Delphi collected works o.., p.240
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 240
On the terrace in front of the windows half a dozen guests were already assembled, chatting in a group around Miss Venables and her father.
‘Your friend Bertie Montgomery’s here this afternoon, I see,’ Douglas Harrison remarked, a little maliciously, to Basil, as they approached the group.
‘Why do you call him Bertie?’ the civil servant retorted, staring hard at all the guests in turn to see if he could possibly distinguish the scion of nobility from the common herd around him.
‘I do it only in inverted commas,’ Douglas Harrison answered, laughing.
‘Which is he?’ Basil asked at last, after a careful scrutiny. ‘I thought you didn’t know him. I ... I was only pointed him out just once at Goodwood myself, and I don’t remember him now very vividly.’
‘The noisy young man in the noisy check suit,’ Douglas Harrison replied, smiling. ‘I hardly know him myself, though I meet him out sometimes; but Hubert and he have a nodding acquaintance. Come up, and let me introduce you to Miss Venables and her father.’
Basil hurried forward with his best company smile, and raised his hat politely with his first-class bow, as performed before ladies of the highest distinction only. He was a gentlemanly young man, in his way, as well as handsome; and if he could but for a moment have forgotten his profound respect for the externals of life, and considered somewhat its actualities, he might, perhaps, have turned out a very decent good fellow. As he raised his hat, responsive to Douglas’s mention of her name, Sabine Venables made a gentle inclination of her head, and beamed softly upon him in her part as hostess. Basil Maclaine was vaguely aware of a tall, lithe figure, and a beautiful, graceful face, haughty and clear-cut, but intensely picturesque in its warm Southern beauty. She looked like the paintings he had seen — by Burgess, he fancied — of high-born Spanish ladies; the same proud curl of the lip, the same quick flash of the eyes, even the same faint suspicion of a dark, silky fringe around the delicate corners of that sensitive small mouth. Altogether, a young lady by no means to be trifled with, Miss Sabine Venables. Basil Maclaine, as he met her, came, saw, and was conquered.
A buzz of voices rang indefinitely on his ears. He murmured the usual commonplaces of first introduction about this lovely garden — such a charming day — the best month of the year to see England in — delightful to get away from London dust and London mud to the clear blue skies and fresh air of the country. Then he fell back, inarticulate, into the second row, to catch and treasure up on the tablets of his soul what stray scraps might fall his way of the Best People’s improving conversation.
‘And where’s your brother at present?’ Charlie Simmons was asking in a familiar fashion of Lord Adalbert Montgomery. Charlie had followed them up close behind from the station, and greeted the descendant of antique Welsh princes with cordial affability, as indeed did also, to Basil’s great surprise, both the Harrisons, for he had no idea they knew such very Good People.
‘What, the Duke?’ Lord Adalbert answered, stroking the ends of his almost imperceptible moustache with the attentive affection of early youth. ‘Oh, he’s all right; he’s still at Homburg. Fluctuates pretty equally between there and Monte Carlo with great regularity, poor dear Powysland! Never by any chance goes near Llanfyllin Castle. A confirmed absentee, as Harrison says in the papers. Homburg in summer, Monte Carlo in winter, with flying visits to England just for the Oaks and Cesarewitch. Gambling himself to death at all of them, as usual.’
At this Lord Adalbert smiled sweetly, and Basil perceived that when he smiled he showed an even row of the whitest and pearliest teeth in all England. He was a good-looking young fellow enough, this Bertie Montgomery, and pleasant into the bargain, with that nameless incommunicable charm of manner which sometimes belongs as a hereditary gift to the youngest branches of our great old families.
‘I should love to go to Monte Carlo so,’ Sabine Venables put in; and as she spoke, all the young men, Lord Adalbert included, leant forward to listen; ‘but papa won’t take me. He’s such a dreadful man about those things. He says it isn’t proper.’
‘My dear,’ the typical British Philistine replied, with a deprecating cough, stroking his smooth-shaven chin, ‘not at your present age, at least. The atmosphere’s unsuited for you. In four or five years’ time, perhaps; but not just at present.’
‘In four or five years’ time, perhaps,’ Lord Adalbert said, smiling, ‘Miss Venables may possibly have passed from your parental safe-keeping.’
‘Very possibly,’ Mr. Venables responded with a pleased and conscious air, rubbing his hands softly. ‘Very possibly. Ve-ry possibly.’
‘In that case,’ Sabine said, looking around her like a queen upon her assembled court, and catching Hubert Harrison’s eye as she spoke, ‘I shall make whoever succeeds to the duty take me to Monte Carlo.’
‘No doubt he’d be charmed,’ Lord Adalbert answered, showing his teeth once more. ‘I can imagine nothing more delightful than — —’
‘Mr. Maclaine,’ Sabine put in, darting suddenly round upon him, and hauling him off in triumph to where she saw a lady of a certain age seated alone upon a garden bench, without anyone to talk to her, ‘let me introduce you to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton — you’ve heard of Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, of course — ah! yes; I thought so.’ Then, in a confidential undertone, ‘You’ll find her a most delightful and piquant talker, I’m sure. Very much spread about in society, you know. One of the most brilliant women in literary London.’
Thus withdrawn perforce from the circle round the throne and the inspiriting presence of Lord Adalbert Montgomery, Basil did his best to make himself agreeable, under depressing circumstances, to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton. Not that that clever lady, indeed, needed much entertaining. On the contrary, she included in herself, like a well-known journal, a perpetual fund of original entertainment. As Basil afterwards remarked to his friends, the Harrisons, the literary lady could talk like one o’clock.
‘Yes, she’s a beautiful girl, Sabine,’ Mrs. Bouverie-Barton burst forth in answer to Basil’s ingenuous outbreak of admiration for their charming young hostess. ‘But it’s a pity, for her own sake, she hasn’t a mother to keep her in order. She’s a desperate flirt — proud, but desperate. She coquettes eternally. And how absurdly she goes on with — oh dear no, I don’t mean with him; she doesn’t care twopence for poor Bertie, dear boy, though her father’d give his eyes for her to marry a Duke’s brother — and a childless Duke, too, who’s killing himself as hard as he can on the Continent. But I didn’t mean with him. That’s the merest flirtation — just love of power, the display of her fascination — but with a much more dangerous person — Hubert Harrison.’
‘Hubert Harrison!’ Basil exclaimed, looking up in surprise. ‘You don’t mean to say — —’
But Mrs. Bouverie-Barton didn’t even permit him to get a word in edgeways. ‘Oh yes, I do mean to say,’ she ran on, interrupting him; ‘and it’s true, every word of it. Just look at her now! Don’t you see she’s ostensibly talking to Lord Adalbert, and gazing at Lord Adalbert, and answering Lord Adalbert, but at every second word she says, for all that, she peeps out of the corners of her eyes, sideways, to see what Hubert Harrison thinks of what she’s saying to him. I was a girl once myself — a long time ago — and I know the ways of them. She’s leading Master Hubert a pretty dance, if anybody ever led him one. He’s a clever boy, and a good-looking boy, and a nice boy; and if she doesn’t ruin him, he has a great future before him still, for he’s the smartest leader-writer in London this moment. But, take my word for it, she means to grind that boy to powder, like Lady Clara Vere de Vere, before she’s done with him.’
‘What! do you think she’s in love with him?’ Basil Maclaine asked breathlessly. This odour of gossip about the Best People — and at first hand, too — was as incense in his nostrils.
‘Love, my dear Mr. Maclaine — your name’s Maclaine, isn’t it? I thought that was how I caught it. Why, what century do you live in, and what on earth are you thinking of? You’re talking archæology. Our young people nowadays know nothing of love — the fierce, unreasoning, inexplicable passion which moved the world when men and things were more natural. What they covet now is not hearts and darts, mutual flames, and so forth, but horses, jewellery, a title, an establishment. Young girls are taught the value of these things when they’re the merest children, and they know the one way for them to earn them is by a good marriage. They’re put in training for a match, and they know they’re in training. Hair, figure, skin, voice, dancing, music, French accent, culture — all are of importance to them only as so many points to play in the marriage-market. The girl’s brought out at last like a horse upon the course — as much uncovered as possible — and every step she takes, every triumph she makes, every costume, every conquest, every ball, every drawing-room, is blazoned abroad in all the vulgar publicity of the society papers. And when at last she catches her rich man, and nails him to her ear, they congratulate her publicly on having made very good running.’
Mrs. Bouverie-Barton paused, for want of breath, not want of words, and Basil Maclaine managed to interpose a hasty sentence. ‘But Miss Venables has all these things already,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t need them.’
By this time Mrs. Bouverie-Barton had recovered her breath, and began again excitedly. ‘Of course not,’ she flowed on in full flood. ‘But young Harrison needs them, and he won’t get them. Poor young fellows, of course, never stand a chance of winning these great matrimonial lottery prizes. If the beauty’s penniless, she’s bought in by wealth; if the beauty’s rich, she’s bought in by title. Nothing for nothing’s the rule of the bazaar. That’s the first act; then comes the second. After marriage, these young people, hitherto only intent on selling themselves in the dearest market, suddenly discover, to their immense surprise, there’s such a reality in the world as love — the love they despised — an irresistible energy — a force that sweeps down everything before it — money, position, honour, reputation. And what’s the end of it all? The Divorce Court, disgrace, shame, misery, suicide!’
‘What a Cassandra you are!’ Basil Maclaine interposed with a visible effort to break the current. ‘But you don’t think, then, she’ll marry Hubert Harrison?’
‘Marry him?’ Mrs. Bouverie-Barton cried with a scornful air. ‘No. The idea’s preposterous. Old Affability — they call the papa Old Affability, you know, for his smug manners — he’d never for a moment allow such a match, though she likes Hubert best. But she’ll do as they all do. She’ll marry Lord Adalbert first, and then, at the end of six months, she’ll run away with Hubert. “My dear Bertie” will do for either, that’s one comfort. She won’t have the trouble of learning a new name when she runs away from her husband with the man she ought in the first instance to have married.’
‘Then it’s a usual case, you think?’
‘Usual? Why, I’ve offered Lord Adalbert to bet him two to one in dozens of gloves that whoever he marries won’t live a year with him. That was in confidence, of course; but he only smiled, and declined to take me. He’s as jealous as a toad, you know; and he smiled, but he didn’t at all like it.’
CHAPTER VI.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
Later in the afternoon, in another part of the grounds, Hubert Harrison met Sabine Venables face to face for a moment, behind a clump of low-feathering spruce firs, whose branches swept the ground, on the way to the refreshment-tent, in the far corner by the summer-house. Sabine smiled provokingly, and tried to trip on past him in her imperial, coquettish way. But the vigorous journalist was not so to be baulked. ‘You mustn’t go away so fast now, Sabine,’ he said in a very low voice, planting himself right in front of her, and barring the path. ‘I haven’t had ten words yet the whole afternoon with you.’
‘You’ve had more than ten looks, then,’ the proud, handsome girl replied, with a little incipient curtsey. ‘But what right have you got, I’d like to know, to say I mayn’t go as fast and as far as I choose, sir?’
‘No right,’ the young man answered with mannish decision, ‘except that I don’t mean to let you, Sabine.’
‘Oh my, how fine we are! How hoity-toity! Have I done anything, then, to offend your majesty?’
Hubert Harrison looked back at her, a half-jealous, half-admiring look. ‘You’ve been talking all the time, without stopping, to that Bertie Montgomery man,’ he answered, a little surlily.
‘Well, and isn’t it a hostess’s duty to make herself agreeable to all her guests — even a Bertie Montgomery man?’ Sabine replied, with just the suspicion of a toss of the head. ‘Would you have me leave the entire remainder of my party uncared for, to wander about alone behind the trees with you, Mr. Harrison?’
‘Mr. What?’
‘Mr. Harrison.’
‘Try again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yes, you shall.’
‘But I don’t want to.’
‘I don’t care what you want. I’m a man, and must be obeyed.’
‘Then with you, Hubert.’
She said it so prettily, with such a delicate inflexion of her lowered voice, and such a graceful modest droop of her long dark eyelashes, that Hubert Harrison would have been more than human if he’d even pretended any longer to be seriously angry with her. Besides, being a man, and having bent her to his will, he was amply satisfied. ‘That’s right, Sabine,’ he answered, standing a little way off and admiring her with his eyes. ‘Now you’re really nice. And how sweetly pretty you do look, to be sure, in that big Rembrandt-looking hat of yours!’
The proud girl relaxed once more, like any village maiden. These proud girls always will to the one man who knows the exact right chord to touch upon. ‘Do you think so?’ she asked, glancing down at her dress with a quick eye of commendation. ‘Do you think it suits me?’
‘Suits you? Down to the ground,’ the young man responded, measuring her with his gaze from head to foot. ‘I never before saw you look so much as if you’d stepped straight out of a canvas of Velasquez.’
‘Thank you,’ the girl answered, with a little spot of colour rising unbidden to her cheek. ‘I don’t know why, Hubert, but whenever you pay me the least little bit of a compliment I think ten thousand times more of it than when — —’
‘Perhaps you like me a little bit better than any of them?’ the young man suggested, interrupting her boldly.
‘I never told you so, sir.’
‘No, you never told me, I admit; but still, somehow — —’
‘Yes, beautifully blue, indeed, but not so fine as yesterday,’ Sabine interposed of a sudden, with a warning look, as another couple passed by on the further side of the spruce firs. ‘Now, my dear boy, how dreadfully imprudent and careless you are! You men have no gumption. Suppose that had been papa, or Mrs. Walker, my companion, and they’d overheard what you were talking about, what on earth would you have said to them?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure, Sabine — except that I’m in love with you,’ Hubert answered penitently, ‘and I’m not ashamed of it. Now, don’t go away yet, I’m not a quarter done. I haven’t said half what I wanted to say to you.’
‘I must,’ Sabine interrupted. ‘If I don’t, it’ll be noticed. Besides, you’ve said a great deal too much already.’
‘Oh, nonsense, my dear child! You don’t mean to tell me you’ve brought me all the way down from town to Leatherhead — —’
‘Oh well, if it’s such a trouble to you to come — —’ Sabine began, half pouting, and then broke off suddenly.
‘But you’re not going to put me off with just these few words. You’ll give me an opportunity — Sabine — Sabine!’ — he ran after her as she went— ‘there’s something I want so much to say to you!’
‘I know what it is,’ the pretty coquette answered pettishly; ‘and I’m not going to answer you. How can I, indeed, when you know dear papa has strictly ordered me —— And then there’s Lord Adalbert! And your handsome friend with the black moustaches. He’s so awfully good-looking. I’m neglecting my duty to all my guests, upon my word I am! I mustn’t stop one minute more. I must really go — do let me. I must run back at once to them.’
‘But, Sabine — one word! Miss Venables! Miss Venables!’
‘Not one word more, Mr. Harrison. Take me back, will you, please, over yonder, by Mrs. Bouverie-Barton?’
For the rest of that afternoon, whether it was only to pique Hubert Harrison or not, Sabine Venables divided the greater share of her attention between Lord Adalbert Montgomery and Mr. Basil Maclaine of the Board of Trade. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Mr. Basil was delighted — in the seventh heaven. The Very Best People were taking him up. The heiress, indeed — most important of all — was making herself specially agreeable to him. She walked about with him through the grounds as she had refused to do with Hubert Harrison; and showed him the conservatories; and Basil took the privilege as a high compliment. Alas! how little he knew the by-ways and anfractuosities of the female heart! Had he been better skilled in the intricate windings of that interminable maze, he might have been well aware that with a girl of Sabine Venables’ type the distinction by no means implied a special preference. Your true proud coquette gives little encouragement to the man she really likes: she’s affable and natural only to those men whom she regards in her own soul as hopelessly and entirely outside the running.
But as Basil Maclaine’s philosophy didn’t embrace that psychologic principle, he hugged himself all the afternoon on the flattering discovery that Miss Venables was in fact very much taken with him.
And indeed, he said to himself, if a sharp-eyed woman of the world, like Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, thought Sabine Venables displayed a distinct preference for a penniless journalist like Hubert Harrison, why on earth should it be so absurd to think she might also display a similar preference — which, of course, could conceivably ripen with time into a more commercially valuable feeling — for himself, Basil Maclaine of the Board of Trade, every bit as good a fellow any day as Hubert, and a long sight handsomer into the bargain? Why should one take it for granted that these great tufts, like Bertie Montgomery, had all the hearts of the game in their aristocratic hands as well as all the diamonds? For his own part, Basil Maclaine detested and despised these petty class distinctions — when they told against him. He didn’t see why a girl like Sabine Venables — even if she did happen to be rich and to be brought up in a big house and in good society (among the Best People), and all that kind of thing — need necessarily prefer a courtesy lord, with no brains to brag about and an incipient moustache, to a clever and sensible and well-educated young man, say, for example, in one of her Majesty’s Government offices. For whenever it came to the classes above him, Basil Maclaine was a leveller of the deepest dye; though when he had to deal, per contra, with the classes below, he never could understand how anybody on earth could possibly be so rude and so wanting in discrimination as to confound him for one moment with such a scrubby lot of cads and greengrocers.
‘Your friend Bertie Montgomery’s here this afternoon, I see,’ Douglas Harrison remarked, a little maliciously, to Basil, as they approached the group.
‘Why do you call him Bertie?’ the civil servant retorted, staring hard at all the guests in turn to see if he could possibly distinguish the scion of nobility from the common herd around him.
‘I do it only in inverted commas,’ Douglas Harrison answered, laughing.
‘Which is he?’ Basil asked at last, after a careful scrutiny. ‘I thought you didn’t know him. I ... I was only pointed him out just once at Goodwood myself, and I don’t remember him now very vividly.’
‘The noisy young man in the noisy check suit,’ Douglas Harrison replied, smiling. ‘I hardly know him myself, though I meet him out sometimes; but Hubert and he have a nodding acquaintance. Come up, and let me introduce you to Miss Venables and her father.’
Basil hurried forward with his best company smile, and raised his hat politely with his first-class bow, as performed before ladies of the highest distinction only. He was a gentlemanly young man, in his way, as well as handsome; and if he could but for a moment have forgotten his profound respect for the externals of life, and considered somewhat its actualities, he might, perhaps, have turned out a very decent good fellow. As he raised his hat, responsive to Douglas’s mention of her name, Sabine Venables made a gentle inclination of her head, and beamed softly upon him in her part as hostess. Basil Maclaine was vaguely aware of a tall, lithe figure, and a beautiful, graceful face, haughty and clear-cut, but intensely picturesque in its warm Southern beauty. She looked like the paintings he had seen — by Burgess, he fancied — of high-born Spanish ladies; the same proud curl of the lip, the same quick flash of the eyes, even the same faint suspicion of a dark, silky fringe around the delicate corners of that sensitive small mouth. Altogether, a young lady by no means to be trifled with, Miss Sabine Venables. Basil Maclaine, as he met her, came, saw, and was conquered.
A buzz of voices rang indefinitely on his ears. He murmured the usual commonplaces of first introduction about this lovely garden — such a charming day — the best month of the year to see England in — delightful to get away from London dust and London mud to the clear blue skies and fresh air of the country. Then he fell back, inarticulate, into the second row, to catch and treasure up on the tablets of his soul what stray scraps might fall his way of the Best People’s improving conversation.
‘And where’s your brother at present?’ Charlie Simmons was asking in a familiar fashion of Lord Adalbert Montgomery. Charlie had followed them up close behind from the station, and greeted the descendant of antique Welsh princes with cordial affability, as indeed did also, to Basil’s great surprise, both the Harrisons, for he had no idea they knew such very Good People.
‘What, the Duke?’ Lord Adalbert answered, stroking the ends of his almost imperceptible moustache with the attentive affection of early youth. ‘Oh, he’s all right; he’s still at Homburg. Fluctuates pretty equally between there and Monte Carlo with great regularity, poor dear Powysland! Never by any chance goes near Llanfyllin Castle. A confirmed absentee, as Harrison says in the papers. Homburg in summer, Monte Carlo in winter, with flying visits to England just for the Oaks and Cesarewitch. Gambling himself to death at all of them, as usual.’
At this Lord Adalbert smiled sweetly, and Basil perceived that when he smiled he showed an even row of the whitest and pearliest teeth in all England. He was a good-looking young fellow enough, this Bertie Montgomery, and pleasant into the bargain, with that nameless incommunicable charm of manner which sometimes belongs as a hereditary gift to the youngest branches of our great old families.
‘I should love to go to Monte Carlo so,’ Sabine Venables put in; and as she spoke, all the young men, Lord Adalbert included, leant forward to listen; ‘but papa won’t take me. He’s such a dreadful man about those things. He says it isn’t proper.’
‘My dear,’ the typical British Philistine replied, with a deprecating cough, stroking his smooth-shaven chin, ‘not at your present age, at least. The atmosphere’s unsuited for you. In four or five years’ time, perhaps; but not just at present.’
‘In four or five years’ time, perhaps,’ Lord Adalbert said, smiling, ‘Miss Venables may possibly have passed from your parental safe-keeping.’
‘Very possibly,’ Mr. Venables responded with a pleased and conscious air, rubbing his hands softly. ‘Very possibly. Ve-ry possibly.’
‘In that case,’ Sabine said, looking around her like a queen upon her assembled court, and catching Hubert Harrison’s eye as she spoke, ‘I shall make whoever succeeds to the duty take me to Monte Carlo.’
‘No doubt he’d be charmed,’ Lord Adalbert answered, showing his teeth once more. ‘I can imagine nothing more delightful than — —’
‘Mr. Maclaine,’ Sabine put in, darting suddenly round upon him, and hauling him off in triumph to where she saw a lady of a certain age seated alone upon a garden bench, without anyone to talk to her, ‘let me introduce you to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton — you’ve heard of Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, of course — ah! yes; I thought so.’ Then, in a confidential undertone, ‘You’ll find her a most delightful and piquant talker, I’m sure. Very much spread about in society, you know. One of the most brilliant women in literary London.’
Thus withdrawn perforce from the circle round the throne and the inspiriting presence of Lord Adalbert Montgomery, Basil did his best to make himself agreeable, under depressing circumstances, to Mrs. Bouverie-Barton. Not that that clever lady, indeed, needed much entertaining. On the contrary, she included in herself, like a well-known journal, a perpetual fund of original entertainment. As Basil afterwards remarked to his friends, the Harrisons, the literary lady could talk like one o’clock.
‘Yes, she’s a beautiful girl, Sabine,’ Mrs. Bouverie-Barton burst forth in answer to Basil’s ingenuous outbreak of admiration for their charming young hostess. ‘But it’s a pity, for her own sake, she hasn’t a mother to keep her in order. She’s a desperate flirt — proud, but desperate. She coquettes eternally. And how absurdly she goes on with — oh dear no, I don’t mean with him; she doesn’t care twopence for poor Bertie, dear boy, though her father’d give his eyes for her to marry a Duke’s brother — and a childless Duke, too, who’s killing himself as hard as he can on the Continent. But I didn’t mean with him. That’s the merest flirtation — just love of power, the display of her fascination — but with a much more dangerous person — Hubert Harrison.’
‘Hubert Harrison!’ Basil exclaimed, looking up in surprise. ‘You don’t mean to say — —’
But Mrs. Bouverie-Barton didn’t even permit him to get a word in edgeways. ‘Oh yes, I do mean to say,’ she ran on, interrupting him; ‘and it’s true, every word of it. Just look at her now! Don’t you see she’s ostensibly talking to Lord Adalbert, and gazing at Lord Adalbert, and answering Lord Adalbert, but at every second word she says, for all that, she peeps out of the corners of her eyes, sideways, to see what Hubert Harrison thinks of what she’s saying to him. I was a girl once myself — a long time ago — and I know the ways of them. She’s leading Master Hubert a pretty dance, if anybody ever led him one. He’s a clever boy, and a good-looking boy, and a nice boy; and if she doesn’t ruin him, he has a great future before him still, for he’s the smartest leader-writer in London this moment. But, take my word for it, she means to grind that boy to powder, like Lady Clara Vere de Vere, before she’s done with him.’
‘What! do you think she’s in love with him?’ Basil Maclaine asked breathlessly. This odour of gossip about the Best People — and at first hand, too — was as incense in his nostrils.
‘Love, my dear Mr. Maclaine — your name’s Maclaine, isn’t it? I thought that was how I caught it. Why, what century do you live in, and what on earth are you thinking of? You’re talking archæology. Our young people nowadays know nothing of love — the fierce, unreasoning, inexplicable passion which moved the world when men and things were more natural. What they covet now is not hearts and darts, mutual flames, and so forth, but horses, jewellery, a title, an establishment. Young girls are taught the value of these things when they’re the merest children, and they know the one way for them to earn them is by a good marriage. They’re put in training for a match, and they know they’re in training. Hair, figure, skin, voice, dancing, music, French accent, culture — all are of importance to them only as so many points to play in the marriage-market. The girl’s brought out at last like a horse upon the course — as much uncovered as possible — and every step she takes, every triumph she makes, every costume, every conquest, every ball, every drawing-room, is blazoned abroad in all the vulgar publicity of the society papers. And when at last she catches her rich man, and nails him to her ear, they congratulate her publicly on having made very good running.’
Mrs. Bouverie-Barton paused, for want of breath, not want of words, and Basil Maclaine managed to interpose a hasty sentence. ‘But Miss Venables has all these things already,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t need them.’
By this time Mrs. Bouverie-Barton had recovered her breath, and began again excitedly. ‘Of course not,’ she flowed on in full flood. ‘But young Harrison needs them, and he won’t get them. Poor young fellows, of course, never stand a chance of winning these great matrimonial lottery prizes. If the beauty’s penniless, she’s bought in by wealth; if the beauty’s rich, she’s bought in by title. Nothing for nothing’s the rule of the bazaar. That’s the first act; then comes the second. After marriage, these young people, hitherto only intent on selling themselves in the dearest market, suddenly discover, to their immense surprise, there’s such a reality in the world as love — the love they despised — an irresistible energy — a force that sweeps down everything before it — money, position, honour, reputation. And what’s the end of it all? The Divorce Court, disgrace, shame, misery, suicide!’
‘What a Cassandra you are!’ Basil Maclaine interposed with a visible effort to break the current. ‘But you don’t think, then, she’ll marry Hubert Harrison?’
‘Marry him?’ Mrs. Bouverie-Barton cried with a scornful air. ‘No. The idea’s preposterous. Old Affability — they call the papa Old Affability, you know, for his smug manners — he’d never for a moment allow such a match, though she likes Hubert best. But she’ll do as they all do. She’ll marry Lord Adalbert first, and then, at the end of six months, she’ll run away with Hubert. “My dear Bertie” will do for either, that’s one comfort. She won’t have the trouble of learning a new name when she runs away from her husband with the man she ought in the first instance to have married.’
‘Then it’s a usual case, you think?’
‘Usual? Why, I’ve offered Lord Adalbert to bet him two to one in dozens of gloves that whoever he marries won’t live a year with him. That was in confidence, of course; but he only smiled, and declined to take me. He’s as jealous as a toad, you know; and he smiled, but he didn’t at all like it.’
CHAPTER VI.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
Later in the afternoon, in another part of the grounds, Hubert Harrison met Sabine Venables face to face for a moment, behind a clump of low-feathering spruce firs, whose branches swept the ground, on the way to the refreshment-tent, in the far corner by the summer-house. Sabine smiled provokingly, and tried to trip on past him in her imperial, coquettish way. But the vigorous journalist was not so to be baulked. ‘You mustn’t go away so fast now, Sabine,’ he said in a very low voice, planting himself right in front of her, and barring the path. ‘I haven’t had ten words yet the whole afternoon with you.’
‘You’ve had more than ten looks, then,’ the proud, handsome girl replied, with a little incipient curtsey. ‘But what right have you got, I’d like to know, to say I mayn’t go as fast and as far as I choose, sir?’
‘No right,’ the young man answered with mannish decision, ‘except that I don’t mean to let you, Sabine.’
‘Oh my, how fine we are! How hoity-toity! Have I done anything, then, to offend your majesty?’
Hubert Harrison looked back at her, a half-jealous, half-admiring look. ‘You’ve been talking all the time, without stopping, to that Bertie Montgomery man,’ he answered, a little surlily.
‘Well, and isn’t it a hostess’s duty to make herself agreeable to all her guests — even a Bertie Montgomery man?’ Sabine replied, with just the suspicion of a toss of the head. ‘Would you have me leave the entire remainder of my party uncared for, to wander about alone behind the trees with you, Mr. Harrison?’
‘Mr. What?’
‘Mr. Harrison.’
‘Try again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yes, you shall.’
‘But I don’t want to.’
‘I don’t care what you want. I’m a man, and must be obeyed.’
‘Then with you, Hubert.’
She said it so prettily, with such a delicate inflexion of her lowered voice, and such a graceful modest droop of her long dark eyelashes, that Hubert Harrison would have been more than human if he’d even pretended any longer to be seriously angry with her. Besides, being a man, and having bent her to his will, he was amply satisfied. ‘That’s right, Sabine,’ he answered, standing a little way off and admiring her with his eyes. ‘Now you’re really nice. And how sweetly pretty you do look, to be sure, in that big Rembrandt-looking hat of yours!’
The proud girl relaxed once more, like any village maiden. These proud girls always will to the one man who knows the exact right chord to touch upon. ‘Do you think so?’ she asked, glancing down at her dress with a quick eye of commendation. ‘Do you think it suits me?’
‘Suits you? Down to the ground,’ the young man responded, measuring her with his gaze from head to foot. ‘I never before saw you look so much as if you’d stepped straight out of a canvas of Velasquez.’
‘Thank you,’ the girl answered, with a little spot of colour rising unbidden to her cheek. ‘I don’t know why, Hubert, but whenever you pay me the least little bit of a compliment I think ten thousand times more of it than when — —’
‘Perhaps you like me a little bit better than any of them?’ the young man suggested, interrupting her boldly.
‘I never told you so, sir.’
‘No, you never told me, I admit; but still, somehow — —’
‘Yes, beautifully blue, indeed, but not so fine as yesterday,’ Sabine interposed of a sudden, with a warning look, as another couple passed by on the further side of the spruce firs. ‘Now, my dear boy, how dreadfully imprudent and careless you are! You men have no gumption. Suppose that had been papa, or Mrs. Walker, my companion, and they’d overheard what you were talking about, what on earth would you have said to them?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure, Sabine — except that I’m in love with you,’ Hubert answered penitently, ‘and I’m not ashamed of it. Now, don’t go away yet, I’m not a quarter done. I haven’t said half what I wanted to say to you.’
‘I must,’ Sabine interrupted. ‘If I don’t, it’ll be noticed. Besides, you’ve said a great deal too much already.’
‘Oh, nonsense, my dear child! You don’t mean to tell me you’ve brought me all the way down from town to Leatherhead — —’
‘Oh well, if it’s such a trouble to you to come — —’ Sabine began, half pouting, and then broke off suddenly.
‘But you’re not going to put me off with just these few words. You’ll give me an opportunity — Sabine — Sabine!’ — he ran after her as she went— ‘there’s something I want so much to say to you!’
‘I know what it is,’ the pretty coquette answered pettishly; ‘and I’m not going to answer you. How can I, indeed, when you know dear papa has strictly ordered me —— And then there’s Lord Adalbert! And your handsome friend with the black moustaches. He’s so awfully good-looking. I’m neglecting my duty to all my guests, upon my word I am! I mustn’t stop one minute more. I must really go — do let me. I must run back at once to them.’
‘But, Sabine — one word! Miss Venables! Miss Venables!’
‘Not one word more, Mr. Harrison. Take me back, will you, please, over yonder, by Mrs. Bouverie-Barton?’
For the rest of that afternoon, whether it was only to pique Hubert Harrison or not, Sabine Venables divided the greater share of her attention between Lord Adalbert Montgomery and Mr. Basil Maclaine of the Board of Trade. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Mr. Basil was delighted — in the seventh heaven. The Very Best People were taking him up. The heiress, indeed — most important of all — was making herself specially agreeable to him. She walked about with him through the grounds as she had refused to do with Hubert Harrison; and showed him the conservatories; and Basil took the privilege as a high compliment. Alas! how little he knew the by-ways and anfractuosities of the female heart! Had he been better skilled in the intricate windings of that interminable maze, he might have been well aware that with a girl of Sabine Venables’ type the distinction by no means implied a special preference. Your true proud coquette gives little encouragement to the man she really likes: she’s affable and natural only to those men whom she regards in her own soul as hopelessly and entirely outside the running.
But as Basil Maclaine’s philosophy didn’t embrace that psychologic principle, he hugged himself all the afternoon on the flattering discovery that Miss Venables was in fact very much taken with him.
And indeed, he said to himself, if a sharp-eyed woman of the world, like Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, thought Sabine Venables displayed a distinct preference for a penniless journalist like Hubert Harrison, why on earth should it be so absurd to think she might also display a similar preference — which, of course, could conceivably ripen with time into a more commercially valuable feeling — for himself, Basil Maclaine of the Board of Trade, every bit as good a fellow any day as Hubert, and a long sight handsomer into the bargain? Why should one take it for granted that these great tufts, like Bertie Montgomery, had all the hearts of the game in their aristocratic hands as well as all the diamonds? For his own part, Basil Maclaine detested and despised these petty class distinctions — when they told against him. He didn’t see why a girl like Sabine Venables — even if she did happen to be rich and to be brought up in a big house and in good society (among the Best People), and all that kind of thing — need necessarily prefer a courtesy lord, with no brains to brag about and an incipient moustache, to a clever and sensible and well-educated young man, say, for example, in one of her Majesty’s Government offices. For whenever it came to the classes above him, Basil Maclaine was a leveller of the deepest dye; though when he had to deal, per contra, with the classes below, he never could understand how anybody on earth could possibly be so rude and so wanting in discrimination as to confound him for one moment with such a scrubby lot of cads and greengrocers.
