"Like whom then?"
"Like anyone. Like me; like you; like Brissenden. Don't I satisfy you?"
I asked in a moment.
She only looked at me a little, handsome and hard. "If you wished to
satisfy me so easily you shouldn't have made such a point of working me
up. I daresay I, after all, however," she added, "notice more things
than you."
"As for instance?"
"Well, May Server last evening. I was not quite conscious at the time
that I did, but when one has had the 'tip' one looks back and sees
things in a new light."
It was doubtless because my friend irritated me more and more that I met
this with a sharpness possibly excessive. "She's perfectly natural. What
I saw was a test. And so is he."
But she gave me no heed. "If there hadn't been so many people I should
have noticed of myself after dinner that there was something the matter
with her. I should have seen what it was. She was all over the place."
She expressed it as the poor lady's other critic had done, but this
didn't shut my mouth. "Ah, then, in spite of the people, you did notice.
What do you mean by 'all over the place'?"
"She couldn't keep still. She was different from the woman one had last
seen. She used to be so calm--as if she were always sitting for her
portrait. Wasn't she in fact always being painted in a pink frock and
one row of pearls, always staring out at you in exhibitions, as if she
were saying 'Here they are again'? Last night she was on the rush."
"The rush? Oh!"
"Yes, positively--from one man to another. She was on the pounce. She
talked to ten in succession, making up to them in the most extraordinary
way and leaving them still more crazily. She's as nervous as a cat. Put
it to any man here, and see if he doesn't tell you."
"I should think it quite unpleasant to put it to any man here," I
returned; "and I should have been sure you would have thought it the
same. I spoke to you in the deepest confidence."
Mrs. Brissenden's look at me was for a moment of the least
accommodating; then it changed to an intelligent smile. "How you _are_
protecting her! But don't cry out," she added, "before you're hurt.
Since your confidence has distinguished me--though I don't quite see
why--you may be sure I haven't breathed. So I all the more resent your
making me a scene on the extraordinary ground that I've observed as well
as yourself. Perhaps what you don't like is that my observation may be
turned on _you_. I confess it is."
It was difficult to bear being put in the wrong by her, but I made an
effort that I believe was not unsuccessful to recover my good humour.
"It's not in the least to your observation that I object, it's to the
extravagant inferences you draw from it. Of course, however, I admit I
always want to protect the innocent. What does she gain, on your theory,
by her rushing and pouncing? Had she pounced on Brissenden when we met
him with her? Are you so very sure he hadn't pounced on _her_? They had,
at all events, to me, quite the air of people settled; she was not, it
was clear, at that moment meditating a change. It was we, if you
remember, who had absolutely to pull them apart."
"Is it your idea to make out," Mrs. Brissenden inquired in answer to
this, "that she has suddenly had the happy thought of a passion for my
husband?"
A new possibility, as she spoke, came to me with a whirr of wings, and I
half expressed it. "She may have a sympathy."
My interlocutress gazed at space. "You mean she may be sorry for him? On
what ground?"
I had gone too far indeed; but I got off as I could. "You neglect him
so! But what is she, at any rate," I went on, "nervous--as nervous as
you describe her--_about_?"
"About her danger; the contingency of its being fixed upon them--an
intimacy so thoroughgoing that they can scarcely afford to let it be
seen even as a mere acquaintance. Think of the circumstances--_her_
personal ones, I mean, and admit that it wouldn't do. It would be too
bad a case. There's everything to make it so. They must live on pins and
needles. Anything proved would go tremendously hard for her."
"In spite of which you're surprised that I 'protect' her?"
It was a question, however, that my companion could meet. "From people
in general, no. From me in particular, yes."
In justice to Mrs. Brissenden I thought a moment. "Well, then, let us be
fair all round. That you don't, as you say, breathe is a discretion I
appreciate; all the more that a little inquiry, tactfully pursued, would
enable you to judge whether any independent suspicion does attach. A
little loose collateral evidence _might_ be picked up; and your scorning
to handle it is no more than I should, after all, have expected of you."
"Thank you for 'after all'!" My companion tossed her head. "I know for
myself what I scorn to handle. Quite apart from that there's another
matter. You must have noticed yourself that when people are so much
liked----"
"There's a kind of general, amiable consensus of blindness? Yes--one can
think of cases. Popularity shelters and hallows--has the effect of
making a good-natured world agree not to see."
My friend seemed pleased that I so sufficiently understood. "This
evidently has been a case then in which it has not only agreed not to
see, but agreed not even to look. It has agreed in fact to look straight
the other way. They say there's no smoke without fire, but it appears
there may be fire without smoke. I'm satisfied, at all events, that one
wouldn't in connection with these two find the least little puff. Isn't
that just what makes the magnificence of their success--the success that
reduces us to playing over them with mere moonshine?" She thought of it;
seemed fairly to envy it. "I've never _seen_ such luck!"
"A rare case of the beauty of impunity _as_ impunity?" I laughed. "Such
a case puts a price on passions otherwise to be deprecated? I'm glad
indeed you admit we're 'reduced.' We _are_ reduced. But what I meant to
say just now was that if you'll continue to join in the genial
conspiracy while I do the same--each of us making an exception only for
the other--I'll pledge myself absolutely to the straight course. If
before we separate I've seen reason to change my mind, I'll loyally let
you know."
"What good will that do me," she asked, "if you _don't_ change your
mind? You won't change it if you shut your eyes to her."
"Ah, I feel I can't do that now. I _am_ interested. The proof of that
is," I pursued, "that I appeal to you for another impression of your
own. I still don't see the logic of her general importunity."
"The logic is simply that she has a terror of appearing to encourage
anyone in particular."
"Why then isn't it in her own interest, for the sake of the screen, just
to _do_ that? The appearance of someone in particular would be exactly
the opposite of the appearance of Long. Your own admission is that
that's _his_ line with Lady John."
Mrs. Brissenden took her view. "Oh, she doesn't want to do anything so
like the real thing. And, as for what he does, they don't feel in the
same way. He's not nervous."
"Then why does he go in for a screen?"
"I mean"--she readily modified it--"that he's not so nervous as May. He
hasn't the same reasons for panic. A man never has. Besides, there's not
so much in Mr. Long to show----"
"What, by my notion, has taken place? Why not, if it was precisely by
the change in him that my notion was inspired? Any change in _her_ I
know comparatively little about."
We hovered so near the case of Mr. and Mrs. Brissenden that it
positively excited me, and all the more for her sustained
unconsciousness. "Oh, the man's not aware of his own change. He doesn't
see it as we do. It's all to his advantage."
"But _we_ see it to his advantage. How should that prevent?"
"We see it to the advantage of his mind and his talk, but not to that
of----"
"Well, what?" I pressed as she pulled up.
She was thinking how to name such mysteries. "His delicacy. His
consideration. His thought _for_ her. He would think for her if he
weren't selfish. But he _is_ selfish--too much so to spare her, to be
generous, to realise. It's only, after all," she sagely went on, feeding
me again, as I winced to feel, with profundity of my own sort, "it's
only an excessive case, a case that in him happens to show as what the
doctors call 'fine,' of what goes on whenever two persons are so much
mixed up. One of them always gets more out of it than the other. One of
them--you know the saying--gives the lips, the other gives the cheek."
"It's the deepest of all truths. Yet the cheek profits too," I more
prudently argued.
"It profits most. It takes and keeps and uses all the lips give. The
cheek, accordingly," she continued to point out, "is Mr. Long's. The
lips are what we began by looking for. We've found them. They're
drained--they're dry, the lips. Mr. Long finds his improvement natural
and beautiful. He revels in it. He takes it for granted. He's sublime."