Part 12 (1/2)

It was Jack who felt it most. After his swiftly averted glance at Mrs.

Upton his own cheeks had flamed in ignorant sympathy. He was able, in a moment, to see that it might have been the fire, or the tea, or the mere suddenness of an unexpected question that had caused the look of helpless girlishness, but the memory stayed with him, a tenderness and a solicitude in it.

Imogen had apparently seen nothing. She went on, pulling off her gloves, taking off her hat, glancing at her radiant white and rose in the gla.s.s while she questioned. ”I remember him in your letters, but remember him so little--a dull, kind old country squire, the impression, I think. But what does a dull, kind old country squire find to write about so often?”

If Mrs. Upton couldn't control her cheeks she could perfectly control her manner, and though Jack's sympathy guessed at some pretty decisive irritation under it, he could but feel that its calm disposed of any absurd interpretations that the blush might have aroused.

”Yes, I have often, I think, mentioned him in my letters, Imogen, though not in those terms. He is a neighbor of mine in Surrey and a friend.”

”Is he clever?” Imogen asked, ignoring the coolness in her mother's voice.

”Not particularly.”

”What does he do, mama?”

”He takes care of his property.”

”Sport and feudal philanthropy, I suppose,” Imogen smiled.

”Very much just that,” Mrs. Upton answered, pouring out her daughter's tea.

Jack, who almost expected to see Imogen's brow darken with reprobation for the type of existence so described, was relieved, and at the same time perturbed, to observe that the humorous kindliness of her manner remained unclouded. No doubt she found the subject too trivial and too remote for gravity. Jack himself had a general idea that serious friends.h.i.+ps between man and woman were adapted only to the young and the unmated. After marriage, according to this conception, the s.e.xes became, even in social intercourse, monogamous, and he couldn't feel the bond between Mrs. Upton and a feudal country squire as a matter of much importance. But, on the other hand, Mrs. Upton had said ”friend” with decision, and though the word, for her, could not mean what it meant to people like himself and Imogen--a grave, a beautiful bond of mutual help, mutual endeavor, mutual rejoicing in the wonder and splendor of life--even a trivial relations.h.i.+p was not a fit subject for playful patronage. It was with sharp disapprobation that he heard Imogen go on to say, ”I should like to meet a man like that--really to know. One imagines that they are as extinct as the dodo, and suddenly, if one goes to England, one finds them swarming. Happy, decorative, empty people; perfectly kind, perfectly contented, perfectly useless. Oh, I don't mean your Sir Basil a bit, mama darling. I'm quite sure, since you like him, that he is a more interesting variation of the type. Only I can't help wondering what he _does_ find to write about.”

”I think, as I am wondering myself, I will ask you all to excuse me if I open my letter,” said Mrs. Upton, and, making no offer of satisfying Imogen's curiosity, she unfolded two stout sheets of paper and proceeded to read them.

Imogen did not lose her look of lightness, but Jack fancied in the steadiness of the gaze that she bent upon her mother a controlled anger.

”One may be useful, Imogen, without wearing any badge of usefulness,” Mrs.

Wake now observed. Her bonnet, as usual, on one side, and her hair much disarranged, she had listened to the colloquy in silence.

Imogen was always very sweet with Mrs. Wake. She had the air of a full, deep river benignly willing to receive without a ripple any number of such tossed pebbles, to engulf and flow over them. She had told Jack that Mrs.

Wake's dry aggressiveness did not blind her for a moment to Mrs. Wake's n.o.ble qualities. Mrs. Wake was a brave, a splendid person, and she had the greatest admiration for her; but, beneath these appreciations, a complete indifference as to Mrs. Wake's opinions and personality showed always in her demeanor toward her. She was a splendid person, but she was of no importance to Imogen whatever.

”I don't think that one can be useful unless one is actively helping on the world's work, dear Mrs. Wake,” she now said. ”Mary, we have tickets for Carnegie Hall to-morrow night; won't that be a treat? I long for a deep draft of music.”

”One does help it on,” said Mrs. Wake, skipping, as it were, another pebble, ”if one fills one's place in life and does one's duty.”

Imogen now gave her a more undivided attention. ”Precisely. And one must grow all the time to do that. One's place in life is a growing thing, It doesn't remain fixed and changeless--as English conservatism usually implies. Are you a friend of Sir Basil's, too?”

”I met him while I was with your mother, and I thought it a pity we didn't produce more men like him over here--simple, unselfconscious men, contented to be themselves and to do the duty that is nearest them.”

”Anglomaniac!” Imogen smiled, sugaring her second cup of tea.

Mrs. Wake flushed slightly. ”Because I see the good qualities of another country?”

”Because you see its defects with a glamour over them.”

”Is it a defect to do well by instinct what we have not yet learned to do without effort!”

”Ah,--but the danger there is--” Jack here broke in, much interested, ”the danger there is that you merge the individual in the function. When function becomes instinctive it atrophies unless it can grow into higher forms of function. Imogen's right, you know.”