Part 18 (1/2)

”I have read somewhere,” she said, trying hard to recall the pa.s.sage, ”that fast men, stupid men (_I think_), and rascals, profess to feel no surprise at anything.”

The colour flew over his face, he seemed about to speak, but took up his pen again as if the thing were not worth the trouble of a word, and went on with his work. The habit of treating men as ideas is not to be got rid of in a moment, and it was only when she thought it over at dinner this evening that she saw anything to hurt him in what she had said. Now that she did think of it, however, it certainly seemed natural that he should object to being cla.s.sed in any category which included fast men, stupid men, or rascals; but even while she blamed herself, and credited him with much forbearance in that he had allowed her rudeness to pa.s.s unpunished, she was conscious of the existence, in that substratum of thought which goes on continually irrespective of our will, of a doubt as to whether he might not after all be one of these--say, a fast man. For what _did_ she know about him? Nothing, except that his manners were agreeable. True, she had heard of his good deeds, and there is never smoke without fire; but a man may balance his accounts, and many men do, in that way, topping up the scale of good deeds pretty high when the bad ones on the other side threaten to turn it; and, seeing that she knew nothing definitely about his private character, suppose she had been deceived in him?

But, no! The thing was impossible. And just as she thought it, a gentleman, sitting opposite, one whom she had not met before, looked across the table and asked her if she knew Mr. Lorrimer.

”I have seen him,” she answered, with a burning blush, being taken unawares.

”He's a charming fellow--don't you think so?”

”Yes, I think so,” she agreed, with an indescribable sense of relief.

And the next day a young clergyman whom she stopped to speak to in the street began at once about Lorrimer. ”I met him at dinner the other night,” he said. ”I suppose you know him? There is much truth in 'birds of a feather.' He fascinated us all with his talk of art and literature. He gave us such new ideas--described such varied experiences, and all with such grace and power.”

”Yes,” she answered, thoughtfully. ”I believe he is brilliant.”

”Many people are that,” was the reply, given with hearty enthusiasm; ”but Lorrimer is something more. He is good. He makes you feel it, and know it, and believe in him, without ever saying a word about himself.”

”Ah!” she sighed, ”there is power in that. What lovely summer weather!

It makes me dream. Don't you love the time of nasturtiums? Their pungent scent, and their colours? They seem to penetrate and glow through everything, and make the time their own.”

And so she left him.

But that same day, an old gentleman, who came from another county, and looked as if he had come from another century--an old gentleman with curious wavy hair, parted in the middle, who wors.h.i.+pped the Idol of Days--the past and all that belonged to it--and, for evening dress, wore knee-breeches, frilled s.h.i.+rt, black silk stockings, and diamond buckles in his shoes; and had a bijou house, filled with a thousand relics of his Idol of Days, where n.o.ble ladies were wont to loll and listen to him, and drink tea out of his wonderful cups, and love him-- so it was said--this gentleman called on Ideala. He came to charm and to be charmed; and he, of all people in the world the one from whom she would least have expected it, although she knew they had met, began to sing Lorrimer's praises.

”He raises the tone of everything he is engaged upon,” this gentleman said. ”He has not quite kept faith with me about a matter he promised to look into for me a year ago, but doubtless he is busy. I suppose you know him?”

”Yes, I know him. He seems to be very much above the average.”

”Oh, very much above the average,” was the warm response. ”He's a charming fellow, and a thoroughly good fellow, too.”

This was the chorus to everything, and there was only one dissentient voice--that of a man who admired Ideala, and was a good soul himself, having gone out of his way to pay her trifling attentions, and even found occasion to do her some small acts of kindness. He began with the rest to praise Lorrimer, but when he saw he was doing so at his own expense, by diverting her attention from himself to his subject, he somewhat lowered his tone.

”Every one seems to like Mr. Lorrimer,” Ideala said.

”O yes, he's certainly a nice fellow; but he puts a lot of side on.”

”And well he may, being so very good and well-beloved,” she answered, smiling.

”So spoilt and conceited, you might say,” was the rejoinder; but she felt that there was jealousy in the tone, and only laughed.

”What an interesting face he has,” a lady remarked, who was having tea with Ideala, _tete-a-tete_, one afternoon, and had brought the conversation round to Lorrimer, as seemed inevitable in those days. ”He must make a charming portrait.”

”Yes, it is a fine face,” Ideala answered, dreamily--”a face for a bust in white marble; a face from out of the long ago--not Greek, but Roman --of the time when men were pa.s.sing from a strong, simple, manly, into a luxuriously effeminate, self-indulgent stage; the face of a man who is midway between the two extremes, and a prey to the desires of both. I wish I had been his mother.”

”His mother was a n.o.ble woman.”

”I know; but she was not omniscient, and she never could have understood the boy. I daresay he was not enough of an ugly duckling to attract special attention, and with many other chicks in the brood he could not have more than the rest, and yet he required it. He ought to have been an only child. If he had been mine, I should have known what his dreaminess meant, why he loved to wander away and be alone; what was the conflict that began in his cradle--or earlier. Surely a mother must remember what there was in her mind to influence her child; she must have the key to all that is wrong in him; she must know if his soul is likely to be at war with his senses.” And then Ideala forgot her listener, and burst out with one of those curious flashes of insight, irrespective of all knowledge, to which she was subject: ”If I were only a soul to be saved, he would save me; but I am also a body to be loved, and whether he loves me or not, he suffers. It is the eternal conflict of mind and matter, spirit and flesh, two prisoners chained together--the one despising the other, yet ruled by him, and subservient to the needs of his lower nature.”

The lady stared at her.