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 scarce 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 still 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 enquire 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, inquiring 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: "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 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 world's envied; 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 felt my mother look 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 me whatever, not the least little thing!" She spoke with her
habitual complacency, with triumphant assurance; she smiled again, and I
could see how she wished that she hadn't so taken me up. 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 spoke 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 subject of a certain slight. "I'm sure I don't
want him!" said my mother, but Flora added some promise of how she would
handle him for his rudeness. She would clearly never explain anything by
any failure of her own appeal. There rolled over me while she took leave
of us and floated back to her friends a wave of superstitious dread. 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.