"Leave me your address before you go. I will write as soon as I have decided what to do." Nicholas scratched the name of a hotel on his card.
When he was gone Margaret sank into a chair. She would have sent for Claudius—Claudius was a friend—but she recollected his note, and thought with some impatience that just when she needed him most he was away. Then she thought of Lady Victoria, and she rang the bell. But Lady Victoria had gone out with her brother, and they had taken Miss Skeat. Margaret was left alone in the great hotel. Far off she could hear a door shut or the clatter of the silver covers of some belated breakfast service finding its way up or down stairs. And in the street the eternal clatter and hum and crunch, and crunch and hum and clatter of men and wheels; the ceaseless ring of the tram-cars stopping every few steps to pick up a passenger, and the jingle of the horses' bells as they moved on. It was hot—it was very hot. Clémentine was right, it was hébétant, as it can be in New York in September. She bethought herself that she might go out and buy things, that last resource of a rich woman who is tired and bored.
Buy things! She had forgotten that she was ruined. Well, not quite that, but it seemed like it. It would be long before she would feel justified in buying anything more for the mere amusement of the thing. She tried to realise what it would be like to be poor. But she failed entirely, as women of her sort always do. She was brave enough if need be; if it must come, she had the courage to be poor. But she had not the skill to paint to herself what it would be like. She could not help thinking of Claudius. It would be so pleasant just now to have him sitting there by her side, reading some one of those wise books he was so fond of.
It was so hot. She wished something would happen. Poor Nicholas! He need not have been so terribly cut up about the money. Who is there? It was Vladimir. Vladimir brought a card. Yes, she would see the gentleman. Vladimir disappeared, and a moment after ushered in Mr. Horace Bellingham, commonly known as "Uncle Horace."
"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Bellingham," said Margaret, who had conceived a great liking for the old gentleman on the previous evening, and who would have welcomed anybody this morning.
Mr. Bellingham made a bow of the courtliest, most ancien-régime kind. He had ventured to bring her a few flowers. Would she accept them? They were only three white roses, but there was more beauty in them than in all Mr. Barker's profusion. Margaret took them, and smelled them, and fastened them at her waist, and smiled a divine smile on the bearer.
"Thank you, so much," said she.
"No thanks," said he; "I am more than repaid by your appreciation;" and he rubbed his hands together and bowed again, his head a little on one side, as if deprecating any further acknowledgment. Then he at once began to talk a little, to give her time to select her subject if she would; for he belonged to a class of men who believe it their duty to talk to women, and who do not expect to sit with folded hands and be amused. To such men America is a revelation of social rest. In America the women amuse the men, and the men excuse themselves by saying that they work hard all day, and cannot be expected to work hard all the evening. It is evidently a state of advanced civilisation, incomprehensible to the grosser European mind—a state where talking to a woman is considered to be hard work. Or—in fear and trembling it is suggested—is it because they are not able to amuse their womankind? Is their refusal a testimonium paupertatis ingenii? No—perish the thought! It may have been so a long time ago, in the Golden Age. This is not the Golden Age; it is the Age of Gold. Messieurs! faites votre jeu!
By degrees it became evident that Margaret wanted to talk about Russia, and Mr. Bellingham humoured her, and gave her a good view of the situation, and told anecdotes of the Princess Dolgorouki, and drew the same distinction between Nihilists and Republicans that Count Nicholas had made an hour earlier in the same room. Seeing she was so much interested, Mr. Bellingham took courage to ask a question that had puzzled him for some time. He stroked his snowy beard, and hesitated slightly.
"Pardon me, if I am indiscreet, Madam," he said at last, "but I read in the papers the other day that a nobleman of your name—a Count Nicholas, I think—had landed in New York, having escaped the clutches of the Petersburg police, who wanted to arrest him as a Nihilist. Was he—was he any relation of yours?"