When we were a small party of intimate friends, and Ideala was quite at
her ease with us, it was pleasant to see her lolling, a little
languidly as was her wont (for physically her energy was fitful), in
the corner of a couch, looking happy and interested, her face, which
was sad in repose, lit up for the time with amusement, as she quietly
listened to our talk, and observed all that was going on around her.
Even when she did not speak a word she somehow managed to make her
presence felt, and, as a rule, she spoke little on these occasions. But
sometimes we managed to draw her out, and sometimes she would burst
forth suddenly of her own accord, with a torrent of eloquence that
silenced us all; and even when she was utterly wrong she charmed us.
Her chance observations were generally noteworthy either for their
sense or their humour. It was only her sense of humour, I think, that
saved her from being sentimental; but she gave expression to it in
season and out of season, and would let it carry her too far sometimes,
for she made enemies for herself more than once by the way she exposed
the absurdity of certain things to the very people who believed in
them. Every lapse of this kind caused her infinite regret, but the
fault seemed incurable: she was always either repenting of it or
committing it, although, having so many quirks of her own, she felt
that she, of all people in the world, should have dealt most tenderly
with the weaknesses of others.
She knew how narrowly she escaped being sentimental, and would often
joke about her danger in that respect. "This lovely summer weather
makes me _sickly_ sentimental," she told me once. "I feel like the
heroine of a three-volume novel written by a young lady of eighteen,
and I think continually of _him_. I don't know in the least who
_he_ is, but that makes no difference. The thought of him delights
me, and I want to write long letters to him, and make verses about him
the whole day long. And he wants me to be good."
She had two or three pet abominations of her own, any allusion to which
was sure to make her outrageous--false sentiment and affectation of any
kind were amongst them. She had little habits, too, that we were all
pleased to fall in with. Sitting in the corner of a couch, and of one
couch in particular in every house, was one of these; and people got
into the way of giving up that seat to her whenever she appeared. I
think it would have puzzled us all to say why or wherefore, for she
never said or looked anything that could make us think she wished to
appropriate it; she simply took it as a matter of course when it was
offered to her, and probably did not know that she invariably sat
there. Ideala was a splendid horsewoman, and swam like a fish; but she
was not good at tennis or games of any kind, and she did not dance, for
a curious reason: she objected to be touched by people for whom she had
no special affection. She even disliked to shake hands, and often
wished some one would put the custom out of fashion. With regard to
dancing I have heard her say, too, that she sympathised entirely with
the Oriental feeling on the subject. She thought it delightful to be
danced to, to lie still with a pleasant companion near her who would
not talk too much, and listen to the music, and enjoy the poetry of
motion coolly and at ease. "I love to see the 'dancers dancing in
tune,'" she said; "but to have to dance myself would be as great a
bother as to have to cook my dinner as well as eat it. I suppose it is
a healthy amusement--indeed, I know it is when you take it as I do; for
when all you people come down the morning after a dance with haggard
eyes and no power to do anything, I am as fresh as a lark, and have
decidedly the best of it."
She was not good at games because she was not ambitious. She did not
care to have her skill commended, and was content to lose or win with
equal indifference--so long as only the honour of the thing was
involved; but when the stakes were more material she showed a vice of
which she was quite conscious.
"I daren't play for money," she said to me. "I never have, and I have
always said that I never will. All the women of my family are born
gamblers. My mother has often told me that regularly, when she was a
girl, the day after she received her allowance she had either doubled
it or lost it all; and before she was twenty she hadn't a jewel worth
anything in her possession--and my aunts were as bad. One of them
staked herself one night to a gentleman she was playing with, and he
won, and married her. Gambling was more the custom then than it is now,
but for me it is as much in the air as if it were still the fashion.
When there is any talk of play I feel fascinated, and when I see a pack
of cards the temptation is so irresistible that I have often to go away
to save my resolution."
Which made me think of a favourite quotation of Lessing's from
_Minna_:--"_Tout les gens d'esprit aiment le jeu à la folie_."