“Shy?” exclaimed Claudius, “what a funny idea! Why should I be shy?”
“No reason in the world, I suppose, after all. But it is very odd.” And Mr. Barker ruminated, rolling his cigar in his mouth. “Besides,” he added, after a long pause, “you have made a conquest.”
“Nonsense. Now, you have some right to flatter yourself on that score.”
“Miss Skeat?” said Mr. Barker. “Sit still, my heart!”
They drove along in silence for some time. At last Mr. Barker began again, —
“Well, Professor, what are you going to do about it?”
“About what?”
“Why, about the conquest. Shall you go there again?”
“Very likely.” Claudius was annoyed at his companion’s tone of voice. He would have scoffed at the idea that he loved the Countess at first sight; but she nevertheless represented his ideal to him, and he could not bear to hear Mr. Barker’s chaffing remarks. Of course Barker had taken him to the house, and had a right to ask if Claudius had found the visit interesting. But Claudius was determined to check any kind of levity from the first. He did not like it about women on any terms, but in connection with the Countess Margaret it was positively unbearable. So he answered curtly enough to show Mr. Barker he objected to it. The latter readily understood and drew his own inferences.
A different conversation ensued in the Countess’s garden when the visitors were gone.
“Well, Miss Skeat,” said Margaret, “what do you think of my new acquaintances?”
“I think Mr. Barker is the most agreeable American I ever met,” said Miss Skeat. “He has very sound views about social questions, and his information on the subject of American Indians is perfectly extraordinary.”
“And the Doctor? what do you think of him?”
“He dresses very oddly,” said the lady companion; “but his manners seem everything that could be desired, and he has aristocratic hands.”
“I did not notice his dress much. But he is very handsome. He looks like a Scandinavian hero. You know I was sure I should meet him again that day in Heidelberg.”
“I suppose he really is very good-looking,” assented Miss Skeat.
“Shall we have them to dinner some day? I think we might; very quietly, you know.”
“I would certainly advise it, dear Countess. You really ought to begin and see people in some way besides allowing them to call on you. I think this solitude is affecting your spirits.”
“Oh no; I am very happy — at least, as happy as I can be. But we will have them to dinner. When shall it be?”
“To-morrow is too soon. Say Thursday, since you ask me,” said Miss Skeat.
“Very well. Shall we read a little?” And Tourguéneff was put into requisition.
It was late in the afternoon when the Countess’s phaeton, black horses, black liveries, and black cushions, swept round a corner of the drive. Claudius and Barker, in a hired carriage, passed her, coming from the opposite direction. The four people bowed to each other — the ladies graciously, the men with courteous alacrity. Each of the four was interested in the others, and each of the four felt that they would all be thrown together in the immediate future. There was a feeling among them that they had known each other a long time, though they were but acquaintances of to-day and yesterday.
“I have seldom seen anything more complete than that turn-out,” said Mr. Barker. “The impression of mourning is perfect; it could not have been better if it had been planned by a New York undertaker.”
“Are New York undertakers such great artists?” asked Claudius.
“Yes; people get buried more profusely there. But don’t you think it is remarkably fine?”
“Yes. I suppose you are trying to make me say that the Countess is a beautiful woman,” answered Claudius, who was beginning to understand Barker. “If that is what you want, I yield at once. I think she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”
“Ah! — don’t you think perhaps that Miss Skeat acts as an admirable foil?”
“Such beauty as that requires no foil. The whole world is a foil to her.”
“Wait till you come to America. I will show you her match in Newport.”
“I doubt it. What is Newport?”
“Newport is the principal watering-place of our magnificent country. It is Baden, Homburg, Bigorre, and Biarritz rolled into one. It is a terrestrial paradise, a land of four-in-hands and houris and surf-bathing and nectar and ambrosia. I could not begin to give you an idea of it; wait till you get there.”
“A society place, I suppose, then?” said Claudius, not in the least moved by the enthusiastic description.
“A society place before all things. But you may have plenty of solitude if you like.”
“I hardly think I should care much for Newport,” said Claudius.
“Well, I like it very much. My father has a place there, to which I take the liberty of inviting you for the season, whenever you make up your mind to enjoy yourself.”
“You are very good, I am sure; and if, as you say, I ever go to America, which seems in your opinion paramount to enjoying myself, I will take advantage of your kind invitation.”
“Really, I hope you will. Shall we go and dine?”
CHAPTER V.
ON THE FOLLOWING day Claudius and Mr. Barker received each a note. These communications were in square, rough envelopes, and directed in a large feminine handwriting. The contents intimated that the Countess Margaret would be glad to see them at dinner at half-past seven on Thursday.
“That is to-morrow,” said Mr. Barker pensively.
Claudius, who was generally the calmest of the calm, made a remark in German to the effect that he fervently desired a thousand million bushels of thunder-weather to fly away with him that very instant.
“Did you say anything, Professor?” inquired Mr. Barker blandly.
“I did. I swore,” answered Claudius. “I have half a mind to swear again.”
“Do it. Profanity is the safety-valve of great minds. Swear loudly, and put your whole mind to it.”
Claudius strode to the window of their sitting-room and looked out.
“It is extremely awkward, upon my word,” he said.
“What is awkward, Professor? The invitation?”
“Yes — very.”
“Why, pray? I should think you would be very much pleased.”
“Exactly — I should be: but there is a drawback.”
“Of what nature? Anything I can do?”
“Not exactly. I cannot wear one of your coats.”
“Oh! is that it?” said Mr. Barker; and a pleasant little thrill of triumph manifested itself, as he pushed out his jaw and exhibited his circular wrinkle. “Of course — how stupid of me! You are here as a pedestrian, and you have no evening dress. Well, the sooner we go and see a tailor the better, in that case. I will ring for a carriage.” He did so, remarking internally that he had scored one in putting the Doctor into a position which forced him to dress like a Christian.
“Do you never walk?” asked Claudius, putting a handful of cigarettes into his pocket.
“No,” said the American, “I never walk. If man were intended by an all-wise Providence to do much walking he would have four legs.”
The tailor promised upon his faith as a gentleman to make Claudius presentable by the following evening. Baden tailors are used to providing clothes at short notice; and the man kept his word.
Pending the event, Barker remarked to Claudius that it was a pity they might not call again before the dinner. Claudius said in some countries he thought it would be the proper thing; but that in Germany Barker was undoubtedly right — it would not do at all.
“Customs vary so much in society,” said Barker; “now in America we have such a pretty habit.”
“What is that?”
“Sending flowers — we send them to ladies on the smallest provocation.”
“But is not the Countess an American?” asked Claudiu
s.
“Yes, certainly. Old Southern family settled north.”
“In that case,” said Claudius, “the provocation is sufficient. Let us send flowers immediately.” And he took his hat from the table.
Thought Mr. Barker, “My show Doctor is going it;” but he translated his thoughts into English.
“I think that is a good idea. I will send for a carriage.”
“It is only a step,” said Claudius, “we had much better walk.”
“Well, anything to oblige you.”
Claudius had good taste in such things, and the flowers he sent were just enough to form a beautiful ensemble, without producing an impression of lavish extravagance. As Mr. Barker had said, the sending of flowers is a “pretty habit,” — a graceful and gentle fashion most peculiar to America. There is no country where the custom is carried to the same extent; there is no other country where on certain occasions it is requested, by advertisement in the newspapers, “that no flowers be sent.” Countess Margaret was charmed, and though Miss Skeat, who loved roses and lilies, poor thing, offered to arrange them and put them in water, the dark lady would not let her touch them. She was jealous of their beauty.
The time seemed long to Claudius, though he went in the meanwhile with Barker and the British aristocracy to certain races. He rather liked the racing, though he would not bet. The Duke lost some money, and Barker won a few hundred francs from a Russian acquaintance. The Duke drank curaçao and potass water, and Mr. Barker drank champagne, while Claudius smoked innumerable cigarettes. There were a great many bright dresses, there was a great deal of shouting, and the congregation of the horse-cads was gathered together.
“It does not look much like Newmarket, does it?” said the Duke.
“More like the Paris Exposition, without the exposition,” said Barker.
“Do you have much racing in America?” asked Claudius.
“Just one or two,” answered Barker, “generally on wheels.”
“Wheels?”
“Yes. Trotting. Ag’d nags in sulkies. See how fast they can go a mile,” explained the Duke. “Lots of shekels on it too, very often.”
At last the evening came, and Claudius appeared in Barker’s room arrayed in full evening-dress. As Barker had predicted to himself, the result was surprising. Claudius was far beyond the ordinary stature of men, and the close-fitting costume showed off his athletic figure, while the pale, aquiline features, with the yellow heard that looked gold at night, contrasted in their refinement with the massive proportions of his frame, in a way that is rarely seen save in the races of the far north or the far south.
The Countess received them graciously, and Miss Skeat was animated. The flowers that Claudius had sent the day before were conspicuously placed on a table in the drawing-room. Mr. Barker, of course, took in the Countess, and Miss Skeat put her arm in that of Claudius, inwardly wondering how she could have overlooked the fact that he was so excessively handsome. They sat at a round table on which were flowers, and a large block of ice in a crystal dish.
“Do you understand Russian soups?” asked Margaret of Claudius, as she deposited a spoonful of a wonderful looking pâté in the middle of her consommé.
“Alas” said the Doctor, “I am no gastronome. At least my friend Mr. Barker tells me so, but I have great powers of adaptation. I shall follow your example, and shall doubtless fare sumptuously.”
“Do not fear,” said she, “you shall not have any more strange and Cossack things to eat. I like some Russian things, but they are so tremendous, that unless you have them first you cannot have them at all.”
“I think it is rather a good plan,” said Barker, “to begin with something characteristic. It settles the plan of action in one’s mind, and helps the memory.”
“Do you mean in things in general, or only in dinner?” asked the Countess.
“Oh, things in general, of course. I always generalise. In conversation, for instance. Take the traditional English stage father. He always devotes himself to everlasting perdition before he begins a sentence, — and then you know what to expect.”
“On the principle of knowing the worst — I understand,” said Margaret.
“As long as people understand each other,” Claudius put in, “it is always better to plunge in medias res from the first.”
“Yes, Dr. Claudius, you understand that very well;” and Margaret turned towards him as she spoke.
“The Doctor understands many things,” said Barker in parenthesis.
“You have not yet reported the progress of the crusade,” continued the Countess, “I must know all about it at once.”
“I have been plotting and planning in the spirit, while my body has been frequenting the frivolities of this over-masculine world,” answered the Doctor. At this point Miss Skeat attacked Mr. Barker about the North American Indians, and the conversation paired off, as it will under such circumstances.
Claudius was in good spirits and talked wittily, half in jest, one would have thought, but really in earnest, about what was uppermost in his mind, and what he intended should be uppermost in the world. It was a singular conversation, in the course of which he sometimes spoke very seriously; but the Countess did not allow herself the luxury of being serious, though it was an effort to her to laugh at the enthusiasm of his language, for he had a strong vitality, and something of the gift which carries people away. But Margaret had an impression that Claudius was making love, and had chosen this attractive ground upon which to open his campaign. She could not wholly believe him different from other men — at least she would not believe so soon — and her instinct told her that the fair-haired student admired her greatly.
Claudius, for his part, wondered at himself, when he found a moment to reflect on what he had been saying. He tried to remember whether any of these thoughts had been formulated in his mind a month ago. He was, indeed, conscious that his high reverence for women in the abstract had been growing in him for years, but he had had no idea how strong his belief had grown in this reverence as an element in social affairs. Doubtless the Doctor had often questioned why it was that women had so little weight in the scale, why they did so little of all they might do, and he had read something of their doings across the ocean. But it had all been vague, thick, and foggy, whereas now it was all sharp and clean-edged. He had made the first step out of his dreams in that he had thought its realisation possible, and none but dreamers know how great and wide that step is. The first faint dawning, “It may be true, after all,” is as different from the remote, listless view of the shadowy thought incapable of materialisation, as a landscape picture seen by candle-light is different from the glorious reality of the scene it represents. Therefore, when Claudius felt the awakening touch, and saw his ideal before him, urging him, by her very existence which made it possible, to begin the fight, he felt the blood run quickly in his veins, and his blue eyes flashed again, and the words came flowing easily and surely from his lips. But he wondered at his own eloquence, not seeing yet that the divine spark had kindled his genius into a broad flame, and not half understanding what he felt.
It is late in the day to apostrophise love. It has been done too much by people who persuade themselves that they love because they say they do, and because it seems such a fine thing. Poets and cynics, and good men and bad, have had their will of the poor little god, and he has grown so shy and retiring that he would rather not be addressed, or described, or photographed in type, for the benefit of the profane. He is chary of using pointed shafts, and most of his target practice is done with heavy round-tipped arrows that leave an ugly black bruise where they strike, but do not draw the generous blood. He lurks in out-of-the-way places and mopes, and he rarely springs out suddenly on unwary youth and maid, as he used to in the good old days before Darwin and La Rochefoucauld destroyed the beauty of the body and the beauty of the soul, — or man’s belief in them, which is nearly the same. Has not the one taught us to see the animal in the angel, and the other to dete
ct the devil in the saint? And yet we talk of our loves as angels and our departed parents as saints, in a gentle, commonplace fashion, as we talk of our articles of faith. The only moderns who apostrophise love with any genuine success are those who smack their lips sensuously at his flesh and blood, because they are too blind to see the lovely soul that is enshrined therein, and they have too little wit to understand that soul and body are one.
Mr. Barker, who seemed to have the faculty of carrying on one conversation and listening to another at the same time, struck in when Claudius paused.
“The Professor, Countess,” he began, “is one of those rare individuals who indulge in the most unbounded enthusiasm. At the present time I think, with all deference to his superior erudition, that he is running into a dead wall. We have seen something of the ‘woman’s rights’ question in America. Let us take him over there and show him what it all means.”
“My friend,” answered Claudius, “you are one of those hardened sceptics for whom nothing can be hoped save a deathbed repentance. When you are mortally hit and have the alternative of marriage or death set before you in an adequately lively manner, you will, of course, elect to marry. Then your wife, if you get your deserts, will rule you with a rod of iron, and you will find, to your cost, that the woman who has got you has rights, whether you like it or not, and that she can use them.”
“Dollars and cents,” said Barker grimly, “that is all.”
“No, it is not all,” retorted Claudius. “A wise Providence has provided women in the world who can make it very uncomfortable for sinners like you, and if you do not reform and begin a regular course of worship, I hope that one of them will get you.”
“Thanks. And if I repent and make a pilgrimage on my knees to every woman I know, what fate do you predict? what countless blessings are in store for me?”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 30
