"Why, it would take a lot of time; it might become intolerable."
"You mean I ought to pay her--to hire her for the season?"
Mary Gosselin considered him a moment. "Wouldn't marriage come cheaper
at once?" she asked with a quieter smile.
"You _are_ chaffing me!" he sighed forgivingly. "Of course she would
have to be good-natured enough to pity me."
"Pity's akin to love. If she were good-natured enough to want so to help
you she'd be good-natured enough to want to marry you. That would be
_her_ idea of help."
"Would it be _yours_?" Lord Beaupré asked rather eagerly.
"You're too absurd! You must sail your own boat!" the girl answered,
turning away.
That evening at dinner she stated to her companions that she had never
seen a fatuity so dense, so serene, so preposterous as his lordship's.
"Fatuity, my dear! what do you mean?" her mother inquired.
"Oh, mamma, you know perfectly." Mary Gosselin spoke with a certain
impatience.
"If you mean he's conceited I'm bound to say I don't agree with you,"
her brother observed. "He's too indifferent to everyone's opinion for
that."
"He's not vain, he's not proud, he's not pompous," said Mrs. Gosselin.
Mary was silent a moment. "He takes more things for granted than anyone
I ever saw."
"What sort of things?"
"Well, one's interest in his affairs."
"With old friends surely a gentleman may."
"Of course," said Hugh Gosselin, "old friends have in turn the right to
take for granted a corresponding interest on _his_ part."
"Well, who could be nicer to us than he is or come to see us oftener?"
his mother asked.
"He comes exactly for the purpose I speak of--to talk about himself,"
said Mary.
"There are thousands of girls who would be delighted with his talk,"
Mrs. Gosselin returned.
"We agreed long ago that he's intensely selfish," the girl went on; "and
if I speak of it to-day it's not because that in itself is anything of a
novelty. What I'm freshly struck with is simply that he more shamelessly
shows it."
"He shows it, exactly," said Hugh; "he shows all there is. There it is,
on the surface; there are not depths of it underneath."
"He's not hard," Mrs. Gosselin contended; "he's not impervious."
"Do you mean he's soft?" Mary asked.
"I mean he's yielding." And Mrs. Gosselin, with considerable expression,
looked across at her daughter. She added, before they rose from dinner,
that poor Beaupré had plenty of difficulties and that she thought, for
her part, they ought in common loyalty to do what they could to assist
him.
For a week nothing more passed between the two ladies on the subject of
their noble friend, and in the course of this week they had the
amusement of receiving in Chester Street a member of Hugh's American
circle, Mr. Bolton-Brown, a young man from New York. He was a person
engaged in large affairs, for whom Hugh Gosselin professed the highest
regard, from whom in New York he had received much hospitality, and for
whose advent he had from the first prepared his companions. Mrs.
Gosselin begged the amiable stranger to stay with them, and if she
failed to overcome his hesitation it was because his hotel was near at
hand and he should be able to see them often. It became evident that he
would do so, and, to the two ladies, as the days went by, equally
evident that no objection to such a relation was likely to arise. Mr.
Bolton-Brown was delightfully fresh; the most usual expressions acquired
on his lips a wellnigh comical novelty, the most superficial sentiments,
in the look with which he accompanied them, a really touching sincerity.
He was unmarried and good-looking, clever and natural, and if he was not
very rich was at least very free-handed. He literally strewed the path
of the ladies in Chester Street with flowers, he choked them with French
confectionery. Hugh, however, who was often rather mysterious on
monetary questions, placed in a light sufficiently clear the fact that
his friend had in Wall Street (they knew all about Wall Street),
improved each shining hour. They introduced him to Lord Beaupré, who
thought him "tremendous fun," as Hugh said, and who immediately declared
that the four must spend a Sunday at Bosco a week or two later. The date
of this visit was fixed--Mrs. Gosselin had uttered a comprehensive
acceptance; but after Guy Firminger had taken leave of them (this had
been his first appearance since the odd conversation with Mary), our
young lady confided to her mother that she should not be able to join
the little party. She expressed the conviction that it would be all that
was essential if Mrs. Gosselin should go with the two others. On being
pressed to communicate the reason of this aloofness Mary was able to
give no better one than that she never had cared for Bosco.
"What makes you hate him so?" her mother presently broke out in a tone
which brought the red to the girl's cheek. Mary denied that she
entertained for Lord Beaupré any sentiment so intense; to which Mrs.
Gosselin rejoined with some sternness and, no doubt, considerable
wisdom: "Look out what you do then, or you'll be thought by everyone to
be in love with him!"