Every day, from ten in the forenoon to twelve,
Mademoiselle Sczympliça practiced or neglected the
pianoforte, according to her mood, whilst her mother
discussed household matters with the landlady, and
accompanied her to market. On the second morning
after the conversazione, Madame went out as usual.
No sooner had she disappeared in the direction of
Tottenham Court Road than Adrian Herbert crossed
from the opposite angle of the square, and knocked at
the door of the house she had just left.
Whilst he waited on the doorstep, he could hear the exercise Aurélie was playing within. It was a simple affair, such as he had often heard little girls call "five-finger" exercises; and was slowly and steadily continued as if the player never meant to stop. The door was opened by a young woman, who, not expecting visitors at that hour, and being in a slatternly condition, hid her hand in her apron when she saw Adrian.
"Will you ask Miss Szczympliça whether she can see me, if you please."
The servant hesitated, and then went into the parlor, closing the door behind her. Presently she came out, and said with some embarrassment, "Maddim Chimpleetsa is not at home, sir."
"I know that," said he. "Tell mademoiselle that I have a special reason for calling at this hour, and that I beg her to see me for a few moments." He put his hand into his pocket for half-a-crown as he spoke; but the maid was gone before he had made up his mind to give it to her. Bribing a servant jarred his sense of honor.
"If it's very particular, madamazel says will you please to walk in," said she, returning.
Adrian followed her to the parlor, a lofty, spacious apartment with old fashioned wainscoting and a fireplace framed in white marble, carved with vases and garlands. The piano stood in the middle of the room; and the carpet was rolled up in a corner, so as not to deaden the resonance of the boards. Aurélie was standing by the piano, looking at him with a curious pucker of her shrewd face.
"I hope you are not angry with me," said Herbert, with such evident delight in merely seeing her that she lowered her eyelids. "I know I have interrupted your practicing; and I have even watched to see madame go out before coming to you. But I could not endure another day like yesterday."
Aureélie hesitated; then seated herself and motioned him to a chair, which he drew close to her. "What was the the matter yesterday?" she said, coquetting in spite of herself.
"It was a day of uncertainty as to the meaning of the change in your manner towards me at Harley Street on Monday, after I had left you for a few minutes."
Aurélie made a little grimace, but did not look at him. "Why should I change?" she said.
"That is what I ask you. You did change—somebody had been telling you tales about me; and you believed them." Aurélie's eyes lightened hopefully. "Will you not charge me openly with whatever has displeased you; and so give me an opportunity to explain."
"You must have strange customs in England," she said, her eyes flashing again, this time with anger. "What right have I to charge you with anything? What interest have I in your affairs?"
"Aurélie," he exclaimed, astonished: "do you not know that I love you like a madman?"
"You never told me so," she said. "Do Englishwomen take such things for granted?" She blushed as she said so, and immediately bent her face into her hands; laughed a little and cried a little in a breath. This lasted only an instant; for, hearing Herbert's chair drawn rapidly to the side of hers, she sat erect, and checked him by a movement of her wrist.
"Monsieur Herbert: according to our ideas in my country a declaration of love is always accompanied by an offer of marriage. Do you then offer me your love, and reserve your hand for Miss Sutherland?"
"You are unjust to yourself and to me, Aurélie. I offered you only my love because I could think of nothing else. I do not expect you to love me as blindly as I love you; but will you consent to be my wife? I feel—I know by instinct that there can be no more unhappiness for me in the world if you will only call me your dearest friend." He said this in a moment of intoxication, produced by an accidental touch of her sleeve against his hand.
Aurélie became pensive. "No doubt you are our dear friend, Monsieur Herbert, We have not many friends. I do not find that there is any such thing as love"
"You do not care for me." he said, dejected.
"Indeed, you must not think so," she said quickly. "You have been so kind to us, though we are strangers. For we are strangers, are we not? You hardly know us. And you are so foreign!"
"I! I have not a drop of foreign blood in my veins. You are not accustomed to England yet. I hope you not think me too cold. Oh! I am jealous of all your countrymen!"
"You need not be, Heaven knows! We have few friends in Poland."
"Aurélie do you know that you are saving 'we,' and 'us,' as if you did not understand that I love you alone—that I am here, not as a friend of your family, but as suitor to yourself, blind to the existence of any other person in the universe. In your presence I feel as if I were alone in some gallery of great pictures, or listening in a beautiful valley to the singing of angels, yet with some indescribable rapture added to that feeling. Since I saw you, all my old dreams and enthusiasms have come to life again. You can blot them out forever, or make them everlasting with one word. Do you love me?"
She turned hesitatingly towards him, but waited to say, "And it is then wholly false what Madame Feepson said that night? "
"What did she say?" demanded Herbert, turning red with disappointment.
She drew back, and looked earnestly at him. "Madame said," she replied in a low voice, "that Miss Sutherland was your affianced."
"Let me explain," said Adrian, embarrassed. She rose at once, shocked. "Explain!" she repeated. "Oh, Monsieur, yes or no?"
"Yes, then, since you will not listen to me," he said, with some dignity. She sat down again, slowly, looking round as if for counsel.
"What shall you not think of me if I listen now?" she said, speaking for the first time in English.
"I shall think that you love me a little, perhaps. You have condemned me on a very superficial inference, Aurélie. Engagements are not irrevocable in England. May I tell you the truth about Miss Sutherland?"
Aurélie shook her head doubtfully, and said nothing. But she listened.
"I became engaged to her more than two— nearly three years ago. As I told you, her elder brother, Mr Phipson's son-in-law, is a great friend of mine; and through him I came to know her very intimately. I owe it to her to confess that her friendship sustained me through a period of loneliness and discouragement, a period in which my hand was untrained, and my acquaintances, led by my mother, were loud in their contempt for my ability as an artist and my perverseness and selfishness in throwing away opportunities of learning banking and stockbroking. Miss Sutherland is very clever and well read. She set herself to study painting with ardor when I brought it under her notice, and soon became a greater enthusiast than I. She probably exaggerated my powers as an artist: at all events I have no doubt that she gave me credit for much of the good influence upon her that was really wrought by her new acquaintance with the handiwork of great men. However that may be, we were united in our devotion to art; and I was deeply grateful to her for being my friend when I had no other. I was so lonely that, in my fear of losing her, I begged her to betroth herself to me. She consented without hesitation, though my circumstances necessitated a long engagement. That engagement has never been formally dissolved, but fulfillment of it is now impossible. Long before I saw you and found out for the first time what love really is, our relations had insensibly altered. Miss Sutherland cooled in her enthusiasm for painting as soon as she discovered that it could not be mastered like a foreign language or an era in history. She came under the influence of Mr Jack, who may be a man of genius—I am no judge of musical matters—and who is undoubtedly, in his own way, a man of honor. But he is so far from possessing the temperament of an artist, that his whole character, his way of living, and all his actions, are absolutely destructive of that atmosphere of melancholy grandeur in which great artists find their inspiration. His musical faculty, to my mind, is as extraordinary an accident as if it had occurred in a buffalo. However, Miss Sutherland turned to him for guidance in artistic matters; and doubtless he saved her the trouble of thinking for herself; for she did not question him as she had been in the habit of questioning me. Perhaps he understood her better than I. He certainly behaved towards her as I had never behaved; and, though it still seems to me that my method was the more respectful to her, he supplanted me in her regard most effectually. I do not mean to convey that he did so intentionally; for anything less suggestive of affection for any person—even for himself—than his general conduct, I cannot imagine; but she chose not to be displeased. I was hurt by her growing preference for him: it discouraged me more than the measure of success which I had begun to achieve in my profession elated me. Yet on my honor I never knew what jealousy meant until I saw you, playing Jack's music. I did not admire you for your performance, nor for the applause you gained. There are little things that an artist sees, Aurélie, that surpass brilliant fingering of the keyboard. I cannot describe them; they came home to me as you appeared on the platform; as you slipped quietly into your place; as you replied to Manlius's inquiring gesture by a look—it was not even a nod, and yet it reassured him instantly. When the music commenced you became dumb to me, though to the audience you began to speak. I only enjoyed that lovely strain in the middle of the fantasia, which by Jack's own confession, owed all its eloquence to you alone. When Mr. Phipson brought us under the orchestra and introduced us to you, I hardly had a word to say; but I did not lose a tone or a movement of yours. You were a stranger, ignorant of my language, a privileged person in a place where I was only present on sufferance. For all I knew, you might have been married. Yet I felt that there was some tie between us that far transcended my friendship with Miss Sutherland, though she was bound to me by her relationship to my old school friend, and by every coincidence of taste, culture, and position that can exist between man and woman. I knew at once that I loved you, and had never loved her. Had I met her as I met you, do you think I would have troubled Mr Phipson to introduce me to her? My jealousy of Jack vanished: I was content that he should be your composer if I might be your friend. Mary's attachment to him now became the source of my greatest happiness. His music and your playing were the attractions on which all the concerts relied. Jack went to these concerts: Mary went with Jack: I followed Mary. We always had an opportunity of speaking to you, thanks to my rival. It was he who encouraged Mary to call on you. It is to him that I owe my freedom from any serious obligation in respect of my long engagement; and hence it is through him also that I dare to come here and beg you to be my wife. Aurélie: I passed the whole of yesterday questioning myself as to the true story of my engagement, in Order that I might confess it to you with the most exact fidelity; and I believe I have told you the truth; but I could devise no speech that can convey to you what I feel towards you. Love does not describe it, it is something new—something extraordinary. There is a new sense—a new force, born in me. There are no words for it in any language:I could not tell you in my own. It—"
"I understand you very well. Your engagement with
Miss S-Sutherland—she always pronounced this name with
difficulty—"is not yet broken off?"
"Not explicitly. But if you need—"
"Hear me, Monsieur Herbert I will not come between her and her lover. But if you can affirm on your honor as an English gentleman that she no longer loves you, go and obtain an assurance from her that it is so."
"And then?"
"And then—Come back to me; and we shall see. But I do not think she will release you."
"She will. Would I have spoken to you if I had any doubts left? For, if she holds me to my word, I am, as you say, an English gentleman, and must keep it. But she will not."
"You will nevertheless go to her, and renew your offer."
"Do you mean my offer to you—or to her?"
"My God! he does not understand! Listen to me, Monsieur Herbert." Here Aurélie again resorted to the English tongue. "You must go to her and say, 'Marie: I come to fulfill my engagement.' If she reply, 'No, Monsieur Adrian, I no longer wish it,' then—then, as I have said, we shall see. But if she say 'yes,' then you must never any more come back."
"But—"
"No, no, no," murmured Aurélie, turning away her head. "It must be exactly as I have said."
"I will undertake to learn her true mind, Aurélie, and to abide by it. That I promise. But were I to follow your instructions literally, she too would hold herself bound by her word, and would say 'yes,' in spite of her heart. We should sacrifice each other and ourselves to a false sense of honor." Aurélie twisted a button of her chair, and shook her head, unconvinced. "Aurélie," he added gravely: "are you anxious to see her accept me? If so, it would be kinder to tell me so at once. Would you be so cruel as to involve me in an unhappy marriage merely to escape the unpleasantness of uttering a downright refusal?"
"Ah" she said, raising her head again, but still not looking at him, "I will not answer you. You seek to entrap me—you ask too much." Then, after a pause, "Have I not told you that if she releases you, you may return here?"
"And I may infer from that—?"
She clasped hands with a gesture of despair. "And they say these Englishmen think much of themselves! You will not believe it possible that a woman should care for you!" He hesitated even yet, until she made a sudden movement towards the door, when he seized her hand and kissed it. She drew it away quickly, checked him easily by begging him to excuse her, bowed, and left the room.
He went out elated, and had walked as far as Portland Place before he began to consider what he should say for himself at Cavendish Square, where Mary was staying with Mrs Phipson. At Fitzroy Square he had been helped by the necessity of speaking French, in which language he found it natural and easy to say many things which in English would have sounded extravagant to him. He had kissed Aurélie's hand, as it were, in French. To kiss Mary's hand would, he felt, be a ridiculous ceremony, unworthy of a civilized Englishman. A proposal to jilt her, which was the substance of his business with her now, was not easy to frame acceptably in any language.
When he reached the house he found her with her hat on and a workbag in her hand.
"I am waiting" for Miss Cairns, she said. "She is coming with me on an expedition. Guess what it is."
"I cannot. I did not know that Miss Cairns was in town."
"We have decided that the condition of Mr. Jack's wardrobe is no longer tolerable. He is away at Birmingham today; and we are going to make a descent on his lodgings with a store of buttons and darning cotton, and a bottle of benzine. We shall make his garments respectable, and he will be none the wiser. Now, Adrian, do not look serious. You are worse than an old woman on questions of propriety."
"It is a matter of taste," said Herbert, shrugging his shoulders. "Is your expedition too important to be postponed for half an hour? I want to speak to you rather particularly."
"If you wish," said Mary slowly, her face lengthening a little. She was in the humor to sally out and play a prank on Jack, not to sit down and be serious with Herbert.
"It is possible," he said, noticing this with some mortification, though it strung him up a little, too, "that when you have heard what I have to say, you will go on your expedition with a lighter heart. Nevertheless, I am sorry to detain you."
"You need not apologize," she said, irritated. "I am quite willing to wait, Adrian. What is the matter?"
"Are you quite sure we shall not be disturbed here, even by Miss Cairns?"
"If it is so particular as that, we had better go out into the Square. I cannot very well barricade myself in Mrs Phipson' drawing room. There is hardly anybody in the Square at this hour."
"Very well," said Herbert, trying to repress a sensation of annoyance which he also began to experience. They left the house together in silence, opened the gate of the circular enclosure which occupies the centre of Cavendish Square, and found it deserted except for themselves and a few children. Mary walked beside him with knitted brows, waiting for him to begin.
"Mary: if I were asking you now for the first time the question I put to you that day when we rowed on the Serpentine, would you give me the same answer?"
She stopped, bewildered by this unexpected challenge.
"If you had not put that question before today, would you put it at all?" she said, walking on again.
"For Heaven's sake," he said, angry at at being being parried, "do not let us begin to argue. I did not mean to reproach you,"
Mary thought it better not to reply. Her temper was so far under control that she could suppress the bitter speeches which suggested themselves to her, but she could not think of any soft answers, and so she had either to retort or be silent.
"I have noticed—or at least I fancy so"—he said quietly, after a pause, "that our engagement has not been so pleasant a topic as it once was."
"I am perfectly ready to fulfill it," said Mary steadfastly.
"So am I," said Adrian in the same tone. Another interval of silence ensued.
"The question is," he said then, "whether you are willing as well as ready You would do me a cruel injustice if, having promised me your heart, you were to redeem that promise with your hand alone."
"What have you to complain of, Adrian? I know that you are sensitive; but I have taken such pains to avoid giving you the least uneasiness during the last two years that I do not think you can reasonably reproach me. You agreed with me that my painting was mere waste of time, and that I was right to give it up."
"Since you no longer cared for it."
"I did not know that you felt sore about it."
"Nor do I, Mary."
"Then what is the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter, if you are satisfied."
"And is that all you had to say to me, Adrian?" This with an attempt at gaiety.
Adrian mused awhile. "Mary," he said: "I wish you in the first place to understand that I am not jealous of Mr Jack." She opened her eyes widely, and looked at him. "But," he continued, "I never was so happy with you as when we were merely friends. Since that time, I have become your professed lover; and Mr Jack has succeeded to the friendship which—without in the least intending it—I left vacant. I would willingly change places with him now."
"You ask me to break off the engagement, then," she said, half eager, half cautious.
"No. I merely feel bound to offer to release you if you desire it."
"I am ready to keep my promise," she rejoined stubbornly.
"So you say. I do not mean that you will not keep your word, but that your assurance is not given in a manner calculated to make me very happy. I often used to warn you that you thought too highly of me, Mary. You are revenging your own error on me now by letting me see that you do not think me worthy of the sacrifice you feel bound to make for me."
"I never spoke of it as a sacrifice," said Mary turning red, "I took particular care—I mean that you are groundlessly jealous of Mr Jack. If our engagement is to he broken off, Adrian, do not say that I broke it."
"I do not think that I have broken it, Mary," said Herbert, also reddening.
"Then I suppose it holds good,"she said. A long silence followed this. They walked once across the grass and half way back. There she stopped, and faced him bravely. "Adrian," she said: "I have been fencing unworthily with you. Will you release me from the engagement, and let us be friends as we were before?"
"You do wish it, then," he said, startled.
"I do; and I was hoping you would propose it yourself, and so be unable to reproach me with going back from my word. That was mean; and I came to my senses during that last turn across the square. I pledge you my word that I only want to be free to remain unmarried. It has nothing to do with Mr Jack or any other man. It is only that I should not be a good wife to you. I do not think I will marry at all. You are far too good for me, Adrian."
Herbert, ashamed of himself, stood looking at her, unable to reply.
"I know I should have told you this frankly at first," she continued anxiously. "But my want of straightforwardness only shows that I am not what you thought I was. I should be a perpetual disappointment to you if you married me. I hope I have not been too sudden. I thought—that is, I fancied— Well, I have been thinking a little about Mlle Szczympliça. If you remain friends with her, you will soon feel that I am no great loss."
"I hope it is not on her account that— "
"No, no. It is solely for the reason I have given. We are not a bit suited to one another. I assure you that I have no other motive. Are you certain that you believe me, Adrian? If you suspect me of wanting to make way for another attachment, or of being merely huffed and jealous, you must think very ill of me."
Herbert's old admiration of her stirred within him, intensified by the remorse which he felt for having himself acted as she was blaming herself for acting. He was annoyed too, because now that circumstances had tested them equally, she had done the right thing and he the wrong thing. He had always been sincere in his protests that she thought too highly of him; but he had never expected to come out of any trial meanly in comparison with her. He thought of Aurélie with a sudden dread that perhaps she saw nothing more in him than this situation had brought out. But he maintained, by habit, all his old air of thoughtful superiority as he took up the conversation.
"Mary," he said, earnestly: "I have never thought more highly of you than I do at this moment. But whatever you feel to be the right course for us is the right course. I have not been quite unprepared for this; and since it will make you happy, I am content to lose you as a wife, provided I do not lose you as a friend."
"I shall always be proud to be your friend," she said, offering him her hand. He took it, feeling quite noble again. "Now we are both free," she continued, and I can wish for your happiness without feeling heavily responsible for it. And, Adrian: when we were engaged, you gave me some presents and wrote me some letters. May I keep them?"
"I shall be very much hurt if you return them; though I suppose that you have a right to do so if you wish."
"I will keep them then." They clasped hands once again before she resumed in her ordinary tone, "I wonder has Miss Cairns been waiting for me all this time."
On the way to the house they chatted busily on indifferent matters, The servant who opened the door informed them that Miss Cairns was within. Mary entered; but Herbert did not follow.
"If you do not mind," he Said, "I think I had rather not go in." This seemed natural after what had passed. She smiled, and bade him goodbye.
"Goodbye, Mary," he said. As the door closed on her, he turned towards Fitzroy Square; a feeling of being ill and out of conceit with himself made him turn back to a restaurant in Oxford Street, where he had a chop and glass of wine. After this, his ardor suddenly revived; and he hurried towards Aurélie's residence by way of Wells Street. He soon lost his way in the labyrinth between Great Portland and Cleveland Streets, and at last emerged at Portland Road railway station. Knowing the way thence, he started afresh for Fitzroy Square. Before he had gone many steps he was arrested by his mother's voice calling him. She was coming from the station and overtook him in the Euston Road, at the corner of Southampton Street.
"What on earth are you doing in this quarter of the town?" he said, stopping, and trying to conceal how unwelcome the interruption was.
"That is a question which you have no right to ask, Adrian. People who have 'Where are you going?' and 'What are you doing?' always in their mouths are social and domestic nuisances, as I have often told you. However, I am going to buy some curtains in Tottenham Court Road. Since you have set the example, may I now ask where you are going?"
"I? I am not going anywhere in particular just at present."
"I only asked because you stopped as if you wished to turn down here. Do not let us stand in the street."
She went on; and he accompanied her. Presently she said: "Have you any news?"
"No," he replied, after pretending to consider. "I think not. Why?"
"I met Mary Sutherland with Miss Cairns in High Street as I was coming to the train; and she said that you had something to tell me about her."
"It is only that our engagement is broken off."
"Adrian!" she exclaimed, stopping so suddenly that a man walking behind them stumbled against her.
"Beg pwor'n, mum," said he, civilly, as he passed on.
"Pray take care, mother," remonstrated Herbert. "Come on."
"Do not be impatient, Adrian. My dress is torn. I believe English workmen are the rudest class in the world. Will you hold my umbrella for one moment, please?
Adrian took the umbrella and waited, chafing. When they started again, Mrs Herbert walked quickly, taking short steps.
"It is thoroughly disheartening," she said, "to find that you have undone the only sensible thing you ever did in your life. I thought your news would be that you had arranged for the wedding. I think you had better see Mary as soon as you can, and make up your foolish quarrel. She is not a girl to be trifled with."
"Everything of that kind is at an end between Mary and me. There is no quarrel. The affair is broken off finally— completely—whether it pleases you or not."
"Very well, Adrian. There is no occasion for you to be angry. I am content, if you are. I merely say that you have done a very foolish thing."
"You do not know what I have done. You know absolutely—" He checked himself and walked on in silence.
"Adrian," said Mrs. Herbert, with dignity: "you are going back to your childish habits, I think. You are in a rage."
"If I am," he replied bitterly, "you are the only person alive who takes any pleasure in putting me into one. I know that you consider me a fool."
"I do not consider you a fool."
"At any rate, mother, you have such an opinion of me me, that I would rather discuss my private affairs with any stranger than with you. Where do you intend to buy the curtains?"
Mrs. Herbert did not help him to change the subject. She remained silent for some time to compose herself; for Adrian's remark had hurt her.
"I hope," she said at last, "that these musical people have not brought about this quarrel—or breach, or whatever it is."
"Who are 'these musical people'?"
"Mr Jack."
"He had nothing whatever to do with it. It was Mary who proposed to break the engagement: not I."
"Mary! Oh! Well, it is your own fault: you should have married her long ago. But why should she object now more than another time? Has Mademoiselle—the pianist— anything to do with it?"
"With Mary's withdrawing? No. How could it possibly concern Mademoiselle Szczympliça—if it is of her that you are speaking?"
"It is of her that I am speaking. I see she has taught you the balked sneeze with which her name begins. I call her Stchimpleetza, not having had the advantage of her tuition. Where does she live?"
Herbert felt that he was caught, and frowned. "She lives in Fitzroy Square," he said shortly.
"A-ah! Indeed!" said Mrs. Herbert. Then she added sarcastically, "Do you happen to know that we are within a minute's walk of Fitzroy Square?"
"I know it perfectly well. I am going there—to see her."
"Adrian," said his mother quickly, changing her tone: "you don't mean anything serious, I hope?"
"You do not hope that I am trifling with her, do you, mother?"
Mrs. Herbert looked at him, startled. "Do you mean to say, Adrian, that you have thrown Mary over because— "
"Because it's well to off with the old love, before you you are on with the new? You may put that construction on it if you like, although I have told you that it was Mary, and not I, who ended the engagement. I had better tell you the whole truth now, to avoid embittering our next meeting with useless complaints. I am going to ask Mademoiselle Szczympliça to be my wife.
"You foolish boy. She will not accept you. She is making a fortune, and does not wish to marry."
"She may not need to. She wishes to: that is enough for me. She knows my mind. I am not going to change it. "
"I suppose not. I know of old your obstinacy when you are bent on ruining yourself. I have no doubt that you will marry her, particularly as she is not exactly the sort of person I should choose for a daughter=in-law. Will you expect me to receive her?"
"I shall trouble your house no more when I am married than I have done as a bachelor."
She shrank for a moment, taken by surprise by this blow; but she did not retort. They presently stopped before the shop she wished to visit and as they stood together near the entry, she made an effort to speak kindly, and even put her hand caressingly on his arm. "Adrian: do not be so headstrong. Wait a little, I do not say 'give her up.' But wait a little longer. For my sake."
Adrian bent his brows and collected all his hardness to resist this appeal. "Mother," he said: "I never had a cherished project yet that you did not seek to defeat by sarcasms, by threats, and failing those, by cajolery." Mrs. Herbert quickly took her hand away, and drew back. "And it has always turned out that I was right and that you were wrong. You would not allow that I could ever be a painter; and yet I am now able to marry without your assistance, by my success as a painter. I took one step which gained your approval—my engagement to Mary. Had I married her, I should be this day a wretched man. Now that I have the happiness to be loved by a lady whom all Europe admires, you would have me repudiate her, for no other reason that I can see under Heaven than that you make it your fixed principle to thwart me in everything. I am sorry to have to tell you plainly that I have come to look upon your influence as opposed to my happiness. It has been at the end of my tongue often; and you have forced me to let it slip at last."
Mrs. Herbert listened attentively during this speech and for some seconds afterwards. Then she roused herself; made a gesture of acquiescence without opening her lips; and went into the shop, leaving him still angry, yet in doubt as to whether he had spoken wisely. But the interview had excited him; and from it and all other goading thoughts he turned to anticipations of his reception by Aurélie. Short though the distance was he drove to her in a hansom.
"Can I see Miss Szczympliça again?" he said to the servant, who now received him with interest, guessing that he came courting.
"She's in the drawing-room, sir. You may go in."
He went in and found Aurélie standing near the window in a black silk dress. which she had put on since his visit in the morning.
"Mr Erberts, mum;" said the servant. Lingering at the door to witness their meeting. Aurélie turned; made him a stately bow, and by a gesture, invited him to sit also. He obeyed; but when the door was shut, he got up and approached her.
"Aurélie, she begged me to break off the engagement, although, as you bade me, I offered to fulfill it. I am perfectly free— only for the instant, I hope." She rose gravely. "Mademoiselle Szczympliç" he added, changing his familiarly eager manner to one of earnest politeness,"will you do me the honor to become my wife?"
"With pleasure, Monsieur Herbert, if my mother approves."
He was not sure what he ought to do next. After a moment, he stooped and kissed her hand. Catching a roguish look in her face as he looked up, he clasped her in his arms and kissed her repeatedly.
"Enough Monsieur," she said, laughing and disengaging herself. He then sat down, thinking that she had behaved with admirable grace, and he himself If with becoming audacity. "I thought you would expect me to be very cold and ceremonious," she said, resuming her seat composedly. "In England one must always be solemn, I said to myself. But indeed you have as little self-command as anyone. Besides, you have not yet spoken to my mother."
"You do not anticipate any objection from her, I hope."
"How do I know? And your parents, what of them? I have seen your mother: she is like a great lady. It is only in England that such handsome mothers are to be seen. She is widowed, is she not?"
"Yes. I have no father. I wish to Heaven I had no mother either."
"Oh, Monsieur Herbert! You are very wrong to say so. And such a gracious lady, too! Fie!"
"Aurélie: I am not jesting. Can you not understand that a mother and son may be so different in their dispositions that neither can sympathize with the other? It is my great misfortune to be such a son. I have found sympathetic friendship, encouragement, respect, faith in my abilities and love—" here he slipped his arm about her waist; and she murmured a remonstrance—"from strangers upon whom I had no claim. In my mother I found none of them: she felt nothing for me but a contemptuous fondness which I did not care to accept. She is a clever woman, impatient of sentiment, and fond of her own way. My father, like myself, was too diffident to push himself arrogantly through the world; and she despised him for it, thinking him a fool. When she saw that I was like him, she concluded that I, too, was a fool, and that she must arrange my life for me in some easy, lucrative, genteel, brainless, conventional way. I hardly ever dared to express the most modest aspiration, or assert the most ordinary claims to respect, for fear of exciting her quiet ridicule. She did not know how much her indifference tortured me, because she had no idea of any keener sensitiveness than her own. Everybody commits follies from youth and want of experience; and I hope most people humor and spare such follies as tenderly as they can. My mother did not even laugh at them. She saw through them and stamped them out with open contempt. She taught me to do without her consideration; and I learned the lesson. My friends will tell you that I am a bad son —never that she is a bad mother, or rather no mother. She has the power of bringing out everything that is hasty and disagreeable in my nature by her presence alone. This is why I wish I were wholly an orphan, and why I ask you, who are more to me than all the world besides, to judge me by what you see of me, and not by the reports you may hear of my behavior towards my own people."
"Oh, it is frightful. My God! To hate your mother! If you do not love her, how will you love your wife?"
"With all the love my mother rejected, added to what you have yourself inspired. But I am glad you are surprised. You must be very fond of your own mother."
"That is so different,"said Aurélie with a shrug, "Mother and son is a sacred relation. Mothers and daughters are fond of each other in an ordinary way as a matter of course. You must ask her pardon. Suppose she should curse you."
"Parental curses are out of fashion in England," said Adrian, amused, and yet a little vexed. "You will understand us better after a little while. Let us drop the subject of my old grievances. Are you fond of pictures, Aurélie?"
"You are for ever asking me that. Yes, I am very fond of some pictures. I have seen very few."
But you have been in Dresden, in Munich, in Paris?"
"Yes. But I was playing everywhere—I had not a moment to myself. I intended to go to the gallery in Dresden; but I had to put it off. Are there any good pictures at Munich?"
"Have you not seen them?"
"No. I did not know of them. When I was in Paris, I went one day to the Louvre; but I could only stay half an hour; and I did not see much. I used to be able to draw very well. Is it hard to paint?"
"It is the most difficult art in the world, Aurélie."
"You are laughing at me. Why, there are not a dozen players—real players—in Europe; and every city is full of painters."
"Real painters, Aurélie?"
"Ah! perhaps not. I suppose there are second-rate painters, just like second-rate players. Is it not so, Me—Meestare Adrian?"
"You must not call me that, Aurélie. People who like each other never say 'Mister.' You say you used to draw?"
"Yes. Soldiers, and horses, and people whom we knew. Shall I draw you?"
By all means. How shall I sit? Profile?"
"You need not sit for me. I am not going to copy you: I am only going to make a little likeness. I can draw dark men as well as fair. You shall see."
She took a piece of music, and set to work with a pencil on the margin. In a minute she shewed him two scratchy sketches, vilely drawn, but amusingly like Herbert and Jack.
"I can just recognize myself, " he said, examining them them; "but that one of Jack is capital. Ha! ha!" Then he added sadly, "Professed painter as I am, I could not do that. Portraiture is my weak point. But I would not have left Dresden without seeing the Madonna di San Sisto."
"Bah! Looking at pictures cannot make me draw well, no more than listening to others could make me play. But indeed I would have gone to the gallery had I foreseen that I should meet you. My God! Do not kiss me so suddenly. It is droll to think how punctilious and funereal you were the other day; and now you have less manners than a Cossack. Are you easily offended, Monsieur Adrian?"
"I hope not," he replied. taken aback by a change in manner as she asked the question."If you mean easily offended by you, certainly not. Easily hurt or easily pleased, yes. but not offended, my darling."
"Mäi—mä—” what is that you said in English?
"Nothing. You can look it up in the dictionary when I am gone. But what am I to be offended at?"
"Only this. I want you to go away."
"So soon!"
"Yes. I have not said anything to my mother yet. She will question me the moment she sees me in this dress. You must not be here then. Tomorrow you will call on her at four o'clock; and all will be well. Now go. I expect her every moment."
"May I see you before to-morrow afternoon?"
"Why should you? I go to-night to play at the house of a great dame, Lady Gerald line Porter, who is the daughter of a nobleman and the wife of a baronet. My mother loves to be among such people. She will tell you all about our ancestry to-morrow."
"Aurélie: I shall meet you there. Lady Geraldine is mother's cousin and close friend, on which account I have not sought much after her. But she told me once that she would waste no more invitations on me—I never accepted them—but that I was welcome to come when I pleased. I shall please tonight, Aurélie. Hurrah!"
"Heaven! you are all fire and flame in a moment. You will remember that at Lady Geraldine's we are to be as we were before today. You will behave yourself?"
"Of course."
"Now go, I beg of you. If you delay, you will— what is the matter now?"
"It has just come into my mind that my mother may be at Lady Geraldine's. If so, would you mind—In short, do not let Madame Szczympliça speak to her of our engagement. Of course you will say nothing yourself."
"Not if you do not wish me to," said Aurélie, drawing back a step.
"You see, my darling, as I have not yet spoken to your mother, it would be a great breach of etiquette for you or Madame to pretend to know my intentions. That is nonsense, of course; but you know how formal we are in this country."
"Oh, is that the reason? I am glad you told me; and I shall be very careful. So will my mother. Now go quickly. Au revoir"