In this she was reserved, nunlike, yet—what shall I say? What is there to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known—that the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because it was banked down.
That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own accord.
But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast of Norway or off that of Mexico.
So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs. Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance.
Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with which I should have associations.
It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by the change.
"You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. "Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill—"
"Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself."
"Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here."
It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume her own responsibilities.