* * * * *
"I assure you, my dear Lena, Mr. Zaluski is nothing less than a
Nihilist!"
The sound waves set in motion by Mrs. O'Reilly's words were tumultuously
heaving in the atmosphere when I sprang into being, a young but perfectly
formed and most promising slander. A delicious odour of tea pervaded the
drawing-room, it was orange-flower pekoe, and Mrs. O'Reilly was just
handing one of the delicate Crown Derby cups to her visitor, Miss Lena
Houghton.
"What a shocking thing! Do you really mean it?" exclaimed Miss Houghton.
"Thank you, cream but no sugar; don't you know, Mrs. O'Reilly, that it is
only Low-Church people who take sugar nowadays? But, really, now, about
Mr. Zaluski? How did you find it out?"
"My dear, I am an old woman, and I have learnt in the course of a
wandering life to put two and two together," said Mrs. O'Reilly. She had
somehow managed to ignore middle age, and had passed from her position of
renowned beauty to the position which she now firmly and constantly
claimed of many years and much experience. "Of course," she continued,
"like every one else, I was glad enough to be friendly and pleasant to
Sigismund Zaluski, and as to his being a Pole, why, I think it rather
pleased me than otherwise. You see, my dear, I have knocked about the
world and mixed with all kinds of people. Still, one must draw the line
somewhere, and I confess it gave me a very painful shock to find that he
had such violent antipathies to law and order. When he took Ivy Cottage
for the summer I made the General call at once, and before long we had
become very intimate with him; but, my dear, he's not what I thought
him--not at all!"
"Well now, I am delighted to hear you say that," said Lena Houghton, with
some excitement in her manner, "for it exactly fits in with what I always
felt about him. From the first I disliked that man, and the way he goes
on with Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If they are not engaged they
ought to be--that's all I can say."
"Engaged, my dear! I trust not," said Mrs. O'Reilly. "I had always
hoped for something very different for dear Gertrude. Quite between
ourselves, you know, my nephew John Carew is over head and ears in love
with her, and they would make a very good pair; don't you think so?"
"Well, you see, I like Gertrude to a certain extent," replied Lena
Houghton. "But I never raved about her as so many people do. Still, I
hope she will not be entrapped into marrying Mr. Zaluski; she deserves a
better fate than that."
"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. O'Reilly, with a troubled look. "And
the worst of it is, poor Gertrude is a girl who might very likely take up
foolish revolutionary notions; she needs a strong wise husband to keep
her in order and form her opinions. But is it really true that he flirts
with her? This is the first I have heard of it. I can't think how it
has escaped my notice."
"Nor I, for indeed he is up at the Morleys' pretty nearly every day. What
with tennis, and music, and riding, there is always some excuse for it. I
can't think what Gertrude sees in him, he is not even good-looking."
"There is a certain surface good-nature about him," said Mrs. O'Reilly.
"It deceived even me at first. But, my dear Lena, mark my words: that
man has a fearful temper; and I pray Heaven that poor Gertrude may have
her eyes opened in time. Besides, to think of that little gentle,
delicate thing marrying a Nihilist! It is too dreadful; really, quite
too dreadful! John would never get over it!"
"The thing I can't understand is why all the world has taken him up so,"
said Lena Houghton. "One meets him everywhere, yet nobody seems to know
anything about him. Just because he has taken Ivy Cottage for four
months, and because he seems to be rich and good-natured, every one is
ready to run after him."
"Well, well," said Mrs. O'Reilly, "we all like to be neighbourly, my
dear, and a week ago I should have been ready to say nothing but good of
him. But now my eyes have been opened. I'll tell you just how it was.
We were sitting here, just as you and I are now, at afternoon tea; the
talk had flagged a little, and for the sake of something to say I made
some remark about Bulgaria--not that I really knew anything about it, you
know, for I'm no politician; still, I knew it was a subject that would
make talk just now. My dear, I assure you I was positively frightened.
All in a minute his face changed, his eyes flashed, he broke into such a
torrent of abuse as I never heard in my life before."
"Do you mean that he abused you?"
"Dear me, no! but Russia and the Czar, and tyranny and despotism, and
many other things I had never heard of. I tried to calm him down and
reason with him, but I might as well have reasoned with the cockatoo in
the window. At last he caught himself up quickly in the middle of a
sentence, strode over to the piano, and began to play as he generally
does, you know, when he comes here. Well, would you believe it, my dear!
instead of improvising or playing operatic airs as usual, he began to
play a stupid little tune which every child was taught years ago, of
course with variations of his own. Then he turned round on the music-
stool with the oddest smile I ever saw, and said, "Do you know that air,
Mrs. O'Reilly?"
"Yes," I said; "but I forget now what it is.'"
"It was composed by Pestal, one of the victims of Russian tyranny," said
he. "The executioner did his work badly, and Pestal had to be strung up
twice. In the interval he was heard to mutter, 'Stupid country, where
they don't even know how to hang!'"
"Then he gave a little forced laugh, got up quickly, wished me good-bye,
and was gone before I could put in a word."
"What a horrible story to tell in a drawing-room!" said Lena Houghton. "I
envy Gertrude less than ever."
"Poor girl! What a sad prospect it is for her!" said Mrs. O'Reilly with
a sigh. "Of course, my dear, you'll not repeat what I have just told
you."
"Not for the world!" said Lena Houghton emphatically. "It is perfectly
safe with me."
The conversation was here abruptly ended, for the page threw open the
drawing-room door and announced 'Mr. Zaluski.'
"Talk of the angel," murmured Mrs. O'Reilly with a significant smile at
her companion. Then skilfully altering the expression of her face, she
beamed graciously on the guest who was ushered into the room, and Lena
Houghton also prepared to greet him most pleasantly.
I looked with much interest at Sigismund Zaluski, and as I looked I
partly understood why Miss Houghton had been prejudiced against him at
first sight. He had lived five years in England, and nothing pleased him
more than to be taken for an Englishman. He had had his silky black hair
closely cropped in the very hideous fashion of the present day; he wore
the ostentatiously high collar now in vogue; and he tried to be
sedulously English in every respect. But in spite of his wonderfully
fluent speech and almost perfect accent, there lingered about him
something which would not harmonise with that ideal of an English
gentleman which is latent in most minds. Something he lacked, something
he possessed, which interfered with the part he desired to play. The
something lacking showed itself in his ineradicable love of jewellery and
in a transparent habit of fibbing; the something possessed showed itself
in his easy grace of movement, his delightful readiness to amuse and to
be amused, and in a certain cleverness and rapidity of idea rarely, if
ever, found in an Englishman.
He was a little above the average height and very finely built; but there
was nothing striking in his aquiline features and dark grey eyes, and I
think Miss Houghton spoke truly when she said that he was 'Not even good-
looking.' Still, in spite of this, it was a face which grew upon most
people, and I felt the least little bit of regret as I looked at him,
because I knew that I should persistently haunt and harass him, and
should do all that could be done to spoil his life.
Apparently he had forgotten all about Russia and Bulgaria, for he looked
radiantly happy. Clearly his thoughts were engrossed with his own
affairs, which, in other words, meant with Gertrude Morley; and though,
as I have since observed, there are times when a man in love is an
altogether intolerable sort of being, there are other times when he is
very much improved by the passion, and regards the whole world with a
genial kindliness which contrasts strangely with his previous cool
cynicism.
"How delightful and home-like your room always looks!" he exclaimed,
taking the cup of tea which Mrs. O'Reilly handed to him. "I am horribly
lonely at Ivy Cottage. This house is a sort of oasis in the desert."
"Why, you are hardly ever at home, I thought," said Mrs. O'Reilly,
smiling. "You are the lion of the neighbourhood just now; and I'm sure
it is very good of you to come in and cheer a lonely old woman. Are you
going to play me something rather more lively to-day?"
He laughed.
"Ah! Poor Pestal! I had forgotten all about our last meeting."
"You were very much excited that day," said Mrs. O'Reilly. "I had no
idea that your political notions--"