Part 42 (1/2)

”She is a little pale this evening,” said Irene to Mrs. Travis.

The other a.s.sented; then asked:

”Why don't you paint her portrait?”

”Heaven forbid! I have quite enough discouragement in my attempts at painting, as it is.”

M. Silvenoire was bowing low, as Mrs. Lessingham presented him. To his delight, he heard his own language fluently, idiomatically spoken; he remarked, too, that Mrs. Elgar had a distinct pleasure in speaking it.

She seated herself, and flattered him into ecstasies by the respect with which she received his every word. She had seen it mentioned in the _Figaro_ that a new play of his was in preparation; when was it likely to be put on the stage? The theatre in London--of course, he understood that no one took it _au serieux_?

The Parisian could do nothing but gaze about the room, following her movements, when their dialogue was at an end. Mon Dieu! And who, then, was Mr. Elgar? Might not one hope for an invitation to madame's a.s.semblies? A wonderful people, these English, after all.

Mr. Bickerdike secured, after much impatience, the desired introduction. For reasons of his own, he made no mention of his earlier acquaintance with Elgar. Did she know of it? In any case she appeared not to, but spoke of things which did not interest Mr. Bickerdike in the least. At length he was driven to bring forward the one subject on which he desired her views.

”Have you, by chance, read my book, Mrs. Elgar?”

M. Silvenoire would have understood her smile; the Englishman thought it merely amiable, and prepared for the accustomed compliment.

”Yes, I have read it, Mr. Bickerdike. It seemed to me a charmingly written romance.”

The novelist, seated upon too low a chair, leaning forward so that his knees and chin almost touched, was not in himself a very graceful object; the contrast with his neighbour made him worse than grotesque.

His visage was disagree ably animal as it smiled with condescension.

”You mean something by that,” he remarked, with awkward attempt at light fencing.

There was barely a perceptible movement of Cecily's brows.

”I try to mean something as often as I speak,” she said, in an amused tone.

”In this ease it is a censure. You take the side of those who find fault with my idealism.”

”Not so; I simply form my own judgment.”

Mr. Bickerdike was nervous at all times in the society of a refined woman; Mrs. Elgar's quiet rebuke brought the perspiration to his forehead, and made him rub his hands together. Like many a better man, he could not do justice to the parts he really possessed, save when sitting in solitude with a sheet of paper before him. Though he had a confused perception that Mrs. Elgar was punis.h.i.+ng him for forcing her to speak of his book, he was unable to change the topic and so win her approval for his tact. In the endeavour to seem at ease, he became blunt.

”And what has your judgment to say on the subject?”

”I think I have already told you, Mr. Bickerdike.”

”You mean by a romance a work that is not soiled with the common realism of to-day.”

”I am willing to mean that.”

”But you will admit, Mrs. Elgar, that my mode of fiction has as much to say for itself as that which you prefer?”

”In asking for one admission you take for granted another. That is a little confusing.”

It was made sufficiently so to Mr. Bickerdike. He thrust out his long legs, and exclaimed:

”I should be grateful to you if you would tell me what your view of the question really is--I mean, of the question at issue between the two schools of fiction.”