A CONFIDENCE.
_It may be one will dance to-day,
And dance no more to-morrow;
It may be one will steal away,
And nurse a lifelong sorrow;
What then? The rest advance, evade,
Unite, disport, and dally,
Re-set, coquet, and gallopade,
Not less--in "Cupid's Alley."_
AUSTIN DOBSON.
"Mr. Darrell has sent us a card for his Private View," announced
Gertrude, as they sat at tea one Saturday afternoon in the sitting-room.
"Oh, let me look, Gerty," cried Phyllis, taking possession of the bit of
pasteboard. "'The Misses Lorimer and friends.' Why Conny might go with
us."
Constance Devonshire had dropped in upon them unexpectedly that
afternoon, after an absence of several weeks. She was looking wretchedly
ill. Her usually blooming complexion had changed to a curious waxen
colour; her round face had fallen away; there were dark hollows under
the unnaturally brilliant eyes.
"I should rather like to go, if you think you may take me," she said;
then added, with an air of not very spontaneous gaiety; "I suppose it
will be what the society papers call a 'smart function.'"
Stoicism, it has been observed, is a savage virtue. There was something
of savagery in Conny's fierce reserve; in the way in which she
resolutely refused to acknowledge, what was evident to the most casual
observer, that there was something seriously amiss with her health and
spirits.
"Is it not fortunate," said Lucy, "that Uncle Sebastian should have sent
us that cheque? Now we shall be able to get ourselves some decent
clothes."
"I mean to have a grey cachemire walking-dress, and my evening dress
shall be grey too," announced Phyllis, who was one of the rare people
who can wear that colour to advantage. Fanny, who had rigid ideas about
mourning, declared with an air of severity that her own new outfit
should be black, then sighed, as though to call attention to the fact of
her constancy to the memory of the dead, in the face of the general
heedlessness.
"Gerty is thinking of rose-colour, is she not?" asked Phyllis,
innocently, as she marked Gertrude's rapidly-suppressed movement of
irritation.
"As regards a gown for this precious Private View--I am not going to
it."
"The head of the firm ought to show up on such an occasion, as a mere
matter of business," observed Lucy, smiling amiably at every one in
general.
"Yes, really, Gerty," added Phyllis, "you are the person to inspire
confidence as to the quality of our work. No one would suspect
_us_"--indicating herself and her two other sisters--"of being clever.
It would be considered unlikely that nature should heap up _all_ her
benefits on the same individuals."
"Am I such a fright?" asked Gertrude, a little wistfully.
"No, darling; but there could be no doubt about your brains with that
face."
"Wait a few years," said Conny; "she will be the best looking of you
all."
"We will 'wait till she is eighty in the shade,'" quoted Phyllis; "but
when one comes to think of it, what a well-endowed family we are. Not
only is our genius good-looking; that is a comparatively common case;
but our beauties are so exceedingly intelligent; aren't they, Lucy?"
Constance Devonshire was right. Sidney Darrell's Private View at the
Berkley Galleries, held on the last day of April, was a very smart
function indeed. There were duchesses, beauties, statesmen, and clever
people of every description galore. In the midst of them all Darrell
himself shone resplendent; gracious, urbane, polished; infusing just the
right amount of cordiality into his many greetings, according to the
deserts of the person greeted.
"I never saw any one who possessed to greater perfection the art of
impressing his importance on other people," whispered Conny to Gertrude,
as the two girls strolled off together into one of the smaller rooms.
Lucy had been led off by Frank and one of his friends. That young woman
was never long in any mixed assembly without attracting persons of the
male sex to her side.
As for Phyllis, radiant in the new grey costume, its soft tints set off
by a knot of Parma violets at the throat, she was making the round of
the pictures under the escort of no less a person than Lord Watergate,
who had come up to the Lorimers at the moment of their entrance; and
Fanny, in a jetted mantle and bonnet, clanked about with Mr. Oakley,
happy in the consciousness of being for once in the best society.
"What a dreary thing a London crowd is," grumbled Conny, who was not
accustomed, in her own set, to being left squireless.
"Oh, but this is fun. So different from the parties one used to go to,"
said Gertrude, smiling, as Lord Watergate and her sister came up to
them, to direct their attention to a particular canvas in the other
room.
As they sauntered, in a body, to the entrance, Darrell came up with a
young man of the masher type in his wake, whom he introduced to Phyllis
as Lord Malplaquet.
"Lord Malplaquet is dying to hear your theories of life," he said
playfully, bestowing a beaming and confidential smile upon her.
"Mr. Darrell, you shall not amuse yourself at my expense," she responded
gaily, as she plunged into the crowd under the wing of her new escort,
who was staring at her with the languid yet undisguised admiration of
his class.
"Now this is the real thing," said Lord Watergate to Gertrude, as they
stopped before the canvas they had come to seek.
"Yes," said Gertrude, in mechanical acquiescence.
She was thinking: "What a mean soul I must have. Every one seems to like
and admire this Sidney Darrell: and I suspect everything about him--even
his art. For the sake of a prejudice; of a little hurt vanity, perhaps,
as well."
"That, 'yes,' hasn't the ring of the true coin, Miss Lorimer."
"This is scarcely the time and place for criticism, Lord Watergate,"
laughed Gertrude.
"For hostile criticism, you mean. You are a terrible person to please,
are you not?"
As the room began to clear Darrell took Frank aside, and glancing in
the direction of the sisters, who had re-united their forces, said: "You
know those girls, intimately, I believe."
"Yes." (Very promptly.)
"I wonder if that beautiful Phyllis would sit to me?"
"She would probably be immensely honoured."
"Well, you see, it's this: I want her for Cressida."
"Rather a disagreeable sort of subject isn't it?" said Frank,
doubtfully; then added, with professional interest: "I didn't know you
had such a picture on hand, Mr. Darrell."
"The idea occurred to me this very afternoon. It was the sight of the
fair Phyllis, in fact, which suggested it."
"Were you thinking of the scene in the orchard, or in the Greek camp?"
"Neither; one could hardly ask a lady to sit for such a picture. No, it
is Cressida, before her fall, I want; as she stands at the street corner
with Pandarus, waiting for the Trojan heroes to pass, don't you know?
Half ironical, half wistful; with the light of that little _tendre_ for
Troilus just beginning to dawn in her eyes. She would be the very thing
for it."
"Are you going to propose it to her?" said Frank, who looked as if he
did not much relish the idea.
"I shall ask her to sit for me, at any rate. There's the dragon-sister
to be got round first."
"Indeed you are mistaken about Miss Lorimer."
Darrell gave a short laugh. "I beg your pardon, my dear fellow!"
Frank frowned, and Darrell, going forward to the Lorimers, preferred his
request.
Phyllis looked pleased; and Gertrude, suppressing the signs of her
secret dislike to the scheme, said, quietly:
"Phyllis must refer you to her sister Fanny. It depends on whether she
can spare the time to bring her to your studio."
She glanced up as she spoke, and met, almost with open defiance, the
heavy grey eyes of the man opposite. From these she perceived the irony
to have faded; she read nothing there but a cold dislike.
It was an old, old story the fierce yet silent opposition between these
two people; an inevitable antipathy; a strife of type and type, of
class and class, rather than of individuals: the strife of the woman who
demands respect, with the man who refuses to grant it.
* * * * *
Phyllis was in high feather at her successful afternoon, at the
compliment paid her by the great Sidney in particular; and Fanny rather
brightened at the prospect of what bore even so distant a resemblance to
an occupation, as chaperoning her sister to a studio.
Only Conny was silent and depressed, and when they reached Baker-street,
followed Gertrude to her room. Here she flung herself on the bed,
regardless of her new transparent black hat, and its daffodil trimmings.
"Gerty, 'the world's a beast, and I hate it!'"
"You are not well, Conny. If you would only acknowledge the fact, and
see a doctor."
"Gerty, come here."
Gertrude went over to the bed, secretly alarmed; something in her
friend's tones frightened her.
Conny crushed her face against the pillows, then said in smothered
tones:
"I can't bear it any longer. I must tell some one or it will kill me."
Gertrude grew pale; instinctively she felt what was coming;
instinctively she desired to ward it off.
"Can't you guess? Oh, you may say it is humiliating, unworthy; I know
that." She raised her face suddenly: "Oh, Gerty, how can I help it? He
is so different from them all; from the sneaks who want one's money;
from the bad imitations of fashionable young men, who snub, and
patronise, and sneer at us all. Who could help it? Frank----"
"Conny, Conny, you musn't tell me this."
Gertrude caught her friend in her arms, so as to shield her face. She
disapproved, generally speaking, of confidences of this kind,
considering them bad for both giver and receiver; but this particular
confidence she felt to be simply intolerable.
"Gerty, what have I done, what have I said?"
"Nothing, really nothing, Con, dear old girl. You have told me nothing."
A pause; then Conny said, between the sobs which at last had broken
forth: "How can I bear my life? How can I bear it?"
Gertrude was very pale.
"We all have to bear things, Conny; often this kind of thing, we women."
"I don't think I _can_."
"Yes, you will. You have no end of pluck. One day you are going to be
very happy."
"Never, Gerty. We rich girls always end up with sneaks--no decent person
comes near us."
"There are other things which make happiness besides--pleasant things
happening to one."
"What sort of things?"
Gertrude paused a minute, then said bravely: "Our own self-respect, and
the integrity of the people we care for."
"That sounds very nice," replied Conny, without enthusiasm, "but I
should like a little of the more obvious sorts of happiness as well."
Gertrude gave a laugh, which was also a sob.
"So should I, Conny, so should I."
[Illustration: Decoration]