CHAPTER XXXI. IN THE TOILS
Mrs. Morris gave directions that when a gentleman should call to inquire for her he should be at once introduced, a brief note from Mr. Trover having apprised her that Mr. Stocmar had just arrived, and would wait upon her without further delay. There was not in her air or manner the slightest trait of inquietude or even impatience; as she sat there, still stitching away at her Berlin elephant, she seemed an emblem of calm, peaceful contentedness. Her half-mourning, perhaps, sobered down somewhat the character of her appearance; but these lilac-colored ribbons harmonized well with her fair skin, and became her much.
With a tact all her own, she had carefully avoided in the arrangement of her room any of those little artistic effects which, however successful with the uninitiated, would be certain of a significant appreciation from one familiar with stage “get up” and all the suggestive accessories of the playhouse. “No,” thought she,—“no half-open miniatures, no moss-roses in Bohemian glass—not even a camellia—on my work-table for Mr. Stocmar.” Even Lila, her Italian greyhound, was dismissed from her accustomed cushion on that morning, lest her presence might argue effect.
She knew well that such men as Stocmar have a sort of instinctive appreciation of a locality, and she determined he should have the fewest possible aids to his interpretation of herself. If, at certain moments, a terrible dread would cross her mind that this man might know all her history, who she was, and in what events mixed up, she rallied quickly from these fears by recalling how safe from all discovery she had lived for several years back. Indeed, personally, she was scarcely known at all, her early married life having been passed in almost entire reclusion; while, later on, her few acquaintances were the mere knot of men in Hawke's intimacy.
There was also another reflection that supplied its consolation: the Stocmars of this world are a race familiar with secrets; their whole existence is passed in hearing and treasuring up stories in which honor, fame, and all future happiness are often involved; they are a sort of lay priesthood to the “fast” world, trusted, consulted, and confided in on all sides. “If he should know me,” thought she, “it is only to make a friend of him, and no danger can come from that quarter.” Trover's note said, “Mr. Stocmar places his services at your feet, too proud if in any way they can be useful to you;” a mere phrase, after all, which might mean much or little, as it might be. At the same time she bore in mind that such men as Stocmar were as little addicted to rash pledges as Cabinet ministers. Too much harassed and worried by solicitation, they usually screened themselves in polite generalities, and never incurred the embarrassment of promising anything, so that, thus viewed, perhaps, he might be supposed as well-intentioned towards her.
Let us for a moment—a mere moment—turn to Stocmar himself, as he walked up and down a short garden alley of Trover's garden with Paten by his side.
“Above all things, remember, Stocmar, believe nothing she tells you, if she only tell it earnestly. Any little truth she utters will drop out unconsciously, never with asseveration.”
“I'm prepared for that,” replied he, curtly.
“She 'll try it on, too, with fifty little feminine tricks and graces; and although you may fancy you know the whole armory, pardi! she has weapons you never dreamed of.”