Lady Barbarina Part 16

"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. "I've been through a good deal since you saw me last: marriage and death and trouble and all sorts of things."

"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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 mean to live in Europe. I guess I can do with Europe,"

she stated; and the manner of it had the touch of prophecy, as the other proposition had had the echo of history.

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."

"Ain't you in society yourself?"

"I? Never in the world! Where did you get that idea? I care no more about society than about Max's b.u.t.tons."

Mrs. Headway's countenance a.s.sumed 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 pa.s.sed, 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 acquaintance-if this was what, as the latter would have said, she was "after." But he took advantage of a side issue. "What do you mean by European society? One can't talk about that. It's an empty phrase."

"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 a.s.sertion: 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.