Chapter XI Visitors and Disclosures
“Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.”
—Tennyson.
“I would that you were all to me.
You that are just so much, no more,
Nor yours, nor mine, not slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be.”
—Browning.
“I love studios,” announced Mrs. Hadwell with effusion, “and I love artists. Not you, only, Mr. Amherst, but all artists. They’re so interesting.”
“Don’t, please don’t, Mrs. Hadwell,” implored Amherst, laughing. “I have always hoped that my habit of keeping my head closely cropped and my face carefully shaved would save me from being thought ‘interesting.’ You have no idea what visions that word ‘interesting’ conjures up in the mind of the average man. Dinky velvet coats, unkempt beards, dirty hands, soulful eyes—don’t, whatever else you do, call me ‘interesting.’ You might as well call a spoilt beauty a ‘nice, sensible girl.’”
“That is something that no one ever called me,” said Mrs. Hadwell thoughtfully, tugging at her gloves. “You needn’t look at me, Mr. Amherst; I feel like staying here a while and I’m going to stay, no matter how busy you are—there, don’t apologize or waste time in saying you’ll be glad to see me and have me stay. Of course you will—a sensible man like you! What were we saying when you interrupted me—I mean, when I interrupted myself? Oh, yes! I was saying that no one had ever called me a ‘nice, sensible girl.’”
“The reason is obvious,” declared Amherst, laughing.
“Why—oh, I see! Thank you. You mean that I don’t look sensible. No, I should hope I didn’t. I should hate to!”
“I don’t know whether I look sensible,” said Lynn, wheeling suddenly round from the contemplation of a picture, “but people must think I do, for I so often hear myself referred to as ‘that nice, sensible girl.’ Is it an insult? I never thought of it in that light.”
“Not an insult, dear,” said Mrs. Hadwell, composedly, “but an undoubted lie. Of all people who lack the first elements of sense you certainly head the list. Doesn’t she, Mr. Amherst? But no, of course, you wouldn’t think so, naturally. You’re a man, and anyway, you don’t know her.”
“I should have said I knew Miss Thayer pretty well,” said Amherst, looking surprised, “and I should certainly have thought that she was very sensible. I don’t see what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t. As I previously remarked, you’re a man. You think she’s sensible and I have little doubt but that, in your heart of hearts, you think I’m a foolish little thing. Yet there’s more sense in my little finger than there is in all of Lynn’s tall body. I know.”
“What you call sense I call lying and cheating,” returned Lynn, composedly.
Amherst burst out laughing.
“You and Miss Thayer are certainly the most candid pair I have ever run across,” he cried. “Do you always give and return these insults in perfect good faith? or does one or the other sometimes get annoyed?”
“Never,” replied Lynn. “I can’t imagine anything happening to make Del and me quarrel. In fact, I don’t believe we could quarrel. I don’t know what other people fight about, anyway. Do you, Del?”
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Hadwell. “They fight because one has a better hat than the other or because one likes red and the other likes blue, but, generally, because they both want the same man. Isn’t that so, Mr. Amherst? But, you see, in this case, Lynn and I never like the same man, so we don’t clash.”
“But even if we did,” said Lynn, emphatically, “I can’t imagine either of us doing anything so vulgar as to quarrel, Del. I’m sure if the man preferred you, you could have him; and, if he preferred me, I’d give him up to you without a moment’s hesitation.”
“I wonder!” said her friend, teasingly. “Suppose I had taken a fancy to that absurd boy with the black eyes and the unpronounceable Italian name—would you have given him up to me, Lynn? I doubt it. Do you remember him, Mr. Amherst? Wasn’t it funny, the way our dear sensible Lynn bowed down before him? I think it must have been her attentions that drove him to drink, don’t you? he probably thought that he was in imminent danger of being dragged to the altar.”
Lynn smiled a little but stirred restlessly and did not make any comment on this.
“What has become of that boy?” cried Mrs. Hadwell, suddenly. “There, now! I’m so glad I thought to ask you. You ought to know if anyone would; you were quite pals, weren’t you, Mr. Amherst? Is the boy dead?”
“Unfortunately, no,” returned Amherst, dryly.
“Then what’s become of him?”
“Are you, too, interested in his fate, Miss Thayer?” asked Amherst, turning to where she stood looking intently at him, as though something hung on his answer. “You used to be very good to him, as Mrs. Hadwell says. Would you like to know where he is, now?”
“Yes—no—yes, I should like to very much,” said Lynn in a low voice.
“Well, he is within a few minutes’ walk of this place.”
“You don’t say so! And what is he doing?” asked Mrs. Hadwell with much excitement.
“Going to the devil as fast as he possibly can.”
“How? Why? Wherefore? Lynn, I shall shake you in another minute if you don’t show a little more interest. This is positively the most exciting thing. Think of it! Ricossia!—going to the Devil with a big D!—within a few minutes’ walk of this place. What’s his address, Mr. Amherst?”
“I—I don’t feel at liberty to tell you that,” responded Amherst, after a slight hesitation. “I don’t think he would like to have it known.”
“Oh, he must be a terribly shady character,” said Mrs. Hadwell with a delighted chuckle. “I think all this is thrilling. Do tell me his address. I won’t hurt him. I only want to see for myself what he is doing and how he is. I’ll—I’d like to take him a glass of jelly and some grapes. What’s the matter, Mr. Amherst?”
“Excuse me. The idea of Ricossia in conjunction with the glass of jelly and the grapes upset me for the moment, that is all.”
“I’d take him some champagne if Lynn wasn’t with me. In my most abandoned moments I never forget that I am a chaperon so I’m afraid the champagne will have to be left behind. But I will go and see him—Mr. Amherst, do tell me.”
Amherst smilingly shook his head.
“He wouldn’t like it, I know.”
“You’re quite right,” said Lynn, regarding the speaker, gratefully. “I’m sure he wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t, in his place. Do—do you ever see him, Mr. Amherst?”
“Often. I frequently run over and just have an eye to him. I always expect to find him frozen or burnt to death or something of that sort. But Providence always looks after people of that kind. He’ll die in his bed, no fear—the little brute!”
Lynn started and flushed.
“I thought you liked him,” she said with involuntary reproach in her tone.
“Well—fact is, I don’t. What’s more, I don’t know anyone who does. The boy’s unfit to live and about equally unfit to die—poor little chap! It’s wonderful, though, the way he lasts. He’s a living example of a theory I’ve always held, namely, that consumption doesn’t really kill, no matter what the hardships may be, until the consumptive loses interest in life and living. Then, he goes very quickly.”
“You may be right,” said Lynn, tonelessly.
“Now, while Mrs. Hadwell is absorbed in the bald man with the red nose who is hanging at the other end of the room,” said Amherst, hastily, “I want to ask you something. How is it that I never see you, now? It must be a month since I last had a real talk with you. What’s the matter?”
“The matter? Why, nothing.”
“You’re not offended with me about anything?”
“Why, no.”
“In the last few weeks I must have rung you up a dozen times, but you have always been out or engaged. You must lead a busy life.”
“I do,” said Lynn, smiling faintly. “But I am sorry you thought I didn’t want to see you. It wasn’t that.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Amherst’s voice changed.
“Do you know that you have avoided me ever since that night at the Burns’?”
“I—I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Is that the truth?”
Lynn was silent: then—
“Not exactly,” she said with a faint effort.
“I tried to say something to you that evening—you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t you let me say it?”
“I thought you had better not,” said Lynn in a low voice.
“Don’t say that; not unless you mean me to understand that”—
“Mr. Amherst,” broke in Mrs. Hadwell, imperatively, “you are a horrid man! First you refuse to give me Ricossia’s address, next you stand and talk to Miss Thayer in a low voice without giving me a chance to show her my portrait. She’s dying to see it, aren’t you, Lynn? and it’s getting so dark. Can’t you drive back with me and take dinner? then you can talk to Lynn as much as ever you want and Mr. Hadwell and I will sit by like deaf-mutes and play propriety. Won’t you?”
“Awfully sorry!” said Amherst with genuine regret in his voice. “I have an engagement of long standing, so it’s impossible. But if you’ll only repeat the invitation, I’d love to come. Will you?”
“I will,” responded Mrs. Hadwell. “I’ll look up my engagement book and see if we can find an evening when we shall all be free. In the meantime, let me ask you what this means, this little wrinkle in my brow? I’ve puzzled over it for at least ten minutes and I demand to have it explained. If it is copied from life, you must simply paint it out, that’s all!”