“Do you hear, I say _you_ would break his heart. He would be only
capable of loving straight to the end. The kind of love any other woman
would die for, but you--you are Carmen.”
At all events not _she_, nor any other woman, shall ever see what I am,
or am not. My heart is not for them to peck at. So I said, calmly:
“Carmen was stabbed.”
“And serve her right! Fascinating, fiendish demon!” Then she laughed,
her mood changing.
“Did you see Charlie?” she said.
“We breakfasted together.”
“Cheerful person, isn’t he?”
“No,” I said. “He looked cross and ill.”
“Ill!” she said, with a shade of anxiety. “Oh, you only mean dyspeptic.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, he always does when he comes from Paris. If you could go into
his room, and see the row of photographs on his mantelpiece, you might
guess why.”
“Pictures of ‘Sole Dieppoise’ and ‘Poulet Victoria aux truffes,’ no
doubt,” I hazarded.
She doubled up with laughter. “Yes, just that!” she said. “Well, he
adores me in his way, and will bring me a new Cartier ring to make up
for it--you will see at luncheon.”
“He is a perfect husband, then?”
“About the same as you will find Christopher. Only Christopher will
start by being an exquisite lover, there is nothing he does not know,
and Charlie has not an idea of that part. Heavens! the dullness of my
honeymoon!”
“Mrs. Carruthers said all honeymoons were only another parallel to
going to the dentist, or being photographed. Necessary evils to be got
through for the sake of the results.”
“The results!”
“Yes; the nice house, and the jewels, and the other things.”
“Oh! Yes, I suppose she was right, but if one had married Robert one
would have had both.” She did not say both what, but oh! I knew.
“You think Mr. Carruthers will make a fair husband, then?” I asked.
“You will never really know Christopher. I have been acquainted with
him for years. You will never feel he would tell you the whole truth
about anything. He is an epicure and an analyst of sensations; I don’t
know if he has any gods, he does not believe in them if he has, he
believes in no one, and nothing, but perhaps himself. He is violently
in love with you for the moment, and he wants to marry you because he
cannot obtain you on any other terms.”
“You are flattering,” I said, rather hurt.
“I am truthful. You will probably have a delightful time with him, and
keep him devoted to you for years, because you are not in love with
him, and he will take good care you do not look at any one else. I
can imagine if one were in love with Christopher he would break one’s
heart, as he has broken poor Alicia Verney’s.”
“Oh, but how silly! people don’t have broken hearts now; you are
talking like out of a book, dear Lady Ver.”
“There are a few cases of broken hearts, but they are not for book
reasons--of death and tragedy, etc.; they are because we cannot have
what we want, or keep what we have,” and she sighed.
We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said quite gaily,
“You have made my head better, your touch is extraordinary; in spite
of all I like you, Snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry
bush.”
We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room.
Yes, the best thing I can do is to marry Christopher; I care for him so
little that the lady in Paris won’t matter to me, even if she is like
Sir Charles’s Poulet à la Victoria aux truffes. He is such a gentleman,
he will at least be kind to me and refined and considerate; and the
Carruthers’ emeralds are divine, and just my stones. I shall have them
reset by Cartier. The lace, too, will suit me, and the sables, and I
shall have the suite that Mrs. Carruthers used at Branches done up with
pale green, and burn all the Early Victorians. And no doubt existence
will be full of triumphs and pleasure.
But oh! I wish, I wish it were possible to obtain “both.”