<h2><SPAN name="2H_4_0013"></SPAN> BOOK II.—MEETING STREAMS.</h2><h2><SPAN name="2HCH0011"></SPAN> CHAPTER XI.</h2>
<p class="poem">
The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a
definite outline for our ignorance.</p>
<p>Mr. Grandcourt’s wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen;
but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger to
come forward and she felt herself face to face with the real man, there was a
little shock which flushed her cheeks and vexatiously deepened with her
consciousness of it. The shock came from the reversal of her expectations:
Grandcourt could hardly have been more unlike all her imaginary portraits of
him. He was slightly taller than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a
level; there was not the faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a
trace of self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat
he showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of reddish-blonde
hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of feature from brow to chin
undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome, with only moderate departures from
the perpendicular, and the slight whisker too was perpendicular. It was not
possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings:
also it was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less
animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into
rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill,
suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some
violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt’s bearing had no
rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had a faded
fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the artificial white and
red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing but indifference. Attempts at
description are stupid: who can all at once describe a human being? Even when
he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must
be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We
recognize the alphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning
the point that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the first
minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in the words,
“He is not ridiculous.” But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was gone,
and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant element in it
being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently with a slightly
exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while she only occasionally
looked at him with a flash of observation a little softened by coquetry. Also,
after her answers there was a longer or shorter pause before he spoke again.</p>
<p>“I used to think archery was a great bore,” Grandcourt began. He
spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a
distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest.</p>
<p>“Are you converted to-day?” said Gwendolen.</p>
<p>(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion about
herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)</p>
<p>“Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally sees
people missing and simpering.”</p>
<p>“I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle.”</p>
<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of Grandcourt,
made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite hearer.)</p>
<p>“I have left off shooting.”</p>
<p>“Oh, then, you are a formidable person. People who have done things once
and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using
cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I practice
a great many.”</p>
<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own speech.)</p>
<p>“What do you call follies?”</p>
<p>“Well, in general, I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But
you have not left off hunting, I hear.”</p>
<p>(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about Grandcourt’s
position, and decided that he was the most aristocratic-looking man she had
ever seen.)</p>
<p>“One must do something.”</p>
<p>“And do you care about the turf?—or is that among the things you
have left off?”</p>
<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold
manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely
to interfere with his wife’s preferences.)</p>
<p>“I run a horse now and then; but I don’t go in for the thing as
some men do. Are you fond of horses?”</p>
<p>“Yes, indeed; I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback,
having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong and
happy.”</p>
<p>(Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what she said,
but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.)</p>
<p>“Do you like danger?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It
seems to me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at
anything that came in my way.”</p>
<p>(Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season with two
chosen hunters to ride at will.)</p>
<p>“You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of that
for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after
that.”</p>
<p>“<i>You</i> are fond of danger, then?”</p>
<p>(Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of coldest
manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her own insight,
supposing the question had to be decided.)</p>
<p>“One must have something or other. But one gets used to it.”</p>
<p>“I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me:
it is only that I can’t get enough of it. I am not used to anything
except being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left off
shooting.”</p>
<p>(Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and
distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the other hand
she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not observed husbands to
be companions—and that after all she was not going to accept Grandcourt.)</p>
<p>“Why are you dull?”</p>
<p>“This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it. That
is why I practiced my archery.”</p>
<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried woman
who could not go about and had no command of anything must necessarily be dull
through all degrees of comparison as time went on.)</p>
<p>“You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first
prize.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how
well Miss Arrowpoint shot?”</p>
<p>(Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose some
one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several experiences of
that kind in novels.)</p>
<p>“Miss Arrowpoint. No—that is, yes.”</p>
<p>“Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to
the other end now—shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking toward
me. He perhaps wants me.”</p>
<p>Gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: not that
the <i>tête-à-tête</i> was quite disagreeable to her; but while it lasted she
apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her cheeks and the sense
of surprise which made her feel less mistress of herself than usual. And this
Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own importance more than he did
hers—a sort of unreasonableness few of us can tolerate—must not
take for granted that he was of great moment to her, or that because others
speculated on him as a desirable match she held herself altogether at his beck.
How Grandcourt had filled up the pauses will be more evident hereafter.</p>
<p>“You have just missed the gold arrow, Gwendolen,” said Mr.
Gascoigne. “Miss Juliet Fenn scores eight above you.”</p>
<p>“I am very glad to hear it. I should have felt that I was making myself
too disagreeable—taking the best of everything,” said Gwendolen,
quite easily.</p>
<p>It was impossible to be jealous of Juliet Fenn, a girl as middling as midday
market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which last she was
noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding brow resembling that of
the more intelligent fishes. (Surely, considering the importance which is given
to such an accident in female offspring, marriageable men, or what the new
English calls “intending bridegrooms,” should look at themselves
dispassionately in the glass, since their natural selection of a mate prettier
than themselves is not certain to bar the effect of their own ugliness.)</p>
<p>There was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried the talk
along with it. Every one spoke to every one else by turns, and Gwendolen, who
chose to see what was going on around her now, observed that Grandcourt was
having Klesmer presented to him by some one unknown to her—a middle-aged
man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who seemed to be on the easiest terms
with both, and presently led the way in joining the Arrowpoints, whose
acquaintance had already been made by both him and Grandcourt. Who this
stranger was she did not care much to know; but she wished to observe what was
Grandcourt’s manner toward others than herself. Precisely the same:
except that he did not look much at Miss Arrowpoint, but rather at Klesmer, who
was speaking with animation—now stretching out his long fingers
horizontally, now pointing downward with his forefinger, now folding his arms
and tossing his mane, while he addressed himself first to one and then to the
other, including Grandcourt, who listened with an impassive face and narrow
eyes, his left forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket, and his right slightly
touching his thin whisker.</p>
<p>“I wonder which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most,” was a thought
that glanced through Gwendolen’s mind, while her eyes and lips gathered
rather a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of amusement
by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her animation to those
immediately around her, determined not to care whether Mr. Grandcourt came near
her again or not.</p>
<p>He did come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to conduct Mrs.
Davilow to her carriage, “Shall we meet again in the ball-room?”
she said as he raised his hat at parting. The “yes” in reply had
the usual slight drawl and perfect gravity.</p>
<p>“You were wrong for once, Gwendolen,” said Mrs. Davilow, during
their few minutes’ drive to the castle.</p>
<p>“In what, mamma?”</p>
<p>“About Mr. Grandcourt’s appearance and manners. You can’t
find anything ridiculous in him.”</p>
<p>“I suppose I could if I tried, but I don’t want to do it,”
said Gwendolen, rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more.</p>
<p>It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine apart,
so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and rest for both.
Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about the epicurism of the
ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a revolting masculine judgment in
venison, even asking for the fat—a proof of the frightful rate at which
corruption might go on in women, but for severe social restraint, and every
year the amiable Lord Brackenshaw, who was something of a <i>gourmet</i>,
mentioned Byron’s opinion that a woman should never be seen
eating,—introducing it with a confidential—“The fact
is” as if he were for the first time admitting his concurrence in that
sentiment of the refined poet.</p>
<p>In the ladies’ dining-room it was evident that Gwendolen was not a
general favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy between
her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed what she said than
spoke to her in free exchange. Perhaps it was that she was not much interested
in them, and when left alone in their company had a sense of empty benches.
Mrs. Vulcany once remarked that Miss Harleth was too fond of the gentlemen; but
we know that she was not in the least fond of them—she was only fond of
their homage—and women did not give her homage. The exception to this
willing aloofness from her was Miss Arrowpoint, who often managed
unostentatiously to be by her side, and talked to her with quiet friendliness.</p>
<p>“She knows, as I do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a husband
for us,” thought Gwendolen, “and she is determined not to enter
into the quarrel.”</p>
<p>“I think Miss Arrowpoint has the best manners I ever saw,” said
Mrs. Davilow, when she and Gwendolen were in a dressing-room with Mrs.
Gascoigne and Anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk apart.</p>
<p>“I wish I were like her,” said Gwendolen.</p>
<p>“Why? Are you getting discontented with yourself, Gwen?”</p>
<p>“No; but I am discontented with things. She seems contented.”</p>
<p>“I am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. You must have enjoyed the
shooting. I saw you did.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that is over now, and I don’t know what will come next,”
said Gwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her
arms. They were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery dress,
throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white cashmere with its
border of pale green set off her form to the utmost. A thin line of gold round
her neck, and the gold star on her breast, were her only ornaments. Her smooth
soft hair piled up into a grand crown made a clear line about her brow. Sir
Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an
easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to
represent the truth of change—only to give stability to one beautiful
moment.</p>
<p>“The dancing will come next,” said Mrs. Davilow “You are sure
to enjoy that.”</p>
<p>“I shall only dance in the quadrille. I told Mr. Clintock so. I shall not
waltz or polk with any one.”</p>
<p>“Why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?”</p>
<p>“I can’t bear having ugly people so near me.”</p>
<p>“Whom do you mean by ugly people?”</p>
<p>“Oh, plenty.”</p>
<p>“Mr. Clintock, for example, is not ugly.” Mrs. Davilow dared not
mention Grandcourt.</p>
<p>“Well, I hate woolen cloth touching me.”</p>
<p>“Fancy!” said Mrs. Davilow to her sister who now came up from the
other end of the room. “Gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk.”</p>
<p>“She is rather given to whims, I think,” said Mrs. Gascoigne,
gravely. “It would be more becoming in her to behave as other young
ladies do on such an occasion as this; especially when she has had the
advantage of first-rate dancing lessons.”</p>
<p>“Why should I dance if I don’t like it, aunt? It is not in the
catechism.”</p>
<p>“My <i>dear</i>!” said Mrs. Gascoigne, in a tone of severe check,
and Anna looked frightened at Gwendolen’s daring. But they all passed on
without saying any more.</p>
<p>Apparently something had changed Gwendolen’s mood since the hour of
exulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. But she did not look the worse under
the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor of the scene and the
pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but be soothing to the temper,
when accompanied with the consciousness of being preeminently sought for.
Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to have her for a partner, and each whom
she accepted was in a state of melancholy remonstrance that she would not waltz
or polk.</p>
<p>“Are you under a vow, Miss Harleth?”—“Why are you so
cruel to us all?”—“You waltzed with me in
February.”—“And you who waltz so perfectly!” were
exclamations not without piquancy for her. The ladies who waltzed naturally
thought that Miss Harleth only wanted to make herself particular; but her uncle
when he overheard her refusal, supported her by saying,</p>
<p>“Gwendolen has usually good reasons.” He thought she was certainly
more distinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished. The
archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that suited all
dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for youthful high
spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the fashionable dances were too
much of a romp.</p>
<p>Among the remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not numbered.
After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it seemed that he meant
to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed him frequently with the
Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity of approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne
was sometimes speaking to him; but Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere. It was in her
mind now that she would probably after all not have the least trouble about
him: perhaps he had looked at her without any particular admiration, and was
too much used to everything in the world to think of her as more than one of
the girls who were invited in that part of the country. Of course! It was
ridiculous of elders to entertain notions about what a man would do, without
having seen him even through a telescope. Probably he meant to marry Miss
Arrowpoint. Whatever might come, she, Gwendolen, was not going to be
disappointed: the affair was a joke whichever way it turned, for she had never
committed herself even by a silent confidence in anything Mr. Grandcourt would
do. Still, she noticed that he did sometimes quietly and gradually change his
position according to hers, so that he could see her whenever she was dancing,
and if he did not admire her—so much the worse for him.</p>
<p>This movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct than usual
rather late in the evening, when Gwendolen had accepted Klesmer as a partner;
and that wide-glancing personage, who saw everything and nothing by turns, said
to her when they were walking, “Mr. Grandcourt is a man of taste. He
likes to see you dancing.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste,” said
Gwendolen, with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with Klesmer now.
“He may be so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety.”</p>
<p>“Those words are not suitable to your lips,” said Klesmer, quickly,
with one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish the
discordant sounds.</p>
<p>“Are you as critical of words as of music?”</p>
<p>“Certainly I am. I should require your words to be what your face and
form are—always among the meanings of a noble music.”</p>
<p>“That is a compliment as well as a correction. I am obliged for both. But
do you know I am bold enough to wish to correct <i>you</i>, and require you to
understand a joke?”</p>
<p>“One may understand jokes without liking them,” said the terrible
Klesmer. “I have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just
because I understood them that I did not like them. The comic people are ready
to challenge a man because he looks grave. ‘You don’t see the
witticism, sir?’ ‘No, sir, but I see what you meant.’ Then I
am what we call ticketed as a fellow without <i>esprit</i>. But, in
fact,” said Klesmer, suddenly dropping from his quick narrative to a
reflective tone, with an impressive frown, “I am very sensible to wit and
humor.”</p>
<p>“I am glad you tell me that,” said Gwendolen, not without some
wickedness of intention. But Klesmer’s thoughts had flown off on the
wings of his own statement, as their habit was, and she had the wickedness all
to herself. “Pray, who is that standing near the card-room door?”
she went on, seeing there the same stranger with whom Klesmer had been in
animated talk on the archery ground. “He is a friend of yours, I
think.”</p>
<p>“No, no; an amateur I have seen in town; Lush, a Mr. Lush—too fond
of Meyerbeer and Scribe—too fond of the mechanical-dramatic.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. I wanted to know whether you thought his face and form required
that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?” Klesmer was
conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made them quite friendly
until she begged to be deposited by the side of her mamma.</p>
<p>Three minutes afterward her preparations for Grandcourt’s indifference
were all canceled. Turning her head after some remark to her mother, she found
that he had made his way up to her.</p>
<p>“May I ask if you are tired of dancing, Miss Harleth?” he began,
looking down with his former unperturbed expression.</p>
<p>“Not in the least.”</p>
<p>“Will you do me the honor—the next—or another
quadrille?”</p>
<p>“I should have been very happy,” said Gwendolen looking at her
card, “but I am engaged for the next to Mr. Clintock—and indeed I
perceive that I am doomed for every quadrille; I have not one to dispose
of.” She was not sorry to punish Mr. Grandcourt’s tardiness, yet at
the same time she would have liked to dance with him. She gave him a charming
smile as she looked up to deliver her answer, and he stood still looking down
at her with no smile at all.</p>
<p>“I am unfortunate in being too late,” he said, after a
moment’s pause.</p>
<p>“It seemed to me that you did not care for dancing,” said
Gwendolen. “I thought it might be one of the things you had left
off.”</p>
<p>“Yes, but I have not begun to dance with you,” said Grandcourt.
Always there was the same pause before he took up his cue. “You make
dancing a new thing, as you make archery.”</p>
<p>“Is novelty always agreeable?”</p>
<p>“No, no—not always.”</p>
<p>“Then I don’t know whether to feel flattered or not. When you had
once danced with me there would be no more novelty in it.”</p>
<p>“On the contrary, there would probably be much more.”</p>
<p>“That is deep. I don’t understand.”</p>
<p>“It is difficult to make Miss Harleth understand her power?” Here
Grandcourt had turned to Mrs. Davilow, who, smiling gently at her daughter,
said,</p>
<p>“I think she does not generally strike people as slow to
understand.”</p>
<p>“Mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, “I am
adorably stupid, and want everything explained to me—when the meaning is
pleasant.”</p>
<p>“If you are stupid, I admit that stupidity is adorable,” returned
Grandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. But clearly he
knew what to say.</p>
<p>“I begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me,” Gwendolen
observed after a little while. “I see the quadrille is being
formed.”</p>
<p>“He deserves to be renounced,” said Grandcourt.</p>
<p>“I think he is very pardonable,” said Gwendolen.</p>
<p>“There must have been some misunderstanding,” said Mrs. Davilow.
“Mr. Clintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten
it.”</p>
<p>But now Lady Brackenshaw came up and said, “Miss Harleth, Mr. Clintock
has charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to leave
without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. An express came from his
father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to go. He was <i>au
désespoir</i>.”</p>
<p>“Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the
circumstances,” said Gwendolen. “I am sorry he was called
away.” It was easy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion.</p>
<p>“Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock’s misfortune?” said
Grandcourt. “May I hope that you will let me take his place?”</p>
<p>“I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you.”</p>
<p>The appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as Gwendolen stood up
for the quadrille with Grandcourt, there was a revival in her of the
exultation—the sense of carrying everything before her, which she had
felt earlier in the day. No man could have walked through the quadrille with
more irreproachable ease than Grandcourt; and the absence of all eagerness in
his attention to her suited his partner’s taste. She was now convinced
that he meant to distinguish her, to mark his admiration of her in a noticeable
way; and it began to appear probable that she would have it in her power to
reject him, whence there was a pleasure in reckoning up the advantages which
would make her rejection splendid, and in giving Mr. Grandcourt his utmost
value. It was also agreeable to divine that this exclusive selection of her to
dance with, from among all the unmarried ladies present, would attract
observation; though she studiously avoided seeing this, and at the end of the
quadrille walked away on Grandcourt’s arm as if she had been one of the
shortest sighted instead of the longest and widest sighted of mortals. They
encountered Miss Arrowpoint, who was standing with Lady Brackenshaw and a group
of gentlemen. The heiress looked at Gwendolen invitingly and said, “I
hope you will vote with us, Miss Harleth, and Mr. Grandcourt too, though he is
not an archer.” Gwendolen and Grandcourt paused to join the group, and
found that the voting turned on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be
held in Cardell Chase, where the evening entertainment would be more poetic
than a ball under chandeliers—a feast of sunset lights along the glades
and through the branches and over the solemn tree-tops.</p>
<p>Gwendolen thought the scheme delightful—equal to playing Robin Hood and
Maid Marian: and Mr. Grandcourt, when appealed to a second time, said it was a
thing to be done; whereupon Mr. Lush, who stood behind Lady Brackenshaw’s
elbow, drew Gwendolen’s notice by saying with a familiar look and tone to
Grandcourt, “Diplow would be a good place for the meeting, and more
convenient: there’s a fine bit between the oaks toward the north
gate.”</p>
<p>Impossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than Grandcourt; but
Gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that he must be on
terms of intimacy with the tenant of Diplow, and, secondly, that she would
never, if she could help it, let him come within a yard of her. She was subject
to physical antipathies, and Mr. Lush’s prominent eyes, fat though not
clumsy figure, and strong black gray-besprinkled hair of frizzy thickness,
which, with the rest of his prosperous person, was enviable to many, created
one of the strongest of her antipathies. To be safe from his looking at her,
she murmured to Grandcourt, “I should like to continue walking.”</p>
<p>He obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience, he spoke
no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused, half-serious
inclination for experiment, would not speak first. They turned into the large
conservatory, beautifully lit up with Chinese lamps. The other couples there
were at a distance which would not have interfered with any dialogue, but still
they walked in silence until they had reached the farther end where there was a
flush of pink light, and the second wide opening into the ball-room.
Grandcourt, when they had half turned round, paused and said languidly,</p>
<p>“Do you like this kind of thing?”</p>
<p>If the situation had been described to Gwendolen half an hour before, she would
have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined herself returning a
playful, satirical answer. But for some mysterious reason—it was a
mystery of which she had a faint wondering consciousness—she dared not be
satirical: she had begun to feel a wand over her that made her afraid of
offending Grandcourt.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said, quietly, without considering what “kind of
thing” was meant—whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in
general, or this episode of walking with Mr. Grandcourt in particular. And they
returned along the conservatory without farther interpretation. She then
proposed to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among scattered
couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where Mrs. Davilow had been seated
all the evening. As they approached it her seat was vacant, but she was coming
toward it again, and, to Gwendolen’s shuddering annoyance, with Mr. Lush
at her elbow. There was no avoiding the confrontation: her mamma came close to
her before they had reached the seats, and, after a quiet greeting smile, said
innocently, “Gwendolen, dear, let me present Mr. Lush to you.”
Having just made the acquaintance of this personage, as an intimate and
constant companion of Mr. Grandcourt’s, Mrs. Davilow imagined it
altogether desirable that her daughter also should make the acquaintance.</p>
<p>It was hardly a bow that Gwendolen gave—rather, it was the slightest
forward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined itself toward
her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying, “I want to put on
my burnous.” No sooner had she reached it, than Mr. Lush was there, and
had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this supercilious young lady, he would
incur the offense of forestalling Grandcourt; and, holding up the garment close
to Gwendolen, he said, “Pray, permit me?” But she, wheeling away
from him as if he had been a muddy hound, glided on to the ottoman, saying,
“No, thank you.”</p>
<p>A man who forgave this would have much Christian feeling, supposing he had
intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized the burnous
Mr. Lush had ceased to have that intention. Grandcourt quietly took the drapery
from him, and Mr. Lush, with a slight bow, moved away. “You had perhaps
better put it on,” said Mr. Grandcourt, looking down on her without
change of expression.</p>
<p>“Thanks; perhaps it would be wise,” said Gwendolen, rising, and
submitting very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders.</p>
<p>After that, Mr. Grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with Mrs. Davilow,
and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at Offendene the next day. He
was evidently not offended by the insult directed toward his friend. Certainly
Gwendolen’s refusal of the burnous from Mr. Lush was open to the
interpretation that she wished to receive it from Mr. Grandcourt. But she, poor
child, had no design in this action, and was simply following her antipathy and
inclination, confiding in them as she did in the more reflective judgments into
which they entered as sap into leafage. Gwendolen had no sense that these men
were dark enigmas to her, or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions
about them—Mr. Grandcourt at least. The chief question was, how far his
character and ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were satisfied about
that, she had said to herself that she would not accept his offer.</p>
<p class="p2">
Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than
this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in
which she could make her life pleasant?—in a time, too, when ideas were
with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the universal kinship was
declaring itself fiercely; when women on the other side of the world would not
mourn for the husbands and sons who died bravely in a common cause, and men
stinted of bread on our side of the world heard of that willing loss and were
patient: a time when the soul of man was walking to pulses which had for
centuries been beating in him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of
terror or of joy.</p>
<p>What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? They
are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. In
these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human
affections.</p>
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