Dinah Arbuthnot, after a good deal of strategy, had contrived not merely to get possession of her husband, but to hold him, strongly guarded, and at safe distance from the rest. Linda Thorne herself (and Linda had, at will, a longer or a shorter sight than other people) could scarce do more than guess at the outlines of the two figures. The little lover-like fact that this sober couple, this Darby and Joan of four years’ standing, walked arm in arm, could be known only to themselves.
‘Yes, Gaston, I was amused at sea, for you were there. And I was amused differently by Miss Bartrand. I wish you had been with us at La Delivrande. It was the first time I ever went inside a Popish church,’ said Dinah, gravely. ‘And yet, Popish though it was, I could scarce help saying my prayers as we stood before the altar. The tears came in my eyes as I remembered—I mean as I looked at the heap of offerings, and thought of the sad hearts that had brought their troubles there.’
‘Was the smell very detestable—a smell one could sketch? Had you beggars? Had the beggars wounds? Of course, votive churches and such things have to be done, in one’s youth. I am too old,’ said Mr. Arbuthnot; ‘my digestion is too touchy for me to run the risk of physical horrors of my own free will.’
‘I thought an artist should seek out every kind of experience.’
Gaston had so often insisted upon the duty of pursuing inspiration among all sorts and conditions of men—still more of women—that the remark from Dinah’s lips had a savour of mischief.
‘Every sort of agreeable experience, my dear child. The disgusting is for the great masters. Mine is pocket art—a branch that the critics discreetly label as decadent, although lucrative. Besides,’ said Gaston, ‘I have sold my soul to the dealers. And the dealers have sold theirs, if they have any, to a puerility-loving public. An honest manufacturer of paper weights and clock stands needs nothing but prettiness,—I won’t say beauty,—the prettiness of a Parisian, masquerading as a fisher-girl!’
‘Or of Parisian children dancing at an afternoon ball. Mrs. Thorne told me about your meeting with some old student acquaintance, and how his daughters led you away captive.’
‘Small tyrants! I had to dance four dances with each of them, and then be told I was “un Monsieur très paresseux” for my reward. And so Mrs. Thorne and you are becoming better friends,’ observed Gaston Arbuthnot, looking hard through the veil of twilight at his wife’s reluctant face. ‘She is a dear good soul, is she not? So bright, so spontaneous! Really, I think that is Mrs. Thorne’s crowning charm—her spontaneity.’
‘I am no friend of hers.’ Dinah’s voice had become cold. ‘I did not like Mrs. Thorne at first. I dislike her now.’
‘Impossible, Dinah—impossible. A woman with your face should dislike no created thing.’