Lady Barbarina Part 19

"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 word about Mrs. Headway in New York. He couldn't pretend and he was obliged to tell her this.

"But I've been away," he added, "and in America I didn't go out. There's nothing to go out for in New York-only insipid boys and girls."

"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 cla.s.ses. 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 embarra.s.sed; 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 that event. In the midst of these reflexions he had an inspiration. He attempted neither to question, to explain nor to apologise; he ventured simply to lay his hand for an instant on her own and to exclaim as gallantly as possible: "I wish _I_ had known!"

"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 pa.s.sion. 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 right in not going to see a woman who could chatter that way about her social wrongs; whether she were respectable or not they had had the true a.s.surance she'd be vulgar. European society might let her in, but European society had its limpness. New York, Waterville said to himself with a glow of civic pride, was quite capable of taking a higher stand in such a matter than London. They went some distance without speaking; at last he said, expressing honestly the thought at that moment uppermost in his mind: "I hate that phrase, 'getting into society.' I don't think one ought to attribute to one's self that sort of ambition. One ought to a.s.sume that one's _in_ the confounded thing-that one _is_ society-and to hold that if one has good manners one has, from the social point of view, achieved the great thing. 'The best company's where I am,' any lady or gentleman should feel. The rest can take care of itself."

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 pa.s.sion. They reached the gate of the garden and stood a moment outside, opposite the low arcade of the Odeon, 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 cus.h.i.+ons, 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_," he remarked with an agreeable smile, holding the door open to Mrs. Headway.

"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 Hotel Meurice, that now he understood Mrs. Headway. As they were about to enter the court of the hotel a closed carriage pa.s.sed 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 coupe. 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_ princ.i.p.al 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 had happened, was neither too prompt to appropriate the visit nor too slow to acknowledge it. She just paused, smiling at Sir Arthur.

"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 circ.u.mspect; 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 pa.s.sed into the hotel, and Waterville presently concluded this exchange. He smiled as he walked away, making it a.n.a.lytically 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 visitor mentioned that Mrs. Headway was about to be abandoned by her friend, who was going to Cannes.

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 s.p.a.ce, 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 plump out with it. He looked at me straight, and I looked straight at him; we remained that way for almost a minute. Then he decided not, on the whole, to risk it and took himself off."

Waterville a.s.sisted at this pa.s.sage with intense interest. "And if he had asked you, what would you have said?"