Superficially, training is everything. The heaven-born genius comes
once in a century of decades to remind us, as it were, that there
is such a thing as creation; but beyond the heaven-born genius,
training, on a day of superficialities, must win.
This moment, when Sally stood but a few paces within Traill's room,
and looked--half-appealing, half-guardedly--at Mrs. Durlacher, the
perfect woman of society--perfectly robed, perfectly mannered,
perfectly painted, was a moment as superficial as one, so charged
with possibilities, could be. And through that moment, over it,
almost as if it were an occurrence of her daily life, Mrs. Durlacher
rode as a swallow rides on an upland wind--pinions stretched
straightly out--the consummate absence of effort; all the training
of numberless years and numberless birds of the air in its wings.
"Dolly--this is Miss Bishop--my sister, Mrs. Durlacher." Traill
stamped through the ceremony, like a man through a ploughed field.
In the minute fraction of time that followed--so short that no one
in reason could call it a pause--Mrs. Durlacher had moulded a swift
impression of Sally. Two facts--guide-ropes across a swinging
bridge--she held to for support in her sudden calculation. Firstly,
Sally's appearance--the quiet, inexpensive display of a gentle taste.
The blouse, showing through the little short-waisted
coat--home-made--that, seen at a glance. The hat, with its quite
artistic and unobtrusive colours--self-trimmed--the frame-work a
year behind the fashion. The gloves, no holes in them, but well-worn.
The skirt--not badly cut, but obviously a cheap material. The person,
herself--more than probably a milliner's assistant. Secondly, the
fact that she was in her brother's rooms. She knew Jack's dealings
with women--did not even close her eyes to them--admitted them to
be human and natural so long as he refrained from tying himself up
with any one of them and thereby irretrievably separating himself
from her and her set. With these two facts, then, she made her
ultimate deduction of Sally's identity--a milliner's assistant,
with a pardonable freedom of thought in the matter of propriety--and
on that deduction, she acted accordingly. Ah, but it was acting that
was finished and superb!
Her manner was gracious--she was compelled to accept her brother at
his word, that he would let no one in who could offend her sense of
propriety--yet it was graciousness which you saw through a polished
glass, but could not touch. When Sally half-ventured forward with
hand tentatively lifting, she bowed first--made it plain to Sally
that in such a manner introductions were taken--then generously
offered her hand, palpably to ease Sally's confusion.
Dressed as she was, looking as she did, in comparison with Sally,
she held all the weapons. She could play them, wield them, just as
she wished. Well-frocked, looking her best, a woman is a dangerous
animal; but throw her in contact with another of her sex who is but
poorly clad, socially beneath her, and in training her inferior, and
you may behold all the grace, all the symmetry of the cobra as it
unwinds its beautiful, sinuous body before the eyes of its
panic-stricken prey.
The fact that her brother had admitted Sally to the room, made Mrs.
Durlacher realize that he held her in special regard. Notwithstanding
that Miss Bishop called upon him at his own rooms at half-past nine
at night, when all young ladies who valued their reputations would be
either playing incompetent bridge in the suburban home, or going
respectably with relations to a harmless piece at the theatre, she
took the other fact well into consideration--gave it full weight--and
all in that brief moment of a pause, realized that as yet there was
no intimacy between these two.
She did not look upon women as a class--the class he mixed with--as
dangerous to her brother's ultimate salvation; but coming across the
individual in Sally, quiet, unobtrusive--the type that valued its
own possessions, and would certainly expect substantial settlement,
if not marriage itself--she felt called into action and answered the
call, as only such women with her training know how.
When she had shaken hands, she leant back again with one graceful
elbow, bared, upon the mantelpiece--the pose of absolute ease. Sally,
who, except for the students' balls, to which Janet had sometimes
taken her, had not been in the presence of people in evening dress
since she left home, stood, hiding her nervousness, but not hiding
the fact that it was concealed. Traill's heart warmed to her. He knew
his sister through and through--guessed every thought that was
taking shape in her mind. But Sally--even her presence there
alone--was more or less of an enigma and, seeing her almost pathetic
perturbation of manner, he paid all the attentions he roughly knew
to her.
"Here--you must sit down," he said easily. "We're not going to let
you rush away before you've come."
For that plural of the pronoun, Sally thanked him generously in her
heart; for that also, Mrs. Durlacher smiled inwardly and saw visions
of the power by which Jack would eventually win his way.
"Will you have some coffee?" he added, when she had accepted the chair
he proffered. "We've just had some. Good--wasn't it, Dolly?"
"Excellent."
"Will you have some?" he repeated.
"No, thank you--well--yes,--yes, I think I will."
Even to take coffee is action--action that it is an aid to conceal.
"Some milk?"
"No, thank you--black, please."
She trusted that he would not remember that she had taken it with
milk before. She always did take it with milk, but the eyes of that
woman by the mantelpiece were on her, and she knew well enough how
coffee ought to be taken.
All that Traill had told her of his sister, was racing wildly through
her thoughts. She knew she was being criticized, knew that her
position there was being looked upon in the least charitable light
of all. She should never have come into the room. The fact that her
voice had been heard, would have made no difference. But who thinks
of such things when the moment is a goad, pricking mercilessly? Now
she was there, her position could scarcely be worse. She would have
given her life almost, in those first few moments, to sink into
obscurity, no matter what peals of ironical laughter might ring in
her ears as she vanished. But the thing was done now, and for every
little attention he paid her, she thanked Traill with a full heart.
"What on earth have you got in that parcel?" he asked her, as he
crushed down the saucepan of coffee to heat upon the fire.
Her cheeks reddened--flamed. It felt to her as if the eyes of his
sister were lenses concentrating a burning sun upon her face.
"Oh it's nothing," she said, mastering confusion; "only something
that I was taking home."
His eyes questioned her, noting the flaming cheeks while his sister
studied the muscular development and forbidding features of James
Brownrigg--heavy-weight champion in the fifties, whose portrait
hung over the mantelpiece.
"Isn't this the type of man you'd call a bruiser?" she asked, with
a pretty trace of doubtful confidence in her technical knowledge on
the last word.
"That chap--Brownrigg? No. I should call him a gentleman. I'd have
given a good deal to see him fight. He always allowed his man to have
his chance, though there wasn't one in England he couldn't have
knocked out in the first round. He used to keep that glorious left
of his tucked up, as quiet as a pet spaniel under a lady's arm, till
he'd given his man time to show what he was worth. Then he'd shake
his shoulders, grin a bit with that ugly mouth--never with his
eyes--and plant his blow, the kick of a mule, and his man curled up
like a caterpillar on a hot brick. That stroke got to be known as
James Brownrigg's Waiting Left. I've met him. He kept a public house
up in Islington. Died about four years ago, with both fists clenched,
and his left still waiting. It's quite possible he kept it waiting
till he got to the gates of heaven."
Mrs. Durlacher looked up at the portrait again and then
half-shuddered her graceful shoulders.
"I suppose a man can be a gentleman and look like that," she said.
"But some one ought to have told him to grow his hair a little longer.
As it is, it has a fatal suggestion of three years' imprisonment for
assault and battery."
"Or the army," suggested Traill, with a laugh.
She took that well and laughed with him. "Yes, quite so; or the army;
but they don't look so much like convicts as they used to. What do
you think, Miss Bishop? Would you say, to look at him, that James
Brownrigg was a gentleman?"
This, in a period of ten minutes, was the first remark that she had
addressed to Sally. Coming, as it did, after that space of time,
pitched on the casual note, the eyebrows gently lifted, there was
a whip in it that stung across Sally's sensitive cheeks. The words
in themselves, of course, were nothing. Traill, in fact, thought that
this icicle of a sister of his was beginning to thaw, and looked
towards Sally for her answer in encouraging expectancy.
Sally rose to her feet and crossed to the mantelpiece. The spirit
in her prompted her to considered lethargy, as though the remark were
as inconsequent to her as it had been to the maker; but the gentleness
of her nature made it impossible for her to give insult for insult.
Her steps were not slow--they were almost eager--and her lips smiled.
She gave the very impression that she would have died rather than
create--the apparent sense of pleasure in which she felt in being
addressed at all.
For a moment she stood looking into the impassive, brutal face of
James Brownrigg. Her expression was one of studiousness and
consideration; yet the face of James Brownrigg was completely
blurred in her vision. She had to force her eyes to see, and spur
her mind to think. Then she turned, facing Mrs. Durlacher.
"I think if you're going to judge everybody by their outward
appearance," she said, "you certainly might feel inclined to say that
he wasn't a gentleman. But outward appearances always seem to me so
terribly deceptive. I should never let myself be led away by them."
This was a declaration! Even Sally, in her own gentle way, could
declare war. The perfect curve of her upper lip grew thin as she said
it, like a bow that straightens itself after the arrow has sped.
Traill cast a swift glance at her, comprehending that there lay some
meaning behind her words, yet knowing nothing of the duel that was
being fought under his very eyes.
Mrs. Durlacher smiled. She took the thrust as gracefully as she had
given her own.
To the trained hand and to the practised eyes, these things can not
only be done with dexterity, they can be done with ease and with style.
There are many who imagine that the days of romance are over because
gentlemen do no longer saunter through the salons of the rich with
pointed rapiers tapping at their heels. But romance did not go out
with the duel. The duel itself has never gone out. Words,
looks--these are the weapons of romance now. They are sheathed in
their scabbards of velvet politesse, but just as easy of drawing,
just as light to flash out and tingle in the air as ever were the
dainty little Toledo blades of some odd two hundred years ago.
"Jack," said Mrs. Durlacher, "you've introduced me to a diplomatist.
She says what she means without telling you what she says."
Traill thought that it all alluded to the portrait of James
Brownrigg--imagined that Sally agreed with him, yet did not like to
contradict his sister, and he laughed with amusement at the smartness
of her retort. But Sally returned to her seat, conscious that she
had made an enemy. She could think of no reply that had not a lash
of bitterness in it and, clinging to the dignity of silence, rather
than the vigour of attack, she said nothing.
When Traill had handed her her coffee, his sister moved slowly across
the room to the settle where her fur coat, scarf and gloves were
lying.
"You're not going?" he asked, looking up.
"Yes, I must, my dear boy. It's getting on for ten. Harold's got some
people coming in after the theatre, and I believe we've got a supper.
Do you think you could get me a taxi?"
"There's not a stand here. But you can get any amount of hansoms."
"Yes, but I want to get home. You're sure to find heaps of empty ones
in Piccadilly Circus just at this time. Run and see--do. I'll be
putting on my coat."
Traill went--obedient. They heard him taking the stairs two at a time
in the darkness. Then the door slammed.
"One of these days he'll break his neck down those stairs," said Mrs.
Durlacher. "Do you live in Town, Miss Bishop?"
She ran one sentence into the other inconsequently, as if they had
connection.
"Well--not exactly," said Sally. "I live in Kew."
"Oh yes--Kew--it's a very pretty place. There are some delightful
old houses on the Green--the gardens side--I believe they're King's
property, aren't they?"
"I know the ones you mean," said Sally; "they are very nice, but I
don't live there." She added that with a smile--a generous admission
that she made no pretension to what she was not. Upon Mrs. Durlacher
it was wasted, as was all generosity. She had not the quality herself;
understood it as little as she possessed it.
"Oh, I wasn't supposing that," she replied easily. "I was thinking
that that was the only part of Kew I had noticed. I think I've only
been there once or twice at the most. Have you known my brother long?"
Sally's fingers gripped tight about her little parcel. "Oh no, not
so very long."
"He's a quaint, int'resting sort of person. Don't you find him so?"
To Sally, this description sounded ludicrous. The fashionable way
of putting things was utterly unknown to her. To think of Traill as
quaint, in the sense of the word as she understood it, seemed
preposterous. She could not realize that the Society idea of
quaintness is anything which does not passably imitate or become one
of itself.
"Interesting--yes, I certainly think he is. This room alone would
show that, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, well, I don't know so much about that. He'd have this sort of
room anywhere, wherever he lived. It's the fact that he chooses to
live here and slave and work that I think's uncommon--so quaint. But
he'll give it up--he's bound to give it up after a time. You can't
wash out what's in the blood. Do you think you can? He'll drop the
Bohemian one day--it's merely a phase. I'm only just waiting, you
know, to give the dinner on his coming out." She drew on her long
gloves and smiled in her anticipation of the event.
None of the value of this did Sally lose--none of the intent that
lay behind it. She perfectly realized that it was meant to convey
a candid warning to her; that if she had pretensions, she might as
well light their funeral pyre immediately, burn all her hopes and
ambitions, a sacrifice before the altar of renunciation. But
ambitions, she had none. With her nature, she would willingly have
consented to their burning at such a command as this. What hopes she
possessed, certainly, were shattered; but the flame of her passion,
that was only kindled the more. Now that she realized how utterly
he was beyond her reach, how immeasurably he was above her, she made
silent concessions to the crying demands of her heart which she would
not have dreamed of admitting to herself before.
Irretrievably he was gone now. All Janet had said, strong in truth
as it may have seemed at the time, had only been based upon her
extraordinary view of life in general. Some cases, perhaps, it might
have applied to; it did not apply to this. Janet was utterly wrong;
she was not winning him. In this chance meeting with his sister, brief
though it may have been, she knew that she had lost him; arriving
at which conclusion, she probably reached the most dangerous phase
in the whole existence of a woman's temptations.
When Traill returned, he found them both in preparation for departure.
Sally had replaced the little feather boa about her neck and one of
her gloves, which she had taken off when he gave her the coffee, she
was buttoning at the wrist.
"You're not going, are you?" he exclaimed.
"Yes; I must."
"But you haven't told me what you wanted to see me about yet."
"No, I know I haven't; but that must wait. I can easily write to you."
Mrs. Durlacher picked up her skirts, the silk rustling like leaves
in an autumn wind. As she lowered her head in the movement, the
dilation of her nostrils repressed a smile of satisfaction. "You
mustn't let my going force you away," she said graciously.
"Oh, but I must go," said Sally.
Traill shrugged his shoulders. Let her have her way. When women are
doing things for apparently no reason, they are the most obstinate.
But at the door of the room as his sister passed out first, he caught
Sally's elbow in a tense grip and for the instant held her back.
"I shall wait here for you for half an hour," he whispered.