what she admits is so strange. She has been married four or five times. She has been divorced again and again. It seems so extraordinary. She tells him that in America it’s different, and I dare say you haven’t our ideas; but really there’s a limit to everything. There must have been great irregularities—I’m afraid great scandals. It’s dreadful to have to accept such things. He hasn’t told me all this, but it’s not necessary he should tell me. I know him well enough to guess.” “Does he know you’re speaking to me?” Waterville asked. “Not in the least. But I must tell you I shall repeat to him anything you may say against her.” “I had better say nothing then. It’s very delicate. Mrs. Headway’s quite undefended. One may like “And you’ve heard nothing?” He remembered Littlemore’s view that there were cases in which a man was bound in honour to tell an untruth, and he wondered if this were such a one. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his relations with that lady to hold him down to lying for her. He hadn’t sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him to come and see her. And yet he couldn’t give her away—that stuck in his throat. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything. And it wouldn’t matter. Your son won’t give her up because I happen not to like her.” “If he were to believe she had done wrong he’d give her up.” “Well, I’ve no right to say so,” said Waterville. Lady Demesne turned away; he indeed disappointed her and he feared she was going to break out: “Why then do you suppose I asked you here?” She quitted her place near the window and prepared apparently to leave the room. But she stopped short. “You know something against her, but you won’t say it.” He hugged his folio and looked awkward. “You attribute things to me. I shall never say anything.” “Of course you’re perfectly free. There’s some one else who knows, I think—another American—a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was there. I’ve forgotten his name.” “A friend of Mrs. Headway’s? I suppose you mean George Littlemore.” “I doubt it, but you can try.” “I wish he had come with you. Do you think he’d come?” “He’s in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back.” She took this in with interest. “I shall go to his sister; I shall ask her to bring him to see me. She’s extremely nice; I think she’ll understand. Unfortunately there’s very little time.” Waterville bethought himself. “Don’t count too much on George Littlemore,” he said gravely. “You men have no pity,” she grimly sighed. “Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as you?” he asked. Lady Demesne cast about. “It hurts me to hear her voice.” “Her voice is very liquid.” He liked his word. “Possibly. But she’s horrible!” This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; Nancy Beck was open to criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she wasn’t horrible. “It’s for your son to pity you. If he doesn’t how can you expect it of others?” “Oh but he does!” And with a majesty that was more striking even than her logic his hostess moved to the door. Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she passed out he said: “There’s one thing you can do—try to like her!” She shot him a woeful glance. “That would be—worst of all!”
George Littlemore arrived in London on the twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where he mentioned that he had taken for the rest of the season a house at Queen Anne’s Gate, so that his sister and her husband, who, under the pressure of diminished rents, had let their own town residence, might come up and spend a couple of months with him. “One of the consequences of your having a house will be that you’ll have to entertain the Texan belle,” our young man said. Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed on his stick; he looked at his friend with an eye that failed to kindle at the mention of this lady’s name. “Has she got into European society?” he rather languidly inquired. “Very much, I should say. She has a house and a carriage and diamonds and everything handsome. She seems already to know a lot of people; they put her name in the Morning Post. She has come up very quickly; she’s almost famous. Every one’s asking about her—you’ll be plied with questions.” Littlemore listened gravely. “How did she get in?” “She met a large party at Longlands and made them all think her great fun. They must have taken her up; she only wanted a start.” “Oh New York’s quite old-fashioned and rococo,” said Waterville; and he announced to Littlemore that Lady Demesne was very eager for his arrival and wanted his aid to prevent her son’s bringing such a person into the family. Littlemore was apparently not alarmed at her ladyship’s projects, and intimated, in the manner of a man who thought them rather impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out of her way. “It isn’t a proper marriage at any rate,” the second secretary urged. “Why not if he loves her?” “Oh if that’s all you want!”—which seemed a degree of cynicism startling to his companion. “Would you marry her yourself?” “Certainly if I were in love with her.” “You took care not to be that.” “Yes, I did—and so Demesne had better have done. However, since he’s bitten—!” But Littlemore let the rest of his sentence too indifferently drop. Waterville presently asked him how he would manage, in view of his sister’s advent, about asking Mrs. Headway to his house; and he replied that he would manage by simply not asking her. On this Waterville pronounced him highly inconsistent; to which Littlemore rejoined that it was very possible. But he asked whether they couldn’t talk about something else than Mrs. Headway. He couldn’t enter into the young man’s interest in her—they were sure to have enough of her later without such impatience. She was at home when Littlemore went to see her and surrounded by several visitors to whom she was giving a late cup of tea and to whom she introduced her tall compatriot. He stayed till they dispersed, in spite of the manoeuvres of a gentleman who evidently desired to outlinger him, but who, whatever might have been his happy fortune on former visits, received on this occasion no encouragement from their hostess. He looked at Littlemore slowly, beginning with his boots and travelling up as if to discover the reason of so unexpected a preference, and then, with no salutation to him, left the pair face to face. “I’m curious to see what you’ll do for me now you’ve got your sister with you,” Mrs. Headway presently remarked, having heard of this circumstance from Rupert Waterville. “I realise you’ll have to do something, you know. I’m sorry for you, but I don’t see how you can get off. You might ask me to dine some day when she’s dining out. I’d come even then, I think, because I want to keep on the right side of you.” “I call that the wrong side,” said Littlemore. “She knows nothing about you.” “Have you told her nothing?” “Never a word.” “Hasn’t she asked you? That shows how she hates me. She thinks I ain’t creditable to America. I know that way of doing it. She wants to show people over here that, however they may be taken in by me, she knows much better. But she’ll have to ask you about me; she can’t go on for ever. Then what’ll you say?” “That you’re the biggest ‘draw’ in Europe.” “Oh shucks!” she cried, out of her repertory. “Haven’t you got into European society?” “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. It’s too soon to see. I can’t tell this season. Every one says I’ve got to wait till next, to see if it’s the same. Sometimes they take you right up for a few weeks and then just drop you anywhere. You’ve got to make it a square thing somehow—to drive in a nail.” “You speak as if it were your coffin,” said Littlemore. “Well, it is a kind of coffin. I’m burying my past!” He winced at this—he was tired to death of her past. He changed the subject and turned her on to London, a topic as to which her freshness of view and now unpremeditated art of notation were really interesting, displayed as they were at the expense of most of her new acquaintances and of some of the most venerable features of the great city. He himself “How do people know I know you?” “You haven’t ‘blown’ about it? Is that what you mean? You can be a brute when you try. They do know it at any rate. Possibly I may have told them. They’ll come to you to ask about me. I mean from Lady Demesne. She’s in an awful state. She’s so afraid of it—of the way he wants me.” In himself too, after all, she could still press the spring of careless mirth. “I’m not afraid, if you haven’t yet brought it off.” “Well, he can’t make up his mind. I appeal to him so, yet he can’t quite place me where he’d have to have me.” Her lucidity and her detachment were both grotesque and touching. “He must be a poor creature if he won’t take you as you are. I mean for the sweet sake of what you are,” Littlemore added. “If he asks too many questions he’s not worth marrying,” Littlemore rather cheaply opined. “I beg your pardon—he’s worth marrying whatever he does; he’s worth marrying for me. And I want to marry him—that’s what I want to do.” Her old friend had a pause of some blankness. “Is he waiting for me to settle it?” “He’s waiting for I don’t know what—for some one to come and tell him that I’m the sweetest of the sweet. Then he’ll believe it. Some one who has been out there and knows all about me. Of course you’re the man, you’re created on purpose. Don’t you remember how I told you in Paris he wanted to ask you? He was ashamed and gave it up; he tried to forget me. But now it’s all on again—only meanwhile his mother has been at him. She works night and day, like a weasel in a hole, to persuade him that I’m too much beneath him. He’s very fond of her and very open to influence; I mean from her—not from any one else. Except me of course. Oh I’ve influenced him, I’ve explained everything fifty times over. But some memories, you know, are like those lumpish or pointed things you can’t get into your trunk—they won’t pack anyway; and he keeps coming back to them. He wants every little speck explained. He won’t come to you himself, but his mother will, or she’ll send some of her people. I guess she’ll send the lawyer—the family solicitor they call him. She wanted to send him out to America to make inquiries, only she didn’t know where to send. Of course I couldn’t be expected to give the places—they’ve got to find them out the best way they can. She knows all about you and has made up to your sister; a big proof, as she never Littlemore had, however disguisedly, given her every attention; but the conclusion left him all too consciously staring. “You don’t mean that anything I can say will make a difference?” “Don’t be affected! You know it will as well as I.” “You make him out not only a laggard in love but almost a dastard in war.” “Never mind what I make him out. I guess if I can understand him you can accept him. And I appeal to you solemnly. You can save me or you can lose me. If you lose me you’ll be a coward. And if you say a word against me I’ll be lost.” “Go and dress for dinner—that’s your salvation,” Littlemore returned as he quitted her at the head of the stairs. It was very well for him to take that tone; but he felt as he walked home that he should scarcely know what to say to people who were determined, as she put it, to hold him with glittering eyes. She had worked a certain spell; she had succeeded in making him feel responsible. The sight of her success, however, rather hardened his heart; he might have pitied her if she had “muffed” it, as they said, but he just sensibly resented her heavy scoring. He dined alone that evening while his sister and her husband, who had engagements every day for a month, partook of their repast at the expense of friends. Mrs. Dolphin, however, came home rather early and immediately sought admittance to the small apartment at the foot of the staircase which was already spoken of as her brother’s den. Reggie had gone on to a “squash” somewhere, and she had returned in her eagerness to the third member of their party. She was too impatient even to wait for morning. She looked impatient; she was very unlike George Littlemore. “I want you to tell me about Mrs. Headway,” she at once began, while he started slightly at the coincidence of this remark with his own thoughts. He was just making up his mind at last to speak to her. She unfastened her cloak and tossed it over a chair, then pulled off her long tight black gloves, which were not so fine as those Mrs. Headway wore; all this as if she were preparing “I may as well tell you I’ve a letter from Lady Demesne,” his visitor went on. “It came to me just before I went out, and I have it in my pocket.” She drew forth the missive, which she evidently wished to read him; but he gave her no invitation to proceed. He knew she had come to him to extract a “One surely can’t resist the claims of common humanity!” his sister replied; and she added that he was very inconsistent. He didn’t respect Mrs. Headway, he knew the most dreadful things about her, he didn’t think her fit company for his own flesh and blood. And yet he was willing not to save poor Arthur Demesne. “Perfectly willing!” Littlemore returned. “I’ve nothing to do with saving others. All I’ve got to do is not to marry her myself.” “Don’t you think then we’ve any responsibilities, any duties to society?” “I don’t know what you mean. Society can look after itself. If she can bring it off she’s welcome. It’s a splendid sight in its way.” “How do you mean splendid?” “Why she has run up the tree as if she were a squirrel!” “It’s very true she has an assurance À toute Épreuve. Mrs. Dolphin was neither agitated nor voluble; she moved from point to point with the temper and method of a person accustomed to preside at committees and to direct them. She deeply desired, however, that Mrs. Headway’s triumphant career should be checked; such a person had sufficiently abused “It seems to me she’s quite as good as the poor young man himself,” said Littlemore, lighting another cigar. “As good? What do you mean by ‘good’? No one has ever breathed a word against him.” “Very likely. But he’s a nonentity of the first water, and she at least a positive quantity, not to say a positive force. She’s a person, and a very clever one. Besides, she’s quite as good as the women lots of them have married. It’s new to me that your alliances have been always so august.” “I know nothing about other cases,” Mrs. Dolphin said, “I only know about this one. It so happens that I’ve been brought near it, and that an appeal has been made to me. The English are very romantic—the most romantic people in the world, if that’s what you mean. They do the strangest things from the force of passion—even those of whom you would least expect it. They marry their cooks, they marry their coachmen, and their romances always have the most miserable end. I’m sure this one would be wretched. How can you pretend that such a flaming barbarian can be worked into any civilisation? What I see is a fine old race—one of the oldest and most honourable in England, people with every tradition of good conduct and high principle—and a dreadful disreputable vulgar little woman, who hasn’t an idea of what such things are, trying to force her way into it. I hate to see such things—I want to go to the rescue!” “Well, I don’t,” Littlemore returned at his leisure. “I don’t care a pin for the fine old race.” “Not from interested motives, of course, any more “Mrs. Headway isn’t indecent—you go too far. You must remember that she’s an old friend of mine.” He had become rather stern; Mrs. Dolphin was forgetting the consideration due, from an English point of view, to brothers. She forgot it even a little more. “Oh if you’re in love with her too!” she quite wailed, turning away. He made no answer to this, and the words had no sting for him. But at last, to finish the affair, he asked what in the world the old lady wanted him to do. Did she want him to go out into Piccadilly and announce to the passers-by that there had been one winter when even Mrs. Headway’s sister didn’t know who was her husband? Mrs. Dolphin’s reply was to read out Lady Demesne’s letter, which her brother, as she folded it up again, pronounced one of the most extraordinary communications he had ever listened to. “It’s very sad—it’s a cry of distress,” she declared. “The whole meaning of it is that she wishes you’d come and see her. She doesn’t say it in so many words, but I can read between the lines. Besides, she told me she’d give anything to see you. Let me assure you it’s your duty to go.” “To go and abuse Nancy Beck?” “Go and rave about her if you like!” This was very clever of Mrs. Dolphin, but her brother was not so easily beguiled. He didn’t take that view of his duty, and he declined to cross her ladyship’s threshold. “Then she’ll come and see you,” said his visitor with decision. “If she does I’ll tell her Nancy’s an angel.” “If you can say so conscientiously she’ll be delighted to hear it.” And she gathered up her cloak and gloves. Our young man was all critical attention again. “‘Desperate’?” “The letter of a woman so scared that she’ll do anything. I may be a great brute, but her scare amuses me.” “You’re in the position of Olivier de Jalin in Le Demi-Monde,” Waterville remarked. “In Le Demi-Monde?” Littlemore was not quick at catching literary allusions. “Don’t you remember the play we saw in Paris? Or like Don Fabrice in L’AventuriÈre. A bad woman tries to marry an honourable man, who doesn’t know how bad she is, and they who do know step in and push her back.” “Yes, it comes to me. There was a good deal of lying,” Littlemore recalled, “all round.” “They prevented the marriage, however—which is the great thing.” “The great thing if your heart’s set! One of the active parties was the intimate friend of the man in love, the other was his son. Demesne’s nothing at all to me.” “He’s a very good fellow,” said Waterville. “Then go and talk to him.” “Play the part of Olivier de Jalin? Oh I can’t. I’m not Olivier. But I think I do wish he’d corner me of himself. Mrs. Headway oughtn’t really to be allowed to pass.” “I wish to heaven they’d let me alone,” Littlemore “Do you still hold to that theory you propounded in Paris? Are you willing to commit perjury?” Waterville asked. “Assuredly I can refuse to answer questions—even that one.” “As I told you before, that will amount to a condemnation.” Longmore frowningly debated. “It may amount to what it pleases. I guess I’ll go back to Paris.” “That will be the same as not answering. But it’s quite the best thing you can do. I’ve really been thinking it out,” Waterville continued, “and I don’t hold that from the point of view of social good faith she’s an article we ought to contribute—!” He looked at the matter clearly now from a great elevation; his tone, the expression of his face, betrayed this lofty flight; the effect of which, as he glanced down at his didactic young friend, Littlemore found peculiarly irritating. He shifted about. “No, after all, hanged if they shall drive me away!” he exclaimed abruptly; and he walked off while his companion wondered.
The morning after this the elder man received a note from Mrs. Headway—a short and simple note, consisting merely of the words: “I shall be at home this afternoon; will you come and see me at five? I’ve something particular to say to you.” He sent no answer to the question, but went to the little house in Chesterfield Street at the hour its mistress had proposed. “I don’t believe you know what sort of a woman I am!” she began as soon as he stood before her. “Oh Lord!” Littlemore groaned as he dropped into a chair. Then he added: “Please don’t strike up that air!” “Ah, but it’s exactly what I’ve wanted to say. It’s very important. You don’t know me—you don’t understand me. You think you do—but you don’t.” “It isn’t for the want of your having told me—many many times!” And Littlemore had a hard critical smile, irritated as he was at so austere a prospect. The last word of all was decidedly that Mrs. Headway was a dreadful bore. It was always the last word about such women, who never really deserved to be spared. She glared at him a little on this; her face was no longer the hospitable inn-front with the showy sign of the Smile. The sign had come down; she looked “I don’t want to know. I know enough.” “How do you mean you know enough?” she cried with all her sincerity. “What business have you to know anything?” The poor little woman, in her passionate purpose, was not obliged to be consistent, and the loud laugh with which Littlemore greeted this must have seemed to her unduly harsh. “You shall know what I want you to know, however. You think me a bad woman—you don’t respect me; I told you that in Paris. I’ve done things I don’t understand, myself, to-day; that I admit as fully as you please. But I’ve completely changed, and I want to change everything. You ought to enter into that, you ought to see what I want. I hate everything that has happened to me before this; I loathe it, I despise it. I went on that way trying—trying one thing and another. But now I’ve got what I want. Do you expect me to go down on my knees to you? I believe I will, I’m so anxious. You can help me—no one else can do a thing; they’re only waiting to see if he’ll do it. I told you in Paris you could help me, and it’s just as true now. Say a good word for me for Christ’s sake! You haven’t lifted your little finger, or I should know it by this time. It will just make the difference. Or if your sister would come and see me I should be all right. Women are pitiless, pitiless, and you’re pitiless too. It isn’t that Mrs. Dolphin’s Littlemore had suddenly ceased to be bored, but a variety of feelings had taken the place of that one. It was impossible not to be touched; she really meant what she said. People don’t change their nature, but they change their desires, their ideal, their effort. This incoherent passionate plea was an assurance that she was literally panting to be respectable. But the poor woman, whatever she did, was condemned, as he had said of old, in Paris, to Waterville, to be only half right. The colour rose to her visitor’s face as he listened to her outpouring of anxiety and egotism; she hadn’t managed her early life very well, but there was no need of her going down on her knees. “It’s very painful to me to hear all this. You’re under no obligation to say such things to me. You entirely misconceive my attitude—my influence.” “Oh yes, you shirk it—you only wish to shirk it!” she cried, flinging away fiercely the sofa-cushion on which she had been resting. He had hardly spoken when the door was thrown open and the servant announced Sir Arthur Demesne. This shy adventurer entered with a certain briskness, but stopped short on seeing Mrs. Headway engaged with another guest. Recognising Littlemore, however, he gave a light exclamation which might have passed for a greeting. Mrs. Headway, who had risen as he came in, looked with wonderful eyes from one of the men to the other; then, like a person who had a sudden inspiration, she clasped her hands together and cried out: “I’m so glad you’ve met. If I had arranged it it couldn’t be better!” “If you had arranged it?” said Sir Arthur, crinkling a little his high white forehead, while the conviction rose before Littlemore that she had indeed arranged it. “I’m going to do something very queer”—and her extravagant manner confirmed her words. “You’re excited, I’m afraid you’re ill.” Sir Arthur stood there with his hat and his stick; he was evidently much annoyed. “It’s an excellent opportunity; you must forgive me if I take advantage.” And she flashed a tender touching ray at the Baronet. “I’ve wanted this a long time—perhaps you’ve seen I wanted it. Mr. Littlemore has known me from far back; he’s an old old friend. I told you that in Paris, don’t you remember? Well he’s my only one, and I want him to speak for me.” Her eyes had turned now to Littlemore; they rested upon him with a sweetness that only made the whole proceeding more audacious. She had begun to smile again, though she was visibly trembling. “He’s my only one,” she continued; “it’s a great pity, you ought to have known others. But I’m very much alone and must make the best of The two men remained in the extraordinary position she had created for them; neither of them moved even to open the door for her. She closed it behind her, and for a moment there was a deep portentous silence. Sir Arthur Demesne, very pale, stared hard at the carpet. “I’m placed in an impossible situation,” Littlemore said at last, “and I don’t imagine you accept it any more than I do.” His fellow-visitor kept the same attitude, neither looking up nor answering. Littlemore felt a sudden gush of pity for him. Of course he couldn’t accept the situation, but all the same he was half-sick with anxiety to see how this nondescript American, who was both so precious and so superfluous, so easy and so abysmal, would consider Mrs. Headway’s challenge. “Have you any question to ask me?” Littlemore went on. At which Sir Arthur looked up. The other had seen the look before; he had described it to Waterville after Mrs. Headway’s admirer came to call on him in Paris. There were Sir Arthur’s hesitation would have been of the briefest; but his companion heard the tick of the clock while it lasted. “Certainly I’ve no question to ask,” the young man said in a voice of cool almost insolent surprise. “Good-day then, confound you.” “The same to you!” But Littlemore left him in possession. He expected to find Mrs. Headway at the foot of the staircase; but he quitted the house without interruption. On the morrow, after luncheon, as he was leaving the vain retreat at Queen Anne’s Gate, the postman handed him a letter. Littlemore opened and read it on the steps, an operation which took but a moment.
Littlemore thrust this epistle into his pocket and marched away with it. He had come out on various errands, but he forgot his business for the time and “I’m so glad you’ve come back,” said Mrs. Dolphin without meeting her brother’s eye. “I want so much to introduce you to Lady Demesne that I hoped you’d come in. Must you really go—won’t you stay a little?” she added, turning to her companion; and without waiting for an answer went on hastily: “I must leave you a moment—excuse me. I’ll come back!” Before he knew it Littlemore found himself alone with her ladyship and understood that since he hadn’t been willing to go and see her she had taken upon herself to make an advance. It had the queerest effect, all the same, to see his sister playing the same tricks as Nancy Beck! “Ah, she must be in a fidget!” he said to himself as he stood before Lady Demesne. She looked modest “I’m so fortunate as to catch you. I wish so much to ask you if you can give me any information about a person you know and about whom I have been in correspondence with Mrs. Dolphin. I mean Mrs. Headway.” “Won’t you sit down?” asked Littlemore. “No, thank you. I’ve only a moment.” “May I ask you why you make this inquiry?” “Of course I must give you my reason. I’m afraid my son will marry her.” Littlemore was puzzled—then saw she wasn’t yet aware of the fact imparted to him in Mrs. Headway’s note. “You don’t like her?” he asked, exaggerating, in spite of himself, the interrogative inflexion. “Not at all,” said Lady Demesne, smiling and looking at him. Her smile was gentle, without rancour; he thought it almost beautiful. “What would you like me to say?” he asked. “Whether you think her respectable.” “What good will that do you? How can it possibly affect the event?” “It will do me no good, of course, if your opinion’s favourable. But if you tell me it’s not I shall be able to say to my son that the one person in London who has known her more than six months thinks so and so of her.” “I was sure you would say that.” She seemed to pant a little. “I can say nothing more—not a word. That’s my opinion. I don’t think it will help you.” “I think it will. I wanted to have it from your own lips. That makes all the difference,” said Lady Demesne. “I’m exceedingly obliged to you.” And she offered him her hand; after which he accompanied her in silence to the door. He felt no discomfort, no remorse, at what he had said; he only felt relief—presumably because he believed it would make no difference. It made a difference only in what was at the bottom of all things—his own sense of fitness. He only wished he had driven it home that Mrs. Headway would probably be for her son a capital wife. But that at least would make no difference. He requested his sister, who had wondered greatly at the brevity of his interview with her friend, to spare him all questions on the subject; and Mrs. Dolphin went about for some days in the happy faith that there were to be no dreadful Americans in English society compromising her native land. Her faith, however, was short-lived. Nothing had made any difference; it was perhaps too late. The London world heard in the first days of July, not that Sir Arthur Demesne was to marry Mrs. Headway, but that the pair had been privately and, it was to be hoped as regards Mrs. Headway on this occasion, indissolubly united. His mother gave neither sign nor sound; she only retired to the country. “Yes, and make her more the fashion than ever!” Littlemore answered with cynical laughter. After his little interview with the elder Lady Demesne he didn’t feel at liberty to call again on the younger; and he never learned—he never even wished to know—whether in the pride of her success she forgave him. Waterville—it was very strange—was positively scandalised at this success. He held that Mrs. Headway ought never to have been allowed to marry a confiding gentleman, and he used in speaking to Littlemore the same words as Mrs. Dolphin. He thought Littlemore might have done differently. But he spoke with such vehemence that Littlemore looked at him hard—hard enough to make him blush. “Did you want to marry her yourself?” his friend inquired. “My dear fellow, you’re in love with her! That’s what’s the matter with you.” This, however, blushing still more, Waterville indignantly denied. A little later he heard from New York that people were beginning to ask who in the world Lady Demesne “had been.” |
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