“I see I shall have to postpone my trip,” said Wemyss. “Madame!” (this with much formality.)
“Monsieur!” (Mrs. Gower quite outdid Mr. Wemyss in her exaggeration of a long curtesy.)
“Now, Mr. Holyoke,” said Flossie, when the cosmopolitan had departed, “I am sure you will give me your company for a drive in the park?”
If there is no Englishman who would not enjoy walking down Pall Mall on the arm of two dukes, there is surely no American who would not like to be whirled through the world at the side of Mrs. Levison Gower. They drove for an hour in the park; and Arthur had the pleasure of raising his hat to Jimmy De Witt, Miss Pussie Duval, Mrs. Jack Malgam and Antoine Duval, Jr., Killian Van Kull, Charlie Townley, and many others unknown to him who bowed to her. She talked to him of books and poetry; of Heine, Rossetti and of Shelley; and the tender tones of her voice would have moved an older man than Arthur to sympathy with her. “I had thought that she was worldly,” said Arthur to himself. “There must be some secret in her life I have not yet discovered,” (this was very possible, seeing he had only been with her three hours)—“some great suffering or repression which makes her wear this fashionable garb as an armor to veil her wounded heart. It is despair that makes her plunge so wildly into this whirl of company and show; the loss forever of something she once longed for, that drives her to distraction and diversion. Love of pleasure it is surely not.”
Ah, poor Arthur, no doctor ever yet of soul or body but gave a biassed diagnosis of a pretty woman’s soul. How easy it is to weave romances over soft gold hair! How natural to read poetry and lost loves in the light of lovely eyes that look so sweetly now in yours! So good Bishop Berkeley showed us that we mortals see but an image of external things, an inference from the sensation of our own retina; and we silly men, like idolaters, worship but the image we ourselves create. The lily of the field still draws us, not the potato-flower, worthy vegetable. And we fondly assume that the lily cares nothing for its vestment; that it toils not, nor spins, and has its eye upon the stars alone.
Arthur now really felt that he was a friend of Flossie Gower’s. His favorite poems were all hers, and she quoted from many of them, with sighs. She had shown to him what the cynic world had never seen, the regrets and longings that lay beneath the pearls and laces that clothed her heart’s casement; the true woman, not the fashionable figure known to others. How pleasant it was, to have a friend like her; one whose own life was over, and had all the more sympathy, for that, with lives of others. She asked him to come and see her whenever he liked; and Arthur thought how comforting it would be, to go to this woman for sympathy and advice, so much older than he, and yet so young at heart!
So seriously did Arthur think all this, that it quite jarred upon him when Charlie met him on his return and boisterously complimented him. “Well, old man, you are going it, and no mistake!” (Mrs. Gower’s name was pronounced Go-er, which gave opportunity for endless puns.) “I say, old fellow, you come down fresh from the pastures like what-d’ye-callem—Endymion—Adonis, or the other masher—and sail to windward of the whole squadron!”
Arthur shook Townley off a little impatiently, and refused to dine at the club, as he requested. But, taking dinner alone, with the other boarders, he could not but say to himself that they were not pleasing to him; their minds seemed narrow and their ways uncouth. They were more affable than on the first day, perhaps because it was the evening, not the morning; there was even a certain clumsy attention in the manner of one or two of the younger men, as if they would laugh at his stories, were he to tell any. After dinner, he read a novel in his study with a cigar, feeling comparatively comfortable in the rooms, which already seemed less strange to him; and at eleven o’clock he went to Miss Farnum’s party. (One always spoke of Miss Farnum, Miss Farnum’s house, Miss Farnum’s dinners—not her mother’s.) Townley, true to his intention previously expressed, was not there; the dressing-room was full of very young men, pulling on gloves and chattering; one older gentleman with a fine pair of shoulders and an honest face was in the corner next Arthur, and attracted the latter by his looks. “I wonder where they keep their brushes,” was all he said; but he said it pleasantly; and Arthur and he walked down together.
Miss Farnum, who was a marvellously beautiful young woman, met them almost at the door. “Ah, I see you know one another already,” said she.
“But we don’t,” said the stranger, smiling; and Arthur was introduced to him as Mr. Haviland. Then Miss Farnum turned to present Arthur to her mother; which formality over, our hero found himself very much alone; and he naturally drifted away into a corner, where he found Mr. Haviland awaiting him. It was pleasant enough to stand there and watch the influx of young beauties; girl after girl came in, in clouds of pink or white, bowed and courtesied at the door, and drifted into the comparative quiet of the main dancing-room, where they eddied around by twos and threes, waiting to be accosted by simpering youth. Haviland was very civil to him, and introduced him to many of them; so that Arthur found himself walking and dancing first with a blonde in blue or white, next with a brune in pink or yellow; they were all lovely, but it was difficult to permanently differentiate their natures in one’s mind.