Louis Lawrence was exceedingly uncomfortable during the next few
minutes, and to add to his misery, he was quite conscious that he had
nothing to complain of. It was natural that he should not know the
people in Bar Harbour, excepting those whom he had known before, and
that he should be in complete ignorance of all projected gaieties.
Of course no one had suggested to the Reveres, for instance, to ask
him to their dance; because they were Boston people, they did not
know him, and nobody was aware that he was within reach. Besides,
Louis Lawrence was a very insignificant personage, though he was
well-connected, well-bred, and not ill-looking. He was just now a
mere struggling artist, with no money except in the questionable
future, and if he had talent, it was problematical, since he had not
distinguished himself in any way as yet.
He remembered all these things, but they did not console him. In
order not to seem rude, he made vague remarks from time to time, when
something occurred to him to say, but he inwardly wished Brinsley a
speedy departure and a fearful end. Fanny seemed amused and
interested by the man's conversation, and she herself talked
fluently. Now and then Brinsley looked at Lawrence, really surprised
by the latter's ignorance of everything in the nature of sport, and
possibly with a passing contempt which Lawrence noticed and proceeded
to exaggerate in importance. The artist was on the point of asking
Fanny's permission to go and find the room allotted to him, when a
sound of women's voices, high and low, came through the open windows.
There was an audible little confusion in the hall, and the three Miss
Miners entered the library one after the other in quick succession.
"Oh, Mr. Brinsley!" exclaimed Miss Cordelia, the eldest, coming
forward with a pale smile which showed many of her very beautiful
teeth.
"Mr. Brinsley is here," said Miss Elizabeth, the ugly one, in an
undertone to Miss Augusta, who possessed the accomplishments.
Then they also advanced and shook hands with much cordiality, the
remains of which were promptly offered to Lawrence. Mr. Brinsley did
not seem in the least overpowered by the sudden entrance of the three
old maids. He smiled, moved up several chairs to the tea-table, and
laughed agreeably over each chair, though Lawrence could not see that
there was anything to laugh at. Brinsley's vitality was tremendous,
and his manners were certainly very good, so that he was a useful
person in a drawing-room. His assurance, if put to the test, would
have been found equal to most emergencies. But on the present
occasion he had no need of it. It was evidently his mission to be
worshipped by the three Miss Miners and to be liked by Miss
Trehearne, who did not like everybody.
"I'm sure we've missed the best part of your visit," said Miss
Cordelia.
"Oh no," answered Brinsley, promptly. "I've only just come--at least
it seems so to me," he added, smiling at Fanny across the tea-table.
Lawrence thought he must have been in the room more than half an
hour, but the sisters were all delighted by the news that their idol
meant to stay some time longer.
"How nice it would be if everybody made such speeches!" sighed Miss
Augusta to Lawrence, who was next to her. "Such a charming way of
making Fanny feel that she talks well! I'm sure he's really been
here some time."
"He has," answered Lawrence, absently and without lowering his voice
enough, for Brinsley immediately glanced at him.
"We've been having such a pleasant talk about the dogs and horses,"
said the Canadian, willing to be disagreeable to the one other man
present. "I'm afraid we've bored Mr. Lawrence to death, Miss
Trehearne--he doesn't seem to care for those things as much as we do."
"I don't know anything about them," answered the young man.
"I'm afraid you'll bore yourself in Bar Harbour, then," observed Mr.
Brinsley. "What can you find to do all day long?"
"Nothing. I'm an artist."
"Ah? That's very nice--you'll be able to go out sketching with Miss
Augusta--long excursions, don't you know? All day--"
"Oh, I shouldn't dare to suggest such a thing!" cried Miss Augusta.
"I'm sure I should be very happy, if you'd like to go," said
Lawrence, politely facing the dreadful possibility of a day with her
in the woods, while Brinsley would in all likelihood be riding with
Fanny or taking her out in a catboat.
But Miss Augusta paid little attention to him, so long as Brinsley
was talking, which was most of the time. The man did not say
anything worth repeating, but Lawrence knew that he was far from
stupid in spite of his empty talk. At last Lawrence merely looked
on, controlling his nervousness as well as he could and idly watching
the faces of the party. Brinsley talked on and on, twisting to
pieces the stem of a flower which he had worn in his coat, but which
had unaccountably broken off.
Lawrence wondered whether Fanny, too, could be under the charm, and
he watched her with some anxiety. There was something oddly
inscrutable in the young girl's face and in her quiet eyes that did
not often smile, even when she laughed. He had the strong
impression, and he had felt it before, that she was very well able to
conceal her real thoughts and intentions, behind a mask of genuine
frankness and straightforwardness. There are certain men and women
who possess that gift. Without ever saying a word which even faintly
suggests prevarication, they have a masterly reticence about what
they do not wish to have known, whereby their acquaintances are
sometimes more completely deceived than they could be by the most
ingenious falsehood. Lawrence was quite unable to judge from Fanny's
face whether she liked Brinsley or not, but he was wounded by a
certain deference, if that word be not too strong, which she showed
for the man's opinion, and which contrasted slightly with the
dictatorial superiority which she assumed towards Lawrence himself.
He consoled himself as well as he could with the reflection that he
really knew nothing about dogs, horses, or boats, and that Brinsley
was certainly his master in all such knowledge.
As an artist, he could not but admire the perfect proportions of the
visitor, the strength of him, and the satisfactory equilibrium of
forces which showed itself in his whole physical being; but as a
gentleman he was repelled by something not easily defined, and as a
lover he suspected a rival. He had not much right, indeed, to
believe that Fanny Trehearne cared especially for him, any more than
to predicate that she was in love with Brinsley. But, being in love
himself, he very naturally arrogated to himself such a right without
the slightest hesitation, and he boldly asserted in his heart that
Brinsley was nothing but a very handsome 'cad,' and that Fanny
Trehearne was on the verge of marrying him.
The conversation, meanwhile, was lively to the ear, if not to the
intelligence. It was amazing to see how the three spinsters
flattered their darling at every turn. Miss Cordelia led the chorus
of praise, and her sisters, to speak musically, took up the theme,
and answer, and counter-theme of the fugue, successively, in many
keys. There was nothing that Mr. Brinsley did not know and could not
do, according to the three Miss Miners, or if there were anything, it
could not be worth knowing or doing.
"You'll flatter Mr. Brinsley to death," laughed Fanny, "though I must
say that he bears it well."
A faint shade of colour rose in Miss Cordelia's pale cheeks,
indicative of indignation.
"Fanny!" she cried reprovingly. "How rude you are! I'm sure I
wasn't saying anything at all flattering."
"I only wish people would say such things to me, then!" retorted the
young girl.
"We're all quite ready to, I'm sure, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley,
smiling in a way that seemed to make his heavy dark mustache retreat
outward, up his cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat when it grins.
Fanny looked round and met Lawrence's eyes.
"You seem to be the only one who is ready," she said, laughing again.
"One isn't a crowd, as the little boys say."
"Where do you get such expressions, my dear child?" asked Cordelia.
"I really think you've learned more slang since you've been here this
summer, though I shouldn't have believed it possible!"
"There!" exclaimed Fanny, turning to Mr. Brinsley again. "That's the
kind of flattery my relatives lavish on me from morning till night!
As if you didn't all talk slang, the whole time!"
"Fanny!" protested Augusta, whose accomplishments made her sensitive
and conscious. "How can you say so?"
"Well--dialect, if you like the word better. I'll prove it you. You
all say 'won't' and 'shan't'--and most of you say 'I'd like'--for
instance--and Mr. Brinsley says 'ain't,' because he's English--"
"Well--what ought we to say?" asked Augusta. "Nobody says 'I will
not,' and all that."
"You ought to. It's dialect not to--and the absurd thing is that
people who go in for writing books generally write out all the things
you don't say, and write them in the wrong order. We say 'wouldn't
you'--don't we? Well, doesn't that stand for 'would not you'? And
yet they print 'would you not'--always. It's ridiculous. I read a
criticism the other day on a man who had written a book and who wrote
'will not you' for 'won't you' and 'would not you' for 'wouldn't you'
because he wanted to be accurate. You've no idea what horrid things
the critic said of him--he simply stood on his hind legs and pawed
the air! It's so silly! Either we should speak as we write, or
write as we speak. I don't mean in philosophy--and things--the
steam-engine and the descent of man, and all that--but in writing out
conversations. But then, of course, nobody will agree with me--so I
talk as I please."
"There's a great deal of truth in what you say, Miss Trehearne,"
observed Brinsley, assuming a wise air. "Besides, I beg to differ
from Miss Miner, on one point--I venture to say that I don't dislike
your slang, if it's slang at all. It's expressive, of its kind."
"At last!" cried Fanny, with a laugh. "I get some praise--faint, but
perceptible."
"Faint praise isn't supposed to be complimentary," observed Lawrence,
laughing too.
"That's true," answered Fanny. "It's just the opposite--the thing
with a d-- I won't say it on account of Cordelia. She'd all frizzle
up with horror if I said it--wouldn't you, dear? There'd positively
be nothing left of you--nothing but a dear little withered rose-leaf
with a dewdrop in the middle, representing your tears for my sins!"
"I'm afraid so," answered Cordelia, with a little accentuation of her
tired smile.
It was not a disagreeable smile in itself, except that it was
perpetual and was the expression of patiently and cheerfully borne
adversity, rather than of any satisfaction with things in general.
For the lives of the three Miss Miners had not been happy. Sometimes
Fanny felt a sincere and loving pity for the three, and especially
for the eldest. But there were also times when Cordelia's smile
exasperated her beyond endurance.
Mr. Brinsley rose to go, rather suddenly, after checking a movement
of his hand in the direction of his watch. "You're not going,
surely!" cried one or two of the Miss Miners. "You're coming to
dinner."
"Stay as you are," suggested Fanny, greatly to Lawrence's annoyance.
"You're awfully kind," answered the Canadian. "But I can't,
to-night. I wish I could. I've asked several people to dine with me
at the Kebo Valley Club. I'd cut any other engagement, to dine with
you--indeed I would. I'm awfully sorry."
Many regrets were expressed that he could not stay, and the
leave-taking seemed sudden to Lawrence, who stood looking on, still
wondering why he disliked the man so much. At last he heard the
front door closed behind him.
"Who is Mr. Brinsley?" he asked of Fanny Trehearne, while the three
Miss Miners were settling themselves again.
"Oh--I don't know. I believe he's a Canadian Englishman. He's very
agreeable--don't you think so?"
"He's the most delightful man I ever met!" sighed Augusta Miner,
before Lawrence had time to say anything.
"Did you notice his eyes, Mr. Lawrence?" asked Miss Elizabeth.
"Don't you think they're beautiful?"
"Beautiful? Well--it depends," Lawrence answered with considerable
hesitation, for he did not in the least know what to say.
"Oh, but it isn't his eyes, nor his conversation!" put in Cordelia,
emphatically. "It is that he's such a perfect gentleman! You feel
that he wouldn't do anything that wasn't quite--quite--don't you
know?"
"I'm not sure that I do," replied Lawrence, in some bewilderment.
"But I understand what you mean," he added confidently.
"My dear," said Augusta to her eldest sister, "all that is perfectly
true, as I always say. But those are not the things that make him
the most charming man I ever met. Oh dear, no! Ever so many men one
knows have good eyes, and talk well, and are gentlemen in every way.
I'm sure you wouldn't have a man about if he wasn't a gentleman.
Would you?"
"Oh no--in a wider sense--all the men we have to do with are, of
course--"
"Well," argued Augusta, "that's just what I'm telling you, my dear.
It isn't those things. It lies much deeper. It's a sort of refined
appreciation--an appreciative refinement--both, you know. Now, the
other day, do you remember?--when I was playing that Mazurka of
Chopin--did you notice his expression?"
"But he always has that expression when anything pleases him very
much," said Miss Elizabeth.
"Yes, I know. But just then, it was quite extraordinary--there's
something almost childlike--"
"If you go on about Mr. Brinsley in this way much longer, you'll all
have a fit," observed Fanny Trehearne.
"My dear," answered Cordelia, gravely, "do you know what a 'fit'
means? Really, sometimes, you do exaggerate--"
"A fit means convulsions--what babies have, you know. They used to
say it was brought on by looking at the moon."
Lawrence felt a strong inclination to laugh at this moment, but he
controlled it, and only smiled. Then, to his considerable
embarrassment, they all appealed to him, probably in the hope of more
praise for Brinsley.
"Do tell us how he strikes you, Mr. Lawrence," said Cordelia.
"Yes, do!" echoed Elizabeth.
"Oh, please do!" cried Augusta, at the same moment.
"I should be curious to know what you think of him," said Fanny
Trehearne.
"Well, really," stammered the unfortunate young man, "I've hardly
seen him--I've not had time to form an opinion--you must know him,
and you all like him, and--it seems to me--that settles it. Doesn't
it?"
While Lawrence was speaking, Miss Cordelia stooped and picked
something up from the floor. He noticed that it was the leafless
stem of the flower which Brinsley had been twisting in his fingers.
She did not throw it away, but her hand closed over it, and Lawrence
did not see it again.