"She is a little pale this evening," said Irene to Mrs. Travis.

The other a.s.sented; then asked:

"Why don't you paint her portrait?"

"Heaven forbid! I have quite enough discouragement in my attempts at painting, as it is."

M. Silvenoire was bowing low, as Mrs. Lessingham presented him. To his delight, he heard his own language fluently, idiomatically spoken; he remarked, too, that Mrs. Elgar had a distinct pleasure in speaking it.

She seated herself, and flattered him into ecstasies by the respect with which she received his every word. She had seen it mentioned in the _Figaro_ that a new play of his was in preparation; when was it likely to be put on the stage? The theatre in London--of course, he understood that no one took it _au serieux_?

The Parisian could do nothing but gaze about the room, following her movements, when their dialogue was at an end. Mon Dieu! And who, then, was Mr. Elgar? Might not one hope for an invitation to madame's a.s.semblies? A wonderful people, these English, after all.

Mr. Bickerdike secured, after much impatience, the desired introduction. For reasons of his own, he made no mention of his earlier acquaintance with Elgar. Did she know of it? In any case she appeared not to, but spoke of things which did not interest Mr. Bickerdike in the least. At length he was driven to bring forward the one subject on which he desired her views.

"Have you, by chance, read my book, Mrs. Elgar?"

M. Silvenoire would have understood her smile; the Englishman thought it merely amiable, and prepared for the accustomed compliment.

"Yes, I have read it, Mr. Bickerdike. It seemed to me a charmingly written romance."

The novelist, seated upon too low a chair, leaning forward so that his knees and chin almost touched, was not in himself a very graceful object; the contrast with his neighbour made him worse than grotesque.

His visage was disagree ably animal as it smiled with condescension.

"You mean something by that," he remarked, with awkward attempt at light fencing.

There was barely a perceptible movement of Cecily's brows.

"I try to mean something as often as I speak," she said, in an amused tone.

"In this ease it is a censure. You take the side of those who find fault with my idealism."

"Not so; I simply form my own judgment."

Mr. Bickerdike was nervous at all times in the society of a refined woman; Mrs. Elgar's quiet rebuke brought the perspiration to his forehead, and made him rub his hands together. Like many a better man, he could not do justice to the parts he really possessed, save when sitting in solitude with a sheet of paper before him. Though he had a confused perception that Mrs. Elgar was punishing him for forcing her to speak of his book, he was unable to change the topic and so win her approval for his tact. In the endeavour to seem at ease, he became blunt.

"And what has your judgment to say on the subject?"

"I think I have already told you, Mr. Bickerdike."

"You mean by a romance a work that is not soiled with the common realism of to-day."

"I am willing to mean that."

"But you will admit, Mrs. Elgar, that my mode of fiction has as much to say for itself as that which you prefer?"

"In asking for one admission you take for granted another. That is a little confusing."

It was made sufficiently so to Mr. Bickerdike. He thrust out his long legs, and exclaimed:

"I should be grateful to you if you would tell me what your view of the question really is--I mean, of the question at issue between the two schools of fiction."

"But will you first make clear to me the characteristics of the school you represent?"

"It would take a long time to do that satisfactorily. I proceed on the a.s.sumption that fiction is poetry, and that poetry deals only with the n.o.ble and the pure."

"Yes," said Cecily, as he paused for a moment, "I see that it would take too long. You must deal with so many prejudices--such, for example, as that which supposes 'King Lear' and 'Oth.e.l.lo' to be poems."

Mr. Bickerdike began a reply, but it was too late; Mrs. Lessingham had approached with some one else who wished to be presented to Mrs. Elgar, and the novelist could only bite his lips as he moved away to find a more reverent listener.

It was not often that Cecily trifled in this way. As a rule, her manner of speech was direct and earnest. She had a very uncommon habit of telling the truth whenever it was possible; rather than utter smooth falsehoods, she would keep silence, and sometimes when to do so was to run much danger of giving offence. Beautiful women have very different ways of using the privilege their charm a.s.sures them; Cecily chose to make it a protection of her integrity. She was much criticized by acquaintances of her own s.e.x. Some held her presumptuous, conceited, spoilt by adulation; some accused her of bad taste and blue-stockingism; some declared that she had no object but to win men's admiration and outshine women. Without a thought of such comments, she behaved as was natural to her. Where she felt her superiority, she made no pretence of appearing femininely humble. Yet persons like Mrs.

Delph, who kept themselves in shadow and spoke only with simple kindness, knew well how una.s.suming Cecily was, and with what deference she spoke when good feeling dictated it. Or again, there was her manner with the people who, by the very respect with which they inspired her, gave her encouragement to speak without false restraint; such as Mr.

Bird, the art critic, a grizzle-headed man with whom she sat for a quarter of an hour this evening, looking her very brightest and talking in her happiest vein, yet showing all the time her grat.i.tude for what she learnt from his conversation.

It was nearly twelve o'clock when Mrs. Travis, who had made one or two careless efforts to draw near to Cecily, succeeded in speaking a word aside with her.

"I hope you didn't go to see me yesterday? I left home in the morning, and am staying with friends at Hampstead, not far from you."

"For long?"

"I don't know. I should like to talk to you, if I could. Shall you be driving back alone?"

"Yes. Will you come with me?"

"Thank you. Please let me know when you are going."

And Mrs. Travis turned away. In a few minutes Cecily went to take leave of her aunt.

"How is Clarence?" asked Mrs. Lessingham.

"Still better, I believe. I left him to-night without uneasiness."

"Oh, I had a letter this morning from Mrs. Spence. No talk of England yet. In the autumn they are going to Greece, then for the winter to Sicily."

"Miriam with them?"

"As though it were a matter of course."

They both smiled. Then Cecily took leave of two or three other people, and quitted the room. Mrs. Travis followed her, and in a few minutes they were seated in the brougham.

Mrs. Travis had a face one could not regard without curiosity. It was not beautiful in any ordinary sense, but strange and striking and rich in suggestiveness. In the chance, flickering light that entered the carriage, she looked haggard, and at all times her thinness and pallor give her the appearance of suffering both in body and mind. Her complexion was dark, her hair of a rich brown; she had very large eyes, which generally wandered in an absent, restless, discontented way. If she smiled, it was with a touch of bitterness, and her talk was wont to be caustic. Cecily had only known her for a few weeks, and did not feel much drawn to her, but she compa.s.sionated her for sorrows known and suspected. Though only six and twenty, Mrs. Travis had been married seven years, and had had two children; the first died at birth, the second was carried off by diphtheria. Her husband Cecily had never seen, but she heard disagreeable things of him, and Mrs. Travis herself had dropped hints which signified domestic unhappiness.

After a minute or two of silence, Cecily was beginning to speak on some indifferent subject, when her companion interrupted her.

"Will you let me tell you something about myself?"

"Whatever you wish, Mrs. Travis," Cecily answered, with sympathy.

"I've left my husband. Perhaps you thought of that?"