There was only one drawback to the joys of the stained-glass sisters, as they showed their friends through the house, and posed in graceful attitudes all over the carpets and against the hangings, in whose folds they almost wrapped themselves in their sweetly innocent delight—there was only one drawback, and that was, that another season was gliding by, and they were still on the matrimonial house-agents’ books—these two eligible artistic cottages ornées to let.
Stay: there was another drawback. When dear Perry was married they would have to go, for unless dearest Julia pressed them very, very much indeed to continue their residence there, of course they could not stay.
These were busy times for Perry-Morton, who, in addition to the almost herculean labours which he went through in planning and designing, so as to make his home worthy of his goddess, had to beam every evening in Parkleigh Gardens.
This beaming was a very beautiful performance. Some men love with their eyes and look languishing, dart passionate glances, or seem to ask questions or sympathy from the fair one of their worship. Others, more manly and matter-of-fact, love with their tongues, and if clever in the use of this speaking organ, these generally woo and win, for most women love to be conquered by one who is their master in argument and pleading. There are others, again, who do not woo at all, but allow themselves to be fished for, hooked, and—and—what shall we say? There—cooked, for there is no more expressive way of describing their fate.
But Perry-Morton was none of those. He was like the Archduke in the French comic opera, nothing unless he was original; and it was only reasonable to suppose that he would bring his great artistic mind to bear upon so important a part of his life as the choice of an Eve for his modern-antique paradise. He did his wooing, then, in a way of his own, and came nightly to beam upon the object of his worship.
This he did in attitudes of his own designing, while Cynthia felt as if, to use her own words, she should like to stick pins in the man’s back.
For Perry-Morton’s love seemed to emanate from him in a phosphorescent fashion. He became lambent with softly luminous smiles. His plump face shone with a calm ethereal satisfaction, and of all men in the world he seemed most happy.
He did not trouble Julia much, only with his presence. He would lay a finger on the back of her chair, and pose himself like a sculptor’s idea of one of the fat gods in the Greek Pantheon—say Bacchus, before too much grape-juice had begun to interfere with the proper working of his digestive organs. Or before the first wanderings of his very severe attacks of D.T., which must have caused so much consternation and dismay in Olympus’ pleasant groves, and bothered Aesculapius, who applied leeches, because he would not own to his ignorance of the new disease.
He never kissed Julia once, so Cynthia declared. It is open to doubt whether he ever pressed her hand. His was the kiss-the-hem-of-the-lady’s-garment style of love, and he once terribly alarmed Julia by gracefully reclining at her feet, with one arm resting upon a footstool, and gazing blandly in her face.
At other times he seemed to love her from a distance—getting into far-off corners of the room, and gazing from different points of view, standing, sitting, lying on sofas—always gracefully and in the most sculpturesque fashion. In fact, Artingale in great disgust wondered why he did not try standing on his head: but that was absurd.