It is no wonder married men are obliged to say gallant things to other
people, if, when they get home, their wives are like that.
I tried to be agreeable to a lady who was next me. She was a Christian
Scientist, and wore glasses. She endeavored to convert me, but I was
abnormally thick-headed that day, and had to have things explained over
and over, so she gave it up at last.
Finally, when I felt I should do something desperate, a footman came to
say Lady Verningham wished to see me in her room, and I bounded up, but as
I got to the door I saw them beginning to shake their heads over her.
"Sad that dear Ianthe has such irregular habits of breakfasting in her
room; so bad for her," etc., etc. But, thank Heaven, I was soon outside in
the hall, where her maid was waiting for me.
One would hardly have recognized that it was a Montgomerie apartment, the
big room overlooking the porch, where she was located, so changed did its
aspect seem. She had numbers of photographs about, and the loveliest gold
toilet things, and lots of frilled garments, and flowers, and
scent-bottles; and her own pillows propping her up, all blue silk, and
lovely muslin embroideries; and she did look such a sweet, cosey thing
among it all, her dark hair in fluffs round her face, and an angelic lace
cap over it. She was smoking a cigarette, and writing numbers of letters
with a gold stylograph pen. The blue silk quilt was strewn with
correspondence, and newspapers, and telegraph forms. And her garment was
low-necked, of course, and thin like mine. I wondered what Alexander would
have thought if he could have seen her in contrast to Mary. I know which I
would choose if I were a man.
"Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed, looking up, and puffing smoke clouds.
"Sit on the bye-bye, snake-girl. I felt I must rescue you from the hoard
of holies below, and I wanted to look at you in the daylight. Yes, you
have extraordinary hair, and real eyelashes and complexion, too. You are a
witch thing, I can see, and we shall all have to beware of you."
I smiled. She did not say it rudely, or I should have been uppish at once.
She has a wonderful charm.
"You don't speak much, either," she continued. "I feel you are dangerous.
That is why I am being so civil to you; I think it wisest. I can't stand
girls as a rule." And she went into one of her ripples of laughter. "Now
say you will not hurt me."
"I should not hurt any one," I said. "Unless they hurt me first, and I
like you, you are so pretty."
"That is all right," she said. "Then we are comrades. I was frightened
about Robert last evening, because I am so attached to him; but you were a
darling after dinner, and it will be all right now. I told him you would
probably marry Malcolm Montgomerie, and he was not to interfere."
"I shall do nothing of the kind!" I exclaimed, moving off the bed. "I
would as soon die as spend the rest of my life here at Tryland."
"He will be fabulously rich one day, you know, and you could get round
père Montgomerie in a trice, and revolutionize the whole place. You had
better think of it."
"I won't," I said, and I felt my eyes sparkle. She put up her hands as if
to ward off an evil spirit, and she laughed again. "Well, you sha'n't
then. Only don't flash those emeralds at me; they give me quivers all
over."
"Would _you_ like to marry Malcolm?" I asked and I sat down again. "Fancy
being owned by that! Fancy seeing it every day! Fancy living with a person
who never sees a joke from week's end to week's end! Oh!"
"As for that--" and she puffed smoke. "Husbands are a race apart--there
are men, women, and husbands; and if they pay bills, and shoot big game in
Africa, it is all one ought to ask of them; to be able to see jokes is
superfluous. Mine is most inconvenient, because he generally adores me,
and at best only leaves me for a three weeks' cure at Homburg, and now and
then a week at Paris; but Malcolm could be sent to the Rocky Mountains,
and places like that, continuously; he is quite a sportsman."
"That is not my idea of a husband," I said.
"Well, what is your idea, snake-girl?"
"Why do you call me 'snake-girl'?" I asked. "I hate snakes."
She took her cigarette out of her mouth, and looked at me for some
seconds.
"Because you are so sinuous; there is not a stiff line about your
movements, you are utterly wicked-looking and attractive, too, and
un-English, and what in the world Aunt Katherine asked you here for with
those hideous girls I can't imagine. I would not have, if my three angels
were grown up, and like them--" Then she showed me the photographs of her
three angels--they are pets.
But my looks seemed to bother her, for she went back to them.
"Where do you get them from? Was your mother some other nation?"
I told her how poor mamma had been rather an accident, and was nobody
much. "One could not tell, you see; she might have had any quaint creature
beyond the grand-parents--perhaps I am mixed with Red Indian or nigger."
She looked at me searchingly.
"No, you are not; you are Venetian. That is it--some wicked, beautiful
friend of a Doge, come to life again."
"I know I am wicked," I said. "I am always told it; but I have not done
anything yet, or had any fun out of it, and I do want to."
She laughed again.
"Well, you must come to London with me when I leave here on Saturday, and
we will see what we can do."
This sounded so nice, and yet I had a feeling that I wanted to refuse; if
there had been a tone of patronage in her voice, I would have in a minute.
We sat and talked a long time, and she did tell me some interesting
things. The world, she assured me, was a delightful place if one could
escape bores, and had a good cook and a few friends. After a while I left
her, as she suddenly thought she would come down to luncheon.
"I don't think it would be safe, at the present stage, to leave you alone
with Robert," she said.