Part 28 (1/2)

Langhope discoursed to Westy Gaines on the recent sale of Chinese porcelains at which he had been lucky enough to pick up the set of Ming for his daughter, and Mason Winch expounded to a group of languid listeners the essential dependence of the labouring-man on the prosperity of Wall Street. In a retired corner, Ned Bowfort was imparting facts of a more personal nature to a chosen following who hailed with suppressed enjoyment the murmured mention of proper names; and now and then Amherst found himself obliged to say to Fenton Carbury, who with one accord had been left on his hands, ”Yes, I understand the flat-tread tire is best,” or, ”There's a good deal to be said for the low tension magneto----”

But all the while his conscious thoughts were absorbed in the remembrance of his talk with Justine Brent. He had left his wife's presence in that state of moral la.s.situde when the strongest hopes droop under the infection of indifference and hostility, and the effort of attainment seems out of all proportion to the end in view; but as he listened to Justine all his energies sprang to life again. Here at last was some one who felt the urgency of his task: her every word and look confirmed her comment of the afternoon: ”Westmore must be foremost to you both in time--I don't see how either of you can escape it.”

She saw it, as he did, to be the special outlet offered for the expression of what he was worth to the world; and with the knowledge that one other person recognized his call, it sounded again loudly in his heart. Yes, he would go on, patiently and persistently, conquering obstacles, suffering delay, enduring criticism--hardest of all, bearing with his wife's deepening indifference and distrust. Justine had said ”Westmore must be foremost to you both,” and he would prove that she was right--spite of the powers leagued against him he would win over Bessy in the end!

Those observers who had been struck by the length and animation of Miss Brent's talk with her host--and among whom Mrs. Ansell and Westy Gaines were foremost--would hardly have believed how small a part her personal charms had played in attracting him. Amherst was still under the power of the other kind of beauty--the soft graces personifying the first triumph of s.e.x in his heart--and Justine's dark slenderness could not at once dispel the milder image. He watched her with pleasure while she talked, but her face interested him only as the vehicle of her ideas--she looked as a girl must look who felt and thought as she did.

He was aware that everything about her was quick and fine and supple, and that the muscles of character lay close to the surface of feeling; but the interpenetration of spirit and flesh that made her body seem like the bright projection of her mind left him unconscious of anything but the oneness of their thoughts.

So these two, in their hour of doubt, poured strength into each other's hearts, each unconscious of what they gave, and of its hidden power of renewing their own purposes.

XVIII

IF Mr. Langhope had ever stooped to such facile triumphs as that summed up in the convenient ”I told you so,” he would have loosed the phrase on Mrs. Ansell in the course of a colloquy which these two, the next afternoon, were at some pains to defend from the incursions of the Lynbrook house-party.

Mrs. Ansell was the kind of woman who could encircle herself with privacy on an excursion-boat and create a nook in an hotel drawing-room, but it taxed even her ingenuity to segregate herself from the Telfers.

When the feat was accomplished, and it became evident that Mr. Langhope could yield himself securely to the joys of confidential discourse, he paused on the brink of disclosure to say: ”It's as well I saved that Ming from the ruins.”

”What ruins?” she exclaimed, her startled look giving him the full benefit of the effect he was seeking to produce.

He addressed himself deliberately to the selecting and lighting of a cigarette. ”Trus...o...b..is down and out--resigned, 'the wise it call.' And the alterations at Westmore are going to cost a great deal more than my experienced son-in-law expected. This is Westy's morning budget--he and Amherst had it out last night. I tell my poor girl that at least she'll lose nothing when the _bibelots_ I've bought for her go up the spout.”

Mrs. Ansell received this with a troubled countenance. ”What has become of Bessy? I've not seen her since luncheon.”

”No. She and Blanche Carbury have motored over to dine with the Nick Ledgers at Islip.”

”Did you see her before she left?”

”For a moment, but she said very little. Westy tells me that Amherst hints at leasing the New York house. One can understand that she's left speechless.”

Mrs. Ansell, at this, sat bolt upright. ”The New York house?” But she broke off to add, with seeming irrelevance: ”If you knew how I detest Blanche Carbury!”

Mr. Langhope made a gesture of semi-acquiescence. ”She is not the friend I should have chosen for Bessy--but we know that Providence makes use of strange instruments.”

”Providence and Blanche Carbury?” She stared at him. ”Ah, you are profoundly corrupt!”

”I have the coa.r.s.e masculine habit of looking facts in the face.

Woman-like, you prefer to make use of them privately, and cut them when you meet in public.”

”Blanche is not the kind of fact I should care to make use of under any circ.u.mstances whatever!”

”No one asks you to. Simply regard her as a force of nature--let her alone, and don't put up too many lightning-rods.”

She raised her eyes to his face. ”Do you really mean that you want Bessy to get a divorce?”

”Your style is elliptical, dear Maria; but divorce does not frighten me very much. It has grown almost as painless as modern dentistry.”

”It's our odious insensibility that makes it so!”