CHAPTER VII.
MRS. HARTLEY AT HOME.
After her first Christmas in London, Lettice began to accept invitations to the houses of her acquaintance.
She dined several times at the Grahams', where there were never more than eight at table, and, being a bright talker and an appreciative listener—two qualities which do not often go together—she was always an impressive personality without exactly knowing it. Clara was accustomed to be outshone by her in conversation, and had become used to it, but some of the women whom Lettice was invited to meet looked at her rather hard, as though they would have liked to draw her serious attention to the fact that they were better looking, or better dressed, or older or younger than herself, as the case might be, and that it was consequently a little improper in her to be talked to so much by the men.
Undoubtedly Lettice got on well with men, and was more at her ease with them than with her own sex. It was not the effect of forwardness on her part, and indeed she was scarcely conscious of the fact. She conversed readily, because her mind was full of reading and of thought, and her moral courage was never at a loss. The keenness of her perception led her to understand and respond to the opinions of the cleverest men whom she met, and it was not unnatural that they should be flattered.
It does not take long for a man or woman to earn a reputation in the literary circles of London, provided he or she has real ability, and is well introduced. The ability will not, as a rule, suffice without the introductions, though introductions have been known to create a reputation, lasting at any rate for a few months, without any real ability. Lettice advanced rapidly in the estimation of those whose good opinion was worth having. She soon began to discriminate between the people who were worth cultivating and the people who were not. If a person were sincere and straightforward, could say what he meant and say it with point and vivacity, or if he possessed for her those vaguely attractive and stimulating qualities which draw people together without their exactly knowing why (probably through some correlation of temperament), Lettice would feel this person was good to know, whether the world approved her choice of friends or not. And when she wanted to know man or woman, she exerted herself to please—mainly by showing that she herself was pleased. She did not exactly flatter—she was never insincere—but it amounted to much the same thing as flattery. She listened eagerly; her interest was manifested in her face, her attitude, her answers. In fact she was her absolute self, without reserve and without fence. No wonder that she incurred the jealousy of half the women in her set.
But this is how an intellectual woman can best please a man who has passed the childish age, when he only cared for human dolls and dolls' houses. She must carry her intellect about with her, like a brave costume—dressing, of course, with taste and harmony—she must not be slow to admire the intellectual costume of others, if she wants her own to be admired; she must be subtle enough at the same time to forget that she is dressed at all, and yet never for a moment forget that her companion may have no soul or heart except in his dress. If he has, it is for him to prove it, not for her to assume it.
It was because Lettice had this art of intellectual intercourse, and because she exercised it in a perfectly natural and artless manner, that she charmed so many of those who made her acquaintance, and that they rarely paused to consider whether she was prettier or plainer, taller or shorter, more or less prepossessing, than the women who surrounded her.
In due time she found herself welcomed at the houses of those dear and estimable ladies, who—generally old and childless themselves—love to gather round them the young and clever acolytes of literature and art, the enthusiastic devotees of science, the generous apprentices of constructive politics, for politicians who do not dabble in the reformation of society find other and more congenial haunts. This many-minded crowd of acolytes, and devotees, and apprentices, owe much to the hospitable women who bring them together in a sort of indulgent dame's school, where their angles are rubbed down, and whence they merge, perhaps, as Arthur Hallam said, the picturesque of man and man, but certainly also more fitted for their work in the social mill than if they had never known that kindly feminine influence.
Lettice became especially fond of one of these minor queens of literary society, who received her friends on Sunday afternoon, and whose drawing-room was frequently attended by a dozen or a score of well-reputed men and women. Mrs. Hartley was an excellent hostess. She was not only careful, to begin with, about her own acquaintance, cultivating none but those whom she had heard well spoken of by competent judges, but she knew how to make a second choice amongst the chosen, bringing kindred spirits together with a happy, instinctive sense of their mutual suitabilities. In spite of her many amiable and agreeable qualities, however, it took Lettice a little time to believe that she should ever make a friend of Mrs. Hartley, whose habit of assorting and labelling her acquaintances in groups struck her at first as artificial and conventional. Lettice objected, for her own part, to be classified.