Part 4 (1/2)

”In that case I can never have known you,” she answered, calmly. ”I never know any one except by name. I suppose you are an Englishman?”

”Yes,” he said, eagerly; ”I am in the 5th----”

”Ah, I thought so,” she interrupted, placidly. ”Englishmen in the 5th, and some other regiments, are apt to have but the one idea----”

”And that is?”

”And that is a bad one.”

He looked at her for a moment, and then, hat in hand, he made her a low bow, and left her without another word.

”I think he felt ill, and went to have some refreshment,” she added, when she told me.

From what happened afterwards I am sure that at the time she had no idea of the real significance of the position in which she found herself placed on this occasion. But, as a rule, if she did or said the wrong thing, she became painfully conscious of the fact immediately afterwards--indeed, it was generally _afterwards_ that she grasped the full meaning of most things. She was ready with repartee without being in the least quick of understanding; she had to think things over, and even then she was not sure to do the right thing next time.

”Mr. Graves is ten years younger than his wife,” she told me once, ”and only fancy what I said one day. It was in his studio, and she was there. I declared a woman could have no sense of propriety at all who married a man younger than herself--that no good could possibly come of such marriages--and a lot more. Then I suddenly remembered, and you can imagine my feelings! But what do you think I did? I went there the next year, and said the same thing again exactly!”

CHAPTER VIII.

When we were a small party of intimate friends, and Ideala was quite at her ease with us, it was pleasant to see her lolling, a little languidly as was her wont (for physically her energy was fitful), in the corner of a couch, looking happy and interested, her face, which was sad in repose, lit up for the time with amus.e.m.e.nt, as she quietly listened to our talk, and observed all that was going on around her.

Even when she did not speak a word she somehow managed to make her presence felt, and, as a rule, she spoke little on these occasions. But sometimes we managed to draw her out, and sometimes she would burst forth suddenly of her own accord, with a torrent of eloquence that silenced us all; and even when she was utterly wrong she charmed us.

Her chance observations were generally noteworthy either for their sense or their humour. It was only her sense of humour, I think, that saved her from being sentimental; but she gave expression to it in season and out of season, and would let it carry her too far sometimes, for she made enemies for herself more than once by the way she exposed the absurdity of certain things to the very people who believed in them. Every lapse of this kind caused her infinite regret, but the fault seemed incurable: she was always either repenting of it or committing it, although, having so many quirks of her own, she felt that she, of all people in the world, should have dealt most tenderly with the weaknesses of others.

She knew how narrowly she escaped being sentimental, and would often joke about her danger in that respect. ”This lovely summer weather makes me _sickly_ sentimental,” she told me once. ”I feel like the heroine of a three-volume novel written by a young lady of eighteen, and I think continually of _him_. I don't know in the least who _he_ is, but that makes no difference. The thought of him delights me, and I want to write long letters to him, and make verses about him the whole day long. And he wants me to be good.”

She had two or three pet abominations of her own, any allusion to which was sure to make her outrageous--false sentiment and affectation of any kind were amongst them. She had little habits, too, that we were all pleased to fall in with. Sitting in the corner of a couch, and of one couch in particular in every house, was one of these; and people got into the way of giving up that seat to her whenever she appeared. I think it would have puzzled us all to say why or wherefore, for she never said or looked anything that could make us think she wished to appropriate it; she simply took it as a matter of course when it was offered to her, and probably did not know that she invariably sat there. Ideala was a splendid horsewoman, and swam like a fish; but she was not good at tennis or games of any kind, and she did not dance, for a curious reason: she objected to be touched by people for whom she had no special affection. She even disliked to shake hands, and often wished some one would put the custom out of fas.h.i.+on. With regard to dancing I have heard her say, too, that she sympathised entirely with the Oriental feeling on the subject. She thought it delightful to be danced to, to lie still with a pleasant companion near her who would not talk too much, and listen to the music, and enjoy the poetry of motion coolly and at ease. ”I love to see the 'dancers dancing in tune,'” she said; ”but to have to dance myself would be as great a bother as to have to cook my dinner as well as eat it. I suppose it is a healthy amus.e.m.e.nt--indeed, I know it is when you take it as I do; for when all you people come down the morning after a dance with haggard eyes and no power to do anything, I am as fresh as a lark, and have decidedly the best of it.”

She was not good at games because she was not ambitious. She did not care to have her skill commended, and was content to lose or win with equal indifference--so long as only the honour of the thing was involved; but when the stakes were more material she showed a vice of which she was quite conscious.

”I daren't play for money,” she said to me. ”I never have, and I have always said that I never will. All the women of my family are born gamblers. My mother has often told me that regularly, when she was a girl, the day after she received her allowance she had either doubled it or lost it all; and before she was twenty she hadn't a jewel worth anything in her possession--and my aunts were as bad. One of them staked herself one night to a gentleman she was playing with, and he won, and married her. Gambling was more the custom then than it is now, but for me it is as much in the air as if it were still the fas.h.i.+on.

When there is any talk of play I feel fascinated, and when I see a pack of cards the temptation is so irresistible that I have often to go away to save my resolution.”

Which made me think of a favourite quotation of Lessing's from _Minna_:--”_Tout les gens d'esprit aiment le jeu a la folie_.”

CHAPTER IX.

Ideala's low esteem for ”mere animal courage” was probably due to the fact that she possessed it herself in a high degree. Yet soon after I met her I began to suspect, and was afterwards convinced, that something in her manner which had puzzled me at first arose from fear.

There was that in her life which made her afraid of the world, which would, had it guessed the truth, have pryed with curious eyes into her sorrow, and found an interest in seeing her suffer. The trouble was her husband. She rarely spoke of him herself, and I think I ought to follow her example, and say as little about him as possible. He was jealous of her, jealous of her popularity, and jealous of every one who approached her. He carried it so far that she scarcely dared to show a preference, and was even obliged to be cold and reserved with some of her best friends. I was a privileged person, allowed to be intimate with her from the first, partly because I insisted on it when I saw how matters stood, and partly because my position and reputation gave me a right to insist. I never had occasion to brave insults for her sake, but, like many others, I would have done so had it been necessary. Her friends were constantly being driven from her on one pretext or another. People would have taken her part readily enough had she complained, but complaint was contrary to her nature and her principles. Some, who suspected the truth, blamed her reticence; but I always thought it right, and on one occasion when we approached the subject indirectly I told her ”Silence is best.” I ought to have qualified the advice, for she carried it too far, and was silent afterwards when she should have spoken--that is to say, when it had become evident that endurance was useless and degrading.

She fought hard to preserve her dignity, and was determined that ”as the husband is, the wife is,” should not be true in her case. But he did lower her insensibly, nevertheless. As her life became more and more unendurable she became a little reckless in speech; it was a sort of safety-valve by means of which she regained her composure, and I soon began to recognise the sign, and to judge of the amount she had suffered by the length to which she afterwards went in search of relief, and the extent to which suffering made her untrue to herself.

As a rule, when with him, she was yielding, but she had fits of determination, too, when she knew she was right. One night, as they were driving home from a ball together, her husband suddenly declared that he would not allow her to be one of the patronesses of a fancy fair which was to be held for a charitable purpose, although she had already consented and he had made no objection at the time.

”But why may I not?” Ideala asked.