The Cords of Vanity Part 29

"I will not insist," said I, with a hurried and contented laugh, "that you were formerly an Argive queen. I mean I will not be obstinate about it, because that, I confess, was a paraphrase of my verses. But Helen has always been to me the symbol of perfect loveliness, and so it was not unnatural that I should confuse you with her."

"Thank you, sir," said she, demurely.

"I half believe it is true, even now; and if not--well, Helen was acceptable enough in her day, Elena, but I am willing to Italianise, for I have seen you and loved you, and Helen is forgot. It is not exactly the orthodox pace for falling in love," I added, with a boyish candour, "but it is very real to me."

"You--you couldn't have fallen in love--really--"

"It was not in the least difficult," I protested.

"And you don't even know my _name_--"

"I know, however, what it is going to be," said I; "and Mrs. 'Enry 'Awkins, as we'll put it, has found favour in the judgment of connoisseurs. So after dinner--in an hour--?"

"Oh, very well! since you're an author and insist, I will be ready, in an hour, to decline you, with thanks."

"Rejection not implying any lack of merit," I suggested. "This is d.a.m.nable iteration; but I am accustomed to it."

But by this, Mrs. Provis was gathering eyes around the table, and her guests arose, with the usual outburst of conversation, and swis.h.i.+ng of dresses, and the not always unpremeditated dropping of handkerchiefs and fans. Mrs. Clement Dumby bore down upon us now, a determined and generously proportioned figure in her notorious black silk.

"Really," said she, aggressively, "I never saw two people more engrossed. My dear Mrs. Barry-Smith, you have been so taken up with Mr.

Townsend, all during dinner, that I haven't had a chance to welcome you to Lichfield. Your mother and I were at school together, you know. And your husband was quite a beau of mine. So I don't feel, now, at all as if we were strangers--"

And thus she bore Elena off, and I knew that within ten minutes Elena would have been warned against me, as "not quite a desirable acquaintance, you know, my dear, and it is only my duty to tell you that as a young and attractive married woman--"

2

"And so," I said in my soul, as the men redistributed themselves, "she is married,--married while you were pottering with books and the turn of phrases and immortality and such trifles--oh, you a.s.s! And to a man named Barry-Smith--d.a.m.n him, I wonder whether he is the hungry scut that hasn't had his hair cut this fall, or the blancmange-bellied one with the mashed-strawberry nose? Yes, I know everybody else. And Jimmy Travis is telling a funny story, so _laugh_! People will think you are grieving over Rosalind.... But why in heaven's name isn't Jimmy at home this very moment,--with a wife and carpet-slippers and a large-size bottle of paregoric on his mantelpiece,--instead of here, grinning like a fool over some blatant indecency? He ought to marry; every young man ought to marry. Oh, you futile, abject, burbling twin-brother of the first patron that procured a reputation for Bedlam! why aren't _you_ married--married years ago,--with a home of your own, and a victoria for Mrs. Townsend and bills from the kindergarten every quarter? Oh, you bartender of verbal c.o.c.ktails! I believe your worst enemy flung your mind at you in a moment of unbridled hatred."

So I snapped the stem of my gla.s.s carefully, and scowled with morose disapproval at the unconscious Mr. Travis, and his now-applauded and very Fescennine jest....

3

I found her inspecting a bulky folio with remarkable interest. There was a lamp, with a red shade, that cast a glow over her, such as one sometimes sees reflected from a great fire. The people about us were chattering idiotically, and something inside my throat prevented my breathing properly, and I was miserable.

"Mrs. Barry-Smith,"--thus I began,--"if you've the tiniest sc.r.a.p of pity in your heart for a very presumptuous, blundering and unhappy person, I pray you to forgive and to forget, as people say, all that I have blatted out to you. I spoke, as I thought, to a free woman, who had the right to listen to my boyish talk, even though she might elect to laugh at it. And now I hardly dare to ask forgiveness."

Mrs. Barry-Smith inspected a view of the Matterhorn, with careful deliberation. "Forgiveness?" said she.

"Indeed," said I, "I _don't_ deserve it." And I smiled most resolutely.

"I had always known that somewhere, somehow, you would come into my life again. It has been my dream all these two years; but I dream carelessly.

My visions had not included this--obstacle."

She made wide eyes at me. "What?" said she.

"Your husband," I suggested, delicately.

The eyes flashed. And a view of Monaco, to all appearances, awoke some pleasing recollection. "I confess," said Mrs. Barry-Smith, "that--for the time--I had quite forgotten him. I--I reckon you must think me very horrid?"

But she was at pains to accompany this query with a broadside that rendered such a supposition most unthinkable. And so--

"I think you--" My speech was hushed and breathless, and ended in a click of the teeth. "Oh, don't let's go into the minor details,"

I pleaded.

Then Mrs. Barry-Smith descended to a truism. "It is usually better not to," said she, with the air of an authority. And latterly, addressing the facade of Notre Dame, "You see, Mr. Barry-Smith being so much older than I--"

"I would prefer that. Of course, though, it is none of my business."

"You see, you came and went so suddenly that--of course I never thought to see you again--not that I ever thought about it, I reckon--" Her candour would have been cruel had it not been rea.s.suringly over-emphasized. "And Mr. Barry-Smith was very pressing--"

"He would be," I a.s.sented, after consideration. "It is, indeed, the single point in his outrageous conduct I am willing to condone."

"--and he was a great friend of my father's, and I _liked_ him--"

"So you married him and lived together ever afterward, without ever throwing the tureen at each other. That is the most modern version; but there is usually a footnote concerning the bread-and-b.u.t.ter plates."

She smiled, inscrutably, a sphinx in Dresden china. "And yet," she murmured, plaintively, "I _would_ like to know what you think of me."

"Why, prefacing with the announcement that I pray G.o.d I may never see you after to-night, I think you the most adorable creature He ever made.

What does it matter now? I have lost you. I think--ah, desire o' the world, what can I think of you? The notion of you dazzles me like flame,--and I dare not think of you, for I love you."

"Yes?" she queried, sweetly; "then I reckon Mrs. Dumby was right after all. She said you were a most depraved person and that, as a young and--well, _she_ said it, you know--attractive widow--"

"H'm!" said I; and I sat down. "Elena Barry-Smith," I added, "you are an unmitigated and unconscionable and unpardonable rascal. There is just one punishment which would be adequate to meet your case; and I warn you that I mean to inflict it. Why, how dare you be a widow! The court decides it is unable to put up with any such nonsense, and that you've got to stop it at once."

"Really," said she, tossing her head and moving swiftly, "one would think we _were_ on a desert island!"

"Or a strange roof"--and I laughed, contentedly. "Meanwhile, about that ring--it should be, I think, a heavy, Byzantine ring, with the stones sunk deep in the dull gold. Yes, we'll have six stones in it; say, R, a ruby; O, an opal; B, a beryl; E, an emerald; R, a ruby again, I suppose; and T, a topaz. Elena, that's the very ring I mean to buy as soon as I've had breakfast, tomorrow, as a token of my mortgage on the desire of the world, and as the badge of your impendent slavery." And I reflected that Rosalind had, after all, behaved commendably in humiliating me by so promptly returning this ring.

Very calmly Elena Barry-Smith regarded the Bay of Naples; very calmly she turned to the Taj Mahal. "An obese young Lochinvar," she reflected aloud, "who has seen me twice, unblus.h.i.+ngly a.s.sumes he is about to marry me! Of course," she sighed, quite tolerantly, "I know he is clean out of his head, for otherwise--" "Yes,--otherwise?" I prompted.

"--he would never ask me to wear an opal. Why," she cried in horror, "I couldn't think of it!" "You mean--?" said I.

She closed the alb.u.m, with firmness. "Why, you are just a child," said Mrs. Barry-Smith. "We are utter strangers to each other. Please remember that, for all you know, I may have an unbridled temper, or an imported complexion, or a liking for old man Ibsen. What you ask--only you don't, you simply a.s.sume it,--is preposterous. And besides, opals _are_ unlucky."

"Desire o' the world," I said, in dolorous wise, "I have just remembered the black-lace mitts and reticule you left upon the dinner-table. Oh, truly, I had meant to bring 'em to you--Only _do_ you think it quite good form to put on those cloth-sided shoes when you've been invited to a real party?"

For a moment Mrs. Barry-Smith regarded me critically. Then she shook her head, and tried to frown, and reopened the alb.u.m, and inspected the crater of Vesuvius, and quite frankly laughed. And a tender, pink-tipped hand rested upon my arm for an instant,--a brief instant, yet pulsing with a sense of many lights and of music playing somewhere, and of a man's heart keeping time to it.

"If you were to make it an onyx--" said Mrs. Barry-Smith.

21.

_He is Urged to Desert His Galley_