The Street Called Straight

by Basil King

The brief conversation to this effect having taken place before luncheon, Madame de Melcourt pursued other aspects of the subject with Colonel Ashley when that repast was ended and coffee was being served to them in the library. Olivia having withdrawn to wait on her father, Madame de Melcourt bade him light his cigar while she herself puffed daintily at a cigarette. If she was a little grotesque in doing it, he had seen more than one elderly Englishwoman who, in the same pastime, was even more so.

Taking one thing with another, he liked his future great-aunt by marriage. That is, he liked a connection that would bring him into touch with such things in the world as he held to be important. While he had the scorn natural to the Englishman of the Service class for anything out of England that pretended to be an aristocracy, he admitted that the old French royalist cause had claims to distinction. The atmosphere of it clinging to one who was presumably in the heart of its counsels restored him to that view of his marriage as an alliance between high contracting powers which events in Boston had made so lamentably untenable. If he was disconcerted, it was by her odd way of keeping him at arm's-length.

"She doesn't like me, what?" he had more than once said to Olivia, and with some misgiving.

Olivia could only answer: "I think she must. She's said a good many times that you were chic and distinguished. That's a great deal for any Englishman from her."

"She acts as if she had something up her sleeve."

That had become something like a conviction with him; but to-day he flattered himself that he had made some progress in her graces. His own spirits, too, were so high that he could be affable to Guion, who appeared at table for the only time since the day of their first meeting. Hollow-checked, hollow-eyed, his figure shrunken, and his handsome hand grown so thin that the ring kept slipping from his finger, Guion essayed, in view of his powerful relative's vindication—for so he liked to think of it—to recapture some of his old elegance as a host. To this Ashley lent himself with entire good-will, taking Guion's timid claim for recognition as part of the new heaven and the new earth under process of construction. In this greatly improved universe Olivia, too, acquired in her lover's eyes a charm, a dignity, a softened grace beyond anything he had dreamed of. If she seemed older, graver, sadder perhaps, the change was natural to one who had passed through trials so sordid and so searching. A month of marriage, a month of England, would restore all her youth and freshness.

Nevertheless he was glad to be alone with Madame de Melcourt. It was the moment he had waited for, the moment of paying some fitting tribute to her generosity. He had said little of it hitherto, not wanting, as he put it, "to drag it in by the hair of its head." He knew an opportunity would arise; and it had arisen.

It was the sort of thing he could have done better had he not been haunted by the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amused smile on the Marquise's lips. He could have sworn that she felt the speech inadequate to the occasion. She would probably have liked it better had it been garnished with American flourishes or French ornamentation. "She's taking me for a jolly ass," he said to himself, and reddened hotly.

In contrast to his deliberate insufficiency the old lady's thin voice was silvery and precise. Out of some bit of obscure wilfulness, roused by his being an Englishman, she accentuated her Parisian affectations.

"I'm very much delighted, Col-on-el," she said, giving the military title its three distinct French syllables, "but you must not think me better than I am. I'm very fond of my niece—and of her father. After all, they stand nearer to me than any one else in the world. They're all I've got of my very own. In any case, they should have had the money some day—when I—that is, I'd made my will n'est-ce pas? But what matters a little sooner or a little later? And I want my niece to be happy. I want a great many things; but when I've sifted them all, I think I want that more than anything else."