She stopped; for Mr. Gower was struggling with many words. The soubrette looked cunningly at the gentleman; and he began with an indignant burst; but then he mastered himself. He took her by the wrist, and led her forcibly to Mrs. Gower’s room. It must be confessed that Flossie’s color changed when she saw the strange pair enter.
“Has this woman been fully paid?” said he to his wife.
“Of course,” said Flossie. “I had to discharge her for insolence to me, and she went away vowing revenge.”
“I thought so,” said Lucie. “James, show this woman the door; and hark ye, Pauline, Fifine, whatever your name is, if you even ring this door-bell again, I’ll have you arrested.”
Ah, Miss Flossie, there are some advantages you had not understood, in marrying a gentleman, though not a clever one—are there not?
And this scene ended Flossie Gower’s episode. She lived on, and still went to balls, and gave her dinners; some people even say that she fell in love with her husband. But this the author, at least, takes liberty to doubt; she liked him, in a way, for he made her own way his so good-naturedly. I do not even know if she be contented; but she certainly has more than her deserts. Perhaps she still hears, with half a sigh, of Kitty Farnum’s—the Countess of Birmingham’s—success in England; and casts a glance of envy at that lady’s varied photographs in the shop-windows, if she ever walks down Broadway. But then her whilom protégée had married a peer of the realm; and I am sure that she is glad she has not married Caryl Wemyss.
But Mrs. Gower leads no longer. She even has little influence for ill; or if she has, she does not choose to exert it. She is a model no longer; the débutantes have taken other patterns. I am not sure that Mrs. Haviland even has not greater influence—but this is anticipating. The young men no longer cluster round her carriage at the races; poor Arthur’s was perhaps the last of all the lives she injured.
Let us turn to others, in whom, as may be hoped, the reader takes more interest. But first, we turn one glance at Mr. Wemyss. One glance will be enough. No one, of course, ever knew of his great adventure; he has sometimes wished to tell it, but never wholly dared. Moreover, his honor as a gentleman forbids. Clarendon has sometimes spoken of his queer meeting with him and Flossie Gower; people wonder idly, when they grow scandalous, what has been between them; but no one really cares. Mr. Wemyss himself, as Flossie thought, did the best thing possible under the circumstances; he went to Europe on the Parthia, and has stayed there ever since. Let us dismiss him from our thoughts; he is surely not a hero of romance, nor yet even a man in a French play, as he fondly fancied; nor yet even a real man at all. Perhaps there will even be no Décadence.
Of his life he made a poor play; yet could not even play it to the end.