CROSS PURPOSES.
While Elizabeth was thus happily absorbed in her "young man," and
Eleanor making an evident conquest of Mr. Westmoreland, Patty, who was
rather accustomed to the lion's share of whatever interesting thing
was going on, had very little enjoyment. For the first hour or two she
was delighted with the beauty of the scene and the weather and her own
personal circumstances, and she entered into the festive spirit of the
day with the ardour of her energetic temperament. But in a little while
the glamour faded. A serpent revealed itself in Paradise, and all her
innocent pleasure was at an end.
That serpent was Mrs. Aarons. Or, rather, it was a hydra-headed
monster, consisting of Mrs. Aarons and Paul Brion combined. Poor Paul
had come to spend a holiday afternoon at the races like everybody
else, travelling to the course by train along with the undistinguished
multitude, with the harmless intention of recruiting his mind, and, at
the same time, storing it with new impressions. He had meant to enjoy
himself in a quiet and independent fashion, strolling amongst the crowd
and studying its various aspects from the point of view of a writer
for the press to whom men and women are "material" and "subjects," and
then to go home as soon as the Cup race was over, and, after an early
dinner, to spend a peaceful solitary evening, embodying the results of
his observations in a brilliant article for his newspaper. But, before
he had well thought out the plan of his paper, he encountered Mrs.
Aarons; and to her he was a helpless captive for the whole live-long
afternoon. Mrs. Aarons had come to the course in all due state, attired
in one of the few real amongst the many reputed Worth dresses of the
day, and reclining in her own landau, with her long-nosed husband
at her side. But after her arrival, having lost the shelter of her
carriage, and being amongst the many who were shut out from the grand
stand, she had felt just a little unprotected and uncared-for. The
first time she stopped to speak to a friend, Mr. Aarons took the
opportunity to slip off to the saddling paddock, where the astute
speculator was speedily absorbed in a more congenial occupation than
that of idling up and down the promenade; and the other gentlemen who
were so assiduous in their attendance upon her in the ordinary way
had their own female relatives to look after on this extraordinary
occasion. She joined one set and then another of casual acquaintances
whom she chanced to meet, but her hold upon them all was more or less
precarious; so that when by-and-bye she saw Paul Brion, threading his
way alone amongst the throng, she pounced upon him thankfully, and
confided herself to his protection. Paul had no choice but to accept
the post of escort assigned to him under such circumstances, nor was
he at all unwilling to become her companion. He had been rather out
in the cold lately. Patty, though nominally at home in Myrtle Street,
had been practically living with Mrs. Duff-Scott for the last few
weeks, and he had scarcely had a glimpse of her, and he had left off
going to Mrs. Aarons's Fridays since the evening that she snubbed him
for Patty's sake. The result was that he was in a mood to appreciate
women's society and to be inclined to melt when the sunshine of his old
friend's favour was poured upon him again.
They greeted each other amicably, therefore, and made up the intangible
quarrel that was between them. Mrs. Aarons justified her reputation as
a clever woman by speedily causing him to regard her as the injured
party, and to wonder how he could have been such a brute as to wound
her tender susceptibilities as he had done. She insinuated, with
the utmost tact, that she had suffered exceedingly from the absence
of his society, and was evidently in a mood to revive the slightly
sentimental intercourse that he had not found disagreeable in earlier
days. Paul, however, was never less inclined to be sentimental in her
company than he was to-day, in spite of his cordial disposition. He
was changed from what he was in those earlier days; he felt it as soon
as she began to talk to him, and perfectly understood the meaning of
it. After a little while she felt, too, that he was changed, and she
adapted herself to him accordingly. They fell into easy chat as they
strolled up and down, and were very friendly in a harmless way. They
did not discuss their private feelings at all, but only the topics that
were in every-day use--the weather, the races, the trial of Ned Kelly,
the wreck of the Sorata, the decay of Berryism--anything that happened
to come into their heads or to be suggested by the scene around them.
Nevertheless, they had a look of being very intimate with each other
to the superficial eye of Mrs. Grundy. People with nothing better to
do stared at them as they meandered in and out amongst the crowd, he
and she _tête-à-tête_ by their solitary selves; and those who knew they
were legally unrelated were quick to discover a want of conventional
discretion in their behaviour. Mrs. Duff-Scott, for instance, who
abhorred scandal, made use of them to point a delicate moral for the
edification of her girls.
Paul, who was a good talker, was giving his companion an animated
account of the French plays going on at one of the theatres just
then--which she had not yet been to see--and describing with great
warmth the graceful and finished acting of charming Madame Audrée,
when he was suddenly aware of Patty King passing close beside him.
Patty was walking at her chaperon's side, with her head erect, and her
white parasol, with its pink lining, held well back over her shoulder,
a vision of loveliness in her diaphanous dress. He caught his breath
at sight of her, looking so different from her ordinary self, and was
about to raise his hat, when--to his deep dismay and surprise--she
swept haughtily past him, meeting his eyes fairly, with a cold disdain,
but making no sign of recognition.
The blood rushed into his face, and he set his teeth, and walked on
silently, not seeing where he went. For a moment he felt stunned with
the shock. Then he was brought to himself by a harsh laugh from Mrs.
Aarons. "Dear me," said she, in a high tone, "the Miss Kings have
become so grand that we are beneath their notice. You and I are not
good enough for them now, Mr. Brion. We must hide our diminished heads."
"I see," he assented, with savage quietness. "Very well. I am quite
ready to hide mine."
Meanwhile Patty, at the farther end of the lawn, was overwhelmed
with remorse for what she had done. At the first sight of him, in
close intercourse with that woman who, Mrs. Duff-Scott again reminded
her, was not "nice"--who, though a wife and mother, liked men to
"dangle" round her--she had arraigned and judged and sentenced him
with the swift severity of youth, that knows nothing of the complex
trials and sufferings which teach older people to bear and forbear
with one another. But when it was over, and she had seen his shocked
and bewildered face, all her instinctive trust in him revived, and
she would have given anything to be able to make reparation for her
cruelty. The whole afternoon she was looking for him, hoping for a
chance to show him somehow that she did not altogether "mean it," but,
though she saw him several times--eating his lunch with Mrs. Aarons
under the refreshment shed close by the Duff-Scott carriage, watching
Grand Flâneur win the greatest of his half-dozen successive victories
from the same point of view as that taken by the Duff-Scott party--he
never turned his head again in her direction or seemed to have the
faintest consciousness that she was there.
And next day, when no longer in her glorious apparel, but walking
quietly home from the Library with Eleanor, she met him unexpectedly,
face to face, in the Fitzroy Gardens. And then _he_ cut _her_--dead.