It was, indeed, a trait which painted the man. The value of the bill-stamp consisted, of course, in the chance of meeting with some obliging young gentleman who would consent, "merely as a matter of form," to put his name to the bill, which Frank would forget to take up. But this value was now the more precarious, as that mere matter of form had been so very frequently gone through, that he found it excessively difficult to get it repeated. As he used to say,—
"We degenerate—damn my whiskers! we degenerate fearfully: the principles of true politeness are becoming effaced."
CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER LITERARY SOIRÉE.
The soirée at Hester Mason's, to which they went that evening, was very much the same as the one formerly described; there were fewer guests, and among them more women: a sure sign that she was getting on in the world, and that the reputation of her parties was beginning to cover any suspicious circumstances in her own position.
But the women were still of a questionable class: questionable, I mean, not as regards propriety, but ton. There were no ladies who gave parties, who were recognised as belonging to "society;" and, above all, there were no girls there: the virgins were old, ugly, or wise.
In a word, the women were almost exclusively literary women; described by Cecil as poor faded creatures, who toiled in the British Museum, over antiquated rubbish which they extracted and incorporated with worse rubbish of their own—women who wrote about the regeneration of their sex—who drivelled in religious tales—compiled inaccurate histories—wrote moral stories for the young, or unreadable verses for the old—translated from French and German (with the assistance of a dictionary, a dashing contempt for English idiom),—learned women, strong-minded women, religious women, historical women, and poetical women; there were types of each class, and by no means attractive types.
One remark Cecil made, which every one will confirm. "How curious it is," said he, "to notice the intimate connexion between genius and hair. You see it very often in men, but universally in women, that the distinguishing mark of literary or artistic pretension is not in the costume, but in the mode of arranging the hair. Women dress their hair in a variety of ways: each has a reference to what is becoming; but when women set up for genius or learning, all known fashions are despised, and some outrageous singularity alone contents them. Just look round this room. There is Hester herself: she is young and handsome; but instead of taking advantage of her black curls, she trains them up like a modern Frenchman. If you only saw her head, you would call it a boy's. Then, again, next to her sits Mrs. James Murch—she reads Greek, and writes verses; you see it by the hair parted on one side, instead of in the centre, and by the single curl plastered on her brow, emulous of a butcher boy. There is Miss Stoking—she writes history and talks about the 'Chronicles'—I see that in the row of flat curls on her forehead, and in the adjustment of her back hair. Miss Fuller must be a philosophical woman, by the way in which all the hair is dragged off her forehead. That bony thing next to her must be a poetess, by the audacity of her crop. In fact, depend upon it, as there is a science of phrenology, there is a science of hair."
These women did not, as may be guessed, give any additional charm to Hester's parties, unless, indeed, in the shape of some fun. Nevertheless, their presence was inexpressibly delightful to her, for it was a sanction; and with all her sneers at the "conventions" of society, Hester was most anxious to preserve them.
Cecil, who liked Hester very much, and was interested even in her opinions which he did not share, was pitiless in his satire upon her female friends; which I will not repeat here, lest the reader should imagine that I share the general dislike to clever women—a conclusion against which I protest, and stoutly. True, I am not so blind an admirer of cleverness as to think it atones for the absence of womanly grace, gentleness, lovingness, and liveliness; but, on the other hand, some of the most charming women—and womanly women too—I have ever known, have been distinguished in literature and art. Will that avowal save me?