Part 13 (1/2)

Mrs. Innes, his mother's old friend, meeting him at Vieusseux's reading-room a few days before, had detained him for a chat, and in the course of it asked him if he knew this Mrs. Hawthorne of whom the Fosses appeared so fond. An amusing type, she must be. Seeing that statue of the she-wolf and little Romulus and Remus at the foot of Vial de' Colli, it seemed she had asked what it meant, and said she didn't believe it.

It indefinably hurt him, incommoded some nerve of envenomed sensitiveness--yes, annoyed him like sand in his salad, to think of his country-woman, with the good faith of a dog in her face, so quoted as to make her ridiculous by a fellow wanting in human vitals, like Hunt.

He would have liked, had it been possible, to ask a few frank questions of Mrs. Hawthorne, and find out more certainly what he should think. He would have liked to warn her against trusting her enormous ignorance to one who would have so little good-humor and protectiveness toward that baby-eyed giant-child. Really, instinct ought to teach her better whom to make her confident as respected that grave affair.

Singularly, when next the music stopped, Mrs. Hawthorne, after she with true politeness had taken the box of cigarettes to the other of her guests, spoke of Hunt. Perhaps her thoughts, too, had gone straying, and mysteriously encountered some straying thought of his.

”Charlie Hunt,” she said, ”is coming on Sunday morning to take us to the picture-galleries. We're going to play hooky from church. His work, don't you see, keeps him at the bank on week days till everything of that sort is closed.”

”Mrs. Hawthorne,” cried Gerald and sat up in unaffected indignation, while mustache, beard, hair, everything about him appeared to bristle, ”I thought _I_ had been engaged to take you sight-seeing! I thought it was to be _my_ honor and privilege. Mrs. Hawthorne, my dear friend, if you do not wish deeply to hurt me, deeply to hurt me, you will write to Mr. Hunt at once, this evening, and I will post the letter, that you have thought better of that immoral plan for Sunday morning, and are going to church like a good Christian woman. And to-morrow, Mrs. Hawthorne, at whatever time will be convenient for you, I will come and take you to the Uffizi.”

CHAPTER VI

And so because, in his uncalled-for chivalry, he had made himself guide to a lady in a ball-room, Gerald, one thing leading to another, was once more committed to serving as a guide in Florence.

He had filled the part so often, at the appeal of one good friend and another, that he had sworn never again to be caught, cajoled, or hired.

He could have hated the Ghiberti doors had such a thing not been impossible. He did rather hate the Santissima Annunziata. And now it was all to do over again.

It might be adduced, as a mitigation of his misfortune, that this was different.

This was sometimes very different.

A singular thing about acquaintance with Mrs. Hawthorne was that it had in a sense no beginning. One started fairly in the middle. No sooner did one meet her than one seemed to have known her long and know her well.

Most people found this so. One therefore readily slid into speaking one's mind to Mrs. Hawthorne, dispensing with the formal affectation of a perfect respect for her every act and opinion, secure in the recognition that anger, sulkiness, the self-love that easily takes umbrage, were as far from her breezy st.u.r.diness as the scrupulosities of an anxious refinement.

That one could say what one pleased to Mrs. Hawthorne put more life into intercourse with her, naturally, than there would have been if, with her limitations, one had been forced to be entirely and tamely circ.u.mspect.

”Mrs. Hawthorne,” cried Gerald, ”do me the very real favor, will you, like a dear good woman, of not calling the most venerable of the primitives Simma Bewey!”

It was astonis.h.i.+ng what things Gerald Fane could say without losing his effect of a complete, even considerate politeness.

”But that's the way it's written,” said Mrs. Hawthorne.

”You will pardon the liberty I take of contradicting you; it is not. It gives me goose-flesh. Cimabue!”

”Very well. I'll try to remember. But it doesn't matter what I call him; his Madonna is no beauty. Do you mean to tell me there was a time when people admired faces like that? She gives me a pain.”

”That is not the point; her beauty is not the point. Besides, she is beautiful.”

”Oh, very well. If you'd like to have me look like her, I can.”

She tipped her head to one side, lengthened her jaw, pointed her hand, and by a knack she had for mimicry made herself vaguely resemble the large-eyed, small-mouthed, pale and serious Lady of Heaven before whose portrait by the old master this dialogue took place.

”It is really a very poor joke, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Gerald said, with mouth distorted by the conflict between laughter and disgust. ”To travesty a dignified and sacred thing is a very poor pastime. Of course I laugh.

Miss Madison laughs, and I laugh. I think very poorly of it, all the same. You would do much better to frame your mind to an att.i.tude of respect and try to understand. I can't say, though, that I think it unnatural you should not at first appreciate the earliest old masters.

We will go to look at something more obvious.”