Arabella Clinker took Sunday afternoons generally to write a long letter
to her mother, and Good Friday seemed almost a Sunday, so she went up to
her room from force of habit. But first she looked up some facts in the
countless books of reference she kept always by her. Mrs. Cricklander
had skated over some very thin ice at luncheon upon a classical subject,
when talking to the distinguished Mr. Derringham, and she must be warned
and primed up before dinner. Arabella had herself averted a catastrophe
and dexterously turned the conversation in the nick of time. Mrs.
Cricklander had a peculiarly unclassical brain, and found learning
statistics about ancient philosophies and the names of mythological
personages the most difficult of all. Fortunately in these days, even
among the most polished, this special branch of cultivation was rather
old-fashioned, Miss Clinker reflected, but still, as Mr. Derringham
seemed determined to wander along this line (Arabella had unconsciously
appropriated some apt Americanisms during her three years of bondage),
she must be loyal and not allow her employer to commit any blunders. So
she got her facts crystallized, or "tabloided," as Mrs. Cricklander
would mentally have characterized the process, and then she began her
letter to her parent. Mrs. Clinker, an Irishwoman and the widow of a
learned Dean, understood a number of things, and was clear-headed and
humorous, for all her seventy years, and these passages in her
daughter's letter amused her.
We are entertaining a number of distinguished visitors, and among
them Mr. John Derringham, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs. He is a most interesting personality, as perfectly sure of
what he wants in life as is M. E. (M. E. stood for "My
Employer"--names were invidious). They would be a perfect match, each
as selfish as the other, I should say. He is really very cultivated,
and believes her to be so, too. She has not made a single mistake as
yet, but frightened me at luncheon a little. I must try and get her
to keep him off classical subjects. She intends to marry him--and
then she will not require me, I suppose; or rather, I do not think he
would permit her to keep me. If it came to a measure of wills, he
would win, I think--at first, at least--but she could wear away a
stone in the end, as you know. The arranging of this place is still
amusing her, so she may decide to spend a good deal of time here. She
closed her mouth with that firm snap this morning that I have
described to you often, and said that it was going to be her delight
to make them put themselves out and come so far away from London for
her. "Them," for the moment, are Mr. Derringham and Mr.
Hanbury-Green, almost a Socialist person, who is on the other
side--very brilliantly clever but with a Cockney accent in one or two
words. M. E. does not notice this, of course. Mr. H-G. is in love
with her--Mr. D. is not, but she is determined that he shall be. I do
not know if he intends to marry her. He is making up his mind, I
think, therefore I must be doubly careful not to allow her to commit
any mistakes, because if she did it would certainly estrange him, and
as to keep her free is so much to our advantage, I feel I must be
extra careful in doing my duty.
Arabella was a person of scrupulous honor.
She then proceeded to describe the party, and concluded with,
There is one American girl I like very much--perfectly natural and
bubbling with spirits, saying aloud everything she thinks, really
well educated and taking so much outdoor exercise that she has not
yet begun to have the nervous attacks that are such a distressing
feature of so many of her countrywomen. I am told it is their
climate. M. E. says it is because the men out there have always let
them have their own way. I should think so much smoking has something
to do with it.
John Derringham meanwhile had gone with his hostess and some of the rest
of the party, Mr. Hanbury-Green among them, to inspect the small golf
links Mrs. Cricklander was having constructed in the park. Her
country-house must be complete with suitable amusements. She had taken
all the Wendover shooting, too, and what she could get of Lord
Graceworth's beyond. "You cannot drag people into the wilds and then
bore them to death," she said. What she most enjoyed was to scintillate
to a company of two or three, and fascinate them all into a desire for a
_tête-à-tête_, and then, when with difficulty one had secured this
privilege, to be elusive and tantalize him to death. To passion she was
a complete stranger, and won all her games because with her great beauty
she was as cold as ice.
She was not feeling perfectly content this Good Friday afternoon.
Something had happened since the evening before which had altered John
Derringham's point of view towards her. She felt it distinctly with her
senses, trained like an animal's, to scent the most subtle things in
connection with herself. It was impossible to seize, she could not
analyze it, but there it was; certainly there seemed to be some change.
He was brilliant, and had been even _empressé_ before lunch, but it
was not spontaneous, and she was not perfectly sure that it was not
assumed. It was his cleverness which attracted her. She could not see the
other side of his head--not that she would have understood what that
meant, if she had heard the phrase.
But her habit was not to sit down under an adverse circumstance, but to
probe its source and eradicate it, or, at least, counteract it. Thus,
while she chattered eloquently to Sir Tedbury Delvine, her keen brain
was weighing things. John Derringham had certainly had a look of aroused
passion in his eyes when he had pressed her hand in a lingered good
night; he had even said some words of a more advanced insinuation as to
his intentions towards her than he had ever done before. They were never
exact--always some fugitive hint to which afterwards she would try to
fix some meaning as she reviewed their meetings. She had not seen him at
breakfast because she never came down in the morning until eleven or
twelve, and he had already gone out, she heard, when she did descend.
It followed then that either he had received some disturbing letter by
the post--only one on Good Friday--or something had occurred during his
visit to his old master. It would be her business to find out which of
these two things it was. Could the Professor be married, and might there
be some woman in the family? Or was it nothing to do with the Professor
or with a letter, or was there a more present reason? Had Cora Lutworth
attracted him with her youth and high spirits? They were walking ahead
now, and she could hear his laugh and see how they were enjoying
themselves.
She had been a perfect fool to ask Cora. She did not fear a single
Englishwoman, the powers of most of whom in her heart she despised--but
Cora was of her own race, and well equipped to rival her in a question
of marriage. Cora was only twenty-one, and she herself was thirty--and
there was the divorce which, although she had found it no bar to her
entrance into the most exclusive English society, still might perhaps
rankle unconsciously in the mind of a man mounting the political ladder,
and determined to secure the highest honors.
She felt she hated Cora, and would have destroyed her with a look if she
had been able.
Miss Lutworth, meanwhile, brimful of the joy of life and _insouciance_,
was amusing herself vastly. And John Derringham was experiencing that
sense of relaxation and irresponsible pleasure he got sometimes when he
was overworked from going to an excruciatingly funny Paris farce. Miss
Lutworth did not appeal to his brain at all, although she was quite
capable of doing so; she just made him feel gay and frolicsome with her
deliciously _rusé_ view of the world and life in general. He forgot his
ruffled temper of the morning, and by the time they had returned for
tea, was his brilliant self again, and quite ready to sit in a low chair
at his hostess's side, while she leaned back among the cushions of her
sofa, in her own sitting-room, whither she had enticed him during that
nondescript hour before dinner, when each person could do what he
pleased.
"Is not Cora sweet?" she said, smoothing the brocade beneath her hand.
Her sitting-room had been arranged by the artist who had done the house,
as a perfect bower of Italian Sixteenth Century art. Mr. Jephson, the
artist, had assured her that this period would make a perfect background
for her fresh and rather voluptuous coloring; it had not become so
_banal_ as any of the French Louis'. And so Arabella had been instructed
to drum into her head the names of the geniuses of that time, and their
works, and she could now babble sweetly all about Giorgione, Paolo
Veronese and Titian's later works without making a single mistake. And
while the pictures bored her unspeakably, she took a deep pleasure in
her own cleverness about them, and delighted in tracing the influence
Paolo Veronese must have had upon Boucher, a hint from Arabella which
she had announced as an inspiration of her own.
She had tea-gowns made to suit this period, and adopted the stately
movements which were evidently the attribute of that time.
John Derringham thought her superb. If he had been really in love with
her, he might have seen through her--and not cared--just as if she had
not attracted him at all, he would certainly have taken her measure and
enjoyed laying pitfalls for her. But as it was, his will was always
trying to augment his inclination. He was too busy to analyze the real
meaning of any woman, and until the Professor's words about the divorce
and the Misses La Sarthe's view of the affair, it had never even struck
him that there could be one single aspect of Mrs. Cricklander's case
which he might have to blink at. He had told himself he had better marry
a rich woman, since his old maternal uncle, Joseph Scroope, had just
taken unto himself a young wife and might any day have an heir. And this
was his only other possible source of fortune.
Mrs. Cricklander seemed the most advantageous bargain looming upon the
horizon. She was of proved entertaining capabilities. She had passed her
examination in the power of being a perfect hostess. She had undoubted
and expanding social talents. Women did not dislike her; she was very
vivid, very handsome, very rich. What more could a man who in his
innermost being had a supreme contempt for women, and a supreme belief
in himself, desire?
He had even balanced the advantages of marrying a rich American girl,
one like Miss Lutworth, for example. But such beings were unproven, and
might develop nerves and fads, which were of no consequence in the
delightful creatures with whom he passed occasional leisure hours of
recreation, but which in a wife would be a singular disadvantage. Since
he must marry--and soon--before the present Parliament broke up and his
Government went out, and there came some years of fighting from the
Opposition benches, when especially brilliant entertaining might be of
advantage to him--he knew he had better make up his mind speedily, and
take this ripe and luscious peach, which appeared more than willing to
drop into his mouth.
So, this late afternoon, aided by the scents and colors and propinquity,
he did his very best to make gradual love to her, and for some
unaccountable hideously annoying reason felt every moment more aloof. It
almost seemed at last as if he were guarding something of fine and free
that was being assailed. His dual self was fighting within his soul.
Mrs. Cricklander was experiencing all the exciting emotions which
presumably the knights of old enjoyed when engaged in a tournament. She
was not even disturbed when the dressing-gong rang and she had not yet
won. It was only a postponement of one of the most entrancing games she
had ever played in her successful life. And Mr. Hanbury-Green was going
to sit upon her left hand at dinner and would afford new flint for her
steel. He was a recent acquisition, and of undoubted coming value. His
views were in reality nearer her heart politically than those of John
Derringham. Deep down in her being was a strong class hatred--undreamed
of, and which would have been vigorously denied. She remembered the
burning rage and the vows of vengeance which had convulsed her as a
girl, because the refined and gently bred women of her own New York's
inner circle would have none of her, and how it had been her glory to
trample upon as many of them as she could, when Vincent Cricklander had
placed her as head of his fine mansion in Fifty-ninth Street, having
moved from the old family home in Washington Square. And there,
underneath, was the feeling still for those of any country who, instinct
told her, had inherited from evolution something which none of her
money, and none of her talent, and none of her indomitable will, could
buy. But of course Mr. Hanbury-Green was not to be considered, except as
a foil for her wit--a pawn in the game for the securing of John
Derringham.
Thus it was that she was able to walk in her stately way with trailing
velvets down the broad stairs of her newly acquired home with a sense of
exaltation and complacency which was unimpaired.
John Derringham, on the contrary, was rather abrupt with his valet and
spoilt two white ties, and swore at himself because his old Eton hand
had lost its cunning. But finally he too went down the shallow steps,
and, joining his hostess at the door, sailed in with her to the George I
saloon, his fine eyes shining and his bearing more arrogant than before.