Part 17 (2/2)

”Poor gentleman!”

”I must know all about dreamland and cryptic reflections first.”

He drew the armchair now over towards her and flung himself into it. He was a graceful creature, not so tall or so ideally perfect of form as Lord Algy, but a very presentable Englishman, with a wonderful distinction of manner and voice.

Katherine Bush was experiencing intense pleasure--there was something feline, if not altogether feminine, in her well-balanced brain. It was peculiarly gratifying to find that her plans were being justified. How glad she was that he had not remarked her in her raw days! How wise she had been to have made ready--and then waited! The whole thing was the more effective because of the complete absence of all dramatic emotion in her. She was like a quiet, capable foreign minister playing his game of statecraft with the representative of another country, his face permitted to express--or conceal--only what he desired.

At this moment, she shrugged her shoulders very slightly, as though to say, ”I am only an employe. I cannot force you to work if you will not”; but she did not speak, so he was obliged to demand again.

”Won't you tell me what made you smile?--We can drift to dreamland afterwards.”

”No--I will not tell you what made me smile, because I do not know exactly; the aspect of life generally, perhaps.”

”And you sit and work in this gloomy back room all day--What do you know about life?”

”I am observing--I know that one must pretend interest in what one is bored by--and one must show attention to those one despises--and--keep from laughing at things.”

”What a dangerous young woman, watching and coming to cynical conclusions--but you say truly; one must keep from laughing at things--a very difficult matter generally.” He lay back against the brown leather cus.h.i.+on, and proved the truth of this by laughing softly, while he looked at her quaintly.

Katherine Bush suddenly felt that a human being understood _with her_; it was a delightful sensation.

”Practically the whole of life is a ridiculous sham and must arouse the sardonic mirth of the G.o.ds--Here are you and I spending an afternoon arranging a charity in which neither of us takes the least interest--I am dictating fulsome letters to Lord Mayors to induce them to influence others to open their purses--I don't care a jot whether they do or they do not--You are mechanically transcribing my asinine words, and we could be so much better employed exchanging views--on each other's taste, say--or each other's dreamlands.”

Katherine Bush looked down and allowed her hands to fall idly in her lap--he should do most of the speaking.

”The only good that I have been getting out of it as far as I can see,”

he went on, ”is the contemplation of your really beautiful hands at work--Where did you get such perfect things in these days?”

She lifted one and regarded it critically.

”Yes, I have often wondered myself. My father was an auctioneer, you know, and my mother's father was a butcher.”

Gerard Strobridge was extremely entertained. She was certainly a very wonderful product of such parentage.

”May I look at them closely?” he asked.

She showed not the least embarra.s.sment; if he had been asking to see a piece of enamel, or a china vase she could not have been more detached about it. She held them out quite naturally, and he rose and took them in his own. Their touch was cool and firm, and every inch of his being tingled with pleasure. He examined them minutely finger by finger, stroking the rosy filbert nails in admiration, while an insane desire to clasp and kiss their owner grew in him.

Katherine Bush was perfectly aware of this, and when she thought he had felt emotion enough for the occasion, she drew them back as naturally as she had given them.

”I am always asking myself questions about such things,” she remarked, in a tone of speculative matter-of-factness. ”I am so often seeing contradictions since I have been here--My former conclusions are a little upset.”

”What were they?” He had returned to his chair. He was no novice to be carried away by his sensations, and he knew very well that to indulge them further at present would be very unwise, and perhaps check a most promising amus.e.m.e.nt.

”I believed that birth and breeding gave fine ears and fine ankles and fine hands--as well as moral qualities.”

”And you have been disappointed?”

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