This conversation occurred the night before I went back to town. I
settled on the morrow to take a late train, so that I had still my
morning to spend at Folkestone, where during the greater part of it I
was out with my mother. Every one in the place was as usual out with
some one else, and even had I been free to go and take leave of her I
should have been sure that Flora Saunt would not be at home. Just where
she was I presently discovered: she was at the far end of the cliff, the
point at which it overhangs the pretty view of Sandgate and Hythe. Her
back however was turned to this attraction; it rested with the aid
of her elbows, thrust slightly behind her so that her scanty little
shoulders were raised toward her ears, on the high rail that inclosed
the down. Two gentlemen stood before her whose faces we couldn’t see but
who even as observed from the rear were visibly absorbed in the charming
figure-piece submitted to them. I was freshly struck with the fact that
this meagre and defective little person, with the cock of her hat
and the flutter of her crape, with her eternal idleness, her
eternal happiness, her absence of moods and mysteries and the pretty
presentation of her feet, which especially now in the supported slope
of her posture occupied with their imperceptibility so much of the
foreground--I was reminded anew, I say, how our young lady dazzled by
some art that the enumeration of her merits didn’t explain and that
the mention of her lapses didn’t affect. Where she was amiss nothing
counted, and where she was right everything did. I say she was wanting
in mystery, but that after all was her secret. This happened to be my
first chance of introducing her to my mother, who had not much left in
life but the quiet look from under the hood of her chair at the things
which, when she should have quitted those she loved, she could still
trust to make the world good for them. I wondered an instant how much
she might be moved to trust Flora Saunt, and then while the chair stood
still and she waited I went over and asked the girl to come and speak
to her. In this way I saw that if one of Flora’s attendants was the
inevitable young Hammond Synge, master of ceremonies of her regular
court, always offering the use of a telescope and accepting that of a
cigar, the other was a personage I had not yet encountered, a small pale
youth in showy knickerbockers, whose eyebrows and nose and the glued
points of whose little moustache were extraordinarily uplifted and
sustained. I remember taking him at first for a foreigner and for
something of a pretender: I scarcely know why, unless because of the
motive I felt in the stare he fixed on me when I asked Miss Saunt to
come away. He struck me a little as a young man practising the social
art of “impertinence”; but it didn’t matter, for Flora came away with
alacrity, bringing all her prettiness and pleasure and gliding over the
grass in that rustle of delicate mourning which made the endless variety
of her garments, as a painter could take heed, strike one always as the
same obscure elegance. She seated herself on the floor of my mother’s
chair, a little too much on her right instep as I afterwards gathered,
caressing her stiff hand, smiling up into her cold face, commending
and approving her without a reserve and without a doubt. She told her
immediately, as if it were something for her to hold on by, that she was
soon to sit to me for a “likeness,” and these words gave me a chance to
inquire if it would be the fate of the picture, should I finish it, to
be presented to the young man in the knickerbockers. Her lips, at
this, parted in a stare; her eyes darkened to the purple of one of the
shadow-patches on the sea. She showed for the passing instant the face
of some splendid tragic mask, and I remembered for the inconsequence of
it what Mrs. Meldrum had said about her sight. I had derived from this
lady a worrying impulse to catechise her, but that didn’t seem exactly
kind; so I substituted another question, inquired who the pretty young
man in knickerbockers might happen to be.
“Oh, a gentleman I met at Boulogne. He has come over to see me.” After a
moment she added: “He’s Lord Iffield.”
I had never heard of Lord Iffield, but her mention of his having been
at Boulogne helped me to give him a niche. Mrs. Meldrum had incidentally
thrown a certain light on the manners of Mrs. Floyd-Taylor, Flora’s
recent hostess in that charming town, a lady who, it appeared, had a
special vocation for helping rich young men to find a use for their
leisure. She had always one or other in hand and she had apparently on
this occasion pointed her lesson at the rare creature on the opposite
coast. I had a vague idea that Boulogne was not a resort of the
aristocracy; at the same time there might very well have been a strong
attraction there even for one of the darlings of fortune. I could
perfectly understand in any case that such a darling should be drawn to
Folkestone by Flora Saunt. But it was not in truth of these things I was
thinking; what was uppermost in my mind was a matter which, though it
had no sort of keeping, insisted just then on coming out.
“Is it true, Miss Saunt,” I suddenly demanded, “that you’re so
unfortunate as to have had some warning about your beautiful eyes?”
I was startled by the effect of my words; the girl threw back her head,
changing colour from brow to chin. “True? Who in the world says so?”
I repented of my question in a flash; the way she met it made it seem
cruel, and I saw that my mother looked at me in some surprise. I took
care, in answer to Flora’s challenge, not to incriminate Mrs. Meldrum.
I answered that the rumour had reached me only in the vaguest form and
that if I had been moved to put it to the test my very real interest in
her must be held responsible. Her blush died away, but a pair of still
prettier tears glistened in its track. “If you ever hear such a thing
said again you can say it’s a horrid lie!” I had brought on a commotion
deeper than any I was prepared for; but it was explained in some degree
by the next words she uttered: “I’m happy to say there’s nothing the
matter with any part of my body; not the least little thing!” She spoke
with her habitual complacency, with triumphant assurance; she smiled
again, and I could see that she was already sorry she had shown herself
too disconcerted. She turned it off with a laugh. “I’ve good eyes, good
teeth, a good digestion and a good temper. I’m sound of wind and limb!”
Nothing could have been more characteristic than her blush and her
tears, nothing less acceptable to her than to be thought not perfect
in every particular. She couldn’t submit to the imputation of a flaw. I
expressed my delight in what she told me, assuring her I should always
do battle for her; and as if to rejoin her companions she got up from
her place on my mother’s toes. The young men presented their backs
to us; they were leaning on the rail of the cliff. Our incident had
produced a certain awkwardness, and while I was thinking of what next
to say she exclaimed irrelevantly: “Don’t you know? He’ll be Lord
Considine.” At that moment the youth marked for this high destiny turned
round, and she went on, to my mother: “I’ll introduce him to you--he’s
awfully nice.” She beckoned and invited him with her parasol; the
movement struck me as taking everything for granted. I had heard of
Lord Considine and if I had not been able to place Lord Iffield it was
because I didn’t know the name of his eldest son. The young man took no
notice of Miss Saunt’s appeal; he only stared a moment and then on
her repeating it quietly turned his back. She was an odd creature: she
didn’t blush at this; she only said to my mother apologetically, but
with the frankest, sweetest amusement: “You don’t mind, do you? He’s a
monster of shyness!” It was as if she were sorry for every one--for Lord
Iffield, the victim of a complaint so painful, and for my mother, the
object of a trifling incivility. “I’m sure I don’t want him!” said my
mother; but Flora added some remark about the rebuke she would give
him for slighting us. She would clearly never explain anything by any
failure of her own power. There rolled over me while she took leave of
us and floated back to her friends a wave of tenderness superstitious
and silly. I seemed somehow to see her go forth to her fate; and yet
what should fill out this orb of a high destiny if not such beauty and
such joy? I had a dim idea that Lord Considine was a great proprietor,
and though there mingled with it a faint impression that I shouldn’t
like his son the result of the two images was a whimsical prayer that
the girl mightn’t miss her possible fortune.