Part 11 (1/2)
”I acknowledge, Mr. Sandow, that your tone and your whole manner of treating Frida are quite incomprehensible to me. You treat her completely as a child that must obey implicitly your higher will, and seem quite to forget that she must take a place at your side some day.”
”She must first be educated for it,” said Gustave condescendingly. ”At present she is scarcely sixteen, and I am thirty, therefore the child must look on me with respect.”
”So it seems! I should expect something more from my future husband, than that he should set himself up as an object of my respect.”
”Yes, Miss Clifford, that is quite different. No one would permit himself such a tone towards you.”
”I suppose my fortune gives me a claim to more consideration. With the poor dependent orphan, whom one elevates to one's own position, any manner is permitted.”
The remark sounded so bitter that Gustave noticed it, and cast a questioning glance at the young lady.
”Do you think that Frida belongs to those natures which allow themselves to be thus elevated?”
”No; I think her very proud, and far more courageous than is usual at her age. Just on that account is this unquestioning docility incomprehensible.”
”Yes. I am rather successful in training,” acknowledged Gustave. ”But as to your proposition, to tell the whole to my brother immediately, that is impossible. You don't know my brother; his obstinacy is by no means conquered, and would return doubly strong if he discovered our plot. The moment that he learnt that I had brought Frida here with a decided purpose, his anger would burst forth, and he would send us both back across the ocean.”
”That would indeed be a misfortune, for then the advantage of the whole intrigue would be lost.”
Jessie must indeed have been irritated before she allowed the hateful word ”intrigue” to pa.s.s her lips, but it slipped out, and Gustave quite accepted it.
”Quite right; that is what I fear, and it would never do to jeopardise it thus, now my heart is set on remaining here.”
There was a peculiar light in his eyes at the last words. Jessie did not see it; she had bent again over her drawing, and worked away with renewed zeal, but the pencil trembled in her hand, and the strokes became hasty and uncertain. Gustave watched her for a while; at last he rose again.
”No, Miss Clifford, it really will not do to treat the perspective like that. Permit me one moment.”
And without further ceremony, he took the pencil from her hand, and began to alter the drawing. Jessie was about to make a violent protest, but she quickly saw that the pencil was in a very practised hand, and that a few powerful strokes entirely corrected the error.
”You declared you could not draw,” said she, wavering between anger and surprise.
”Oh! It is only a little _dilletante_ performance, which I do not venture to call talent. Only enough to enable me to criticise. Here, Miss Clifford.”
He returned the leaf to her. Jessie looked silently at it and then at him.
”I really admire your versatility, of which you have just given me a proof. You are everything imaginable, Mr. Sandow! Politician, journalist, artist.--”
”And merchant,” said Gustave, completing the sentence. ”Yes, I am a sort of universal genius, but share alas, the fate of all geniuses; I am not recognised by my contemporaries.”
His half-ironical inclination showed that for the moment he looked upon her as representing his contemporaries. Jessie made no reply, but began to collect her drawing materials.
”It is quite chilly. I ought to go in. Pray do not disturb yourself; I will send the servant to fetch my things,” and declining with a motion of her hand any a.s.sistance from him, she took the drawing from the table, and left the summer-house.
Gustave shook his head as he looked after her.
”I seem really to have fallen into disgrace; the last few weeks she has been quite changed. I would rather hear the most violent attack on my selfishness and want of thought than this cool and measured bitterness.
I fear it is high time for me to tell all the truth, and yet I dare not risk Frida's future by so doing. A premature catastrophe would spoil all.”
At that moment a carriage drove past the villa. It was Sandow returning from business. He came direct to the garden.
”Here already!” was the short greeting he bestowed on his brother.