“Yes—I know—but sometimes I feel homesick. It isn’t only that I want to make Butte sit up; but—well, I suppose you’ll laugh, but I miss the mountains. I never thought much about them when I was there, but they’ve kind of haunted me lately.”
“There are mountains in Europe.”
“I know, but they’re just scenery. Our mountains are different.”
Ora looked at her speculatively. It was not the first time that Ida had surprised her with glow-worms flitting across her spiritual night, although she seemed to be so devoid of imagination, or what she would have called superfluous nonsense, as to inspire her more highly organised friend with envy. Her mental and artistic development had been rapid and remarkable but uneven. She yawned through the opera and symphony concerts. She would always be bored by pictures unless she could read a “story” in them, although she had now mastered the jargon of art as well as most of her quick-witted country-women. In Florence and Rome she had “struck” after one morning of picture galleries, but she showed a spontaneous and curious appreciation of the architecture of the Renaissance. Ora had expected the usual ecstasies over the old castles of England and Germany, but although Ida admired them heartily, and even declared they made her feel “real romantic,” it was for the Renaissance palaces of France and of the cities they visited in Italy that she reserved her instant and critical admiration. Ora, who like most imaginative people played with the theory of reincarnation, amused herself visioning Ida in Burne-Jones costumes, haunting the chill midnight corridors of a Florentine palace, dagger in hand, or brewing a poisoned bowl. If Ida possessed a rudimentary soul, which suffered a birth-pang now and then, Ora had caught more than one glimpse of a savage temper combined with a cunning that under her present advantages was rapidly developing into subtlety. But Ida indulged too little in introspection to develop her inmost ego other than automatically. To mental progress she was willing to devote a certain amount of labour. Whenever they were not on a train or visiting at country houses, she spent an hour every morning with a teacher of either French or Italian; German she had refused to “tackle,” but, to use her own phrase, she “ate up” the Latin languages, and her diction was remarkably good. If picture galleries replete with saints, virgins, madonnas and Venuses bored her, she returned more than once to the portrait rooms in the Pitti and the Uffizi galleries, haunted the museums with their mediæval and Renaissance furniture and tapestries, and eagerly visited every palace to which the public was admitted.
And she proved herself as adaptable as Ora had hoped. In England she bored her way through the newspapers until she was able to sustain her part in political conversation. She soon discerned that English people of assured position and wide social experience liked a certain degree of picturesque Americanism when it was unaccompanied by garrulity or blatant ill-breeding. She amused herself by “giving them what they wanted,” and was a more pronounced success than Ora, who was outwardly too much like themselves, yet lacking the matchless fortune of English birth. But this did not disturb Ora, who made more real friends, and derived endless amusement observing Ida. On one occasion they visited for a week at one of the country homes of a duke and duchess that had entertained Mrs. Stratton many years ago, and Ida had enchanted these bored but liberal products of a nation that led with too much indifference the Grand March of Civilisation with her Western “breeziness” and terminology (carefully selected), combined with her severely cut and altogether admirable gowns, and her fine imposing carriage. From this castle she went on with Ora to one leased by an ambitious American more English than the English, who permitted herself to indulge in a very little fashionable slang, but had consigned the American vernacular to oblivion in the grave of her ancestors. Here Ida was languid and correct (save at the midnight hour when she sought Ora, not only for relaxation but the instructions she was never too proud to receive); her English slang (which she had “swapped” for much of her own with her various British admirers) was impeccable, and she flirted like a stage duchess.
She estimated the various aristocracies she entered under Ora’s wing as a grand moving picture show run for the benefit of Americans, and was grateful to have an inside seat, although nothing would have bored her more than to take a permanent position in their midst. With their history, traditions, psychology, she concerned herself not at all; nor did she in any way manifest a desire to cultivate the intellectual parts of her shrewd, observing, clutching brain. She threw away as many opportunities as she devoured, but on the whole proved herself somewhat more adaptable than the usual American woman elevated suddenly from the humbler walks of life to the raking searchlights of Society. In Berlin and Vienna she repeated her social triumphs, for, although Americans do not penetrate far below the crust of Continental society, smart men abound in the crust; Ida graduated as an adept in flirtation with agreeable and subtle men of the world, yet keeping the most practical at arm’s length with a carefully calculated Western directness and artlessness that amounted to genius.
In France and Italy the dazzling fairness of Ora had its innings. A vague suggestion of unreality, almost morbid, and a very definite one of unawakened womanhood, combined with a cultivated mind, ready wit, and air of high breeding, gave her a success as genuine as Ida’s and somewhat more perilous. But she soon learned to tread warily, after her theories of European men had been vindicated by personal experience. In fact, after the two girls had ceased to be mere tourists they had taken the advice of one of Mrs. Stratton’s friends and enlisted the services of an indigent lady of title as chaperon. Lady Gower had been little more than a figurehead but had served her purpose in averting gossip; and now that her charges were tourists again had returned to her lodgings in Belgravia. As maids also are a doubtful luxury when travelling they had recently dismissed the last of a long line.
On the whole the two girls had got on together amazingly well. They had had their differences of opinion, but Ora was too proud to quarrel, Ida too easy-going and appreciative of the butter on her bread. It was fortunate, however, that Gregory had been able to provide his wife with an abundance of money, for she was far too shrewd, and far too interested in prices, to remain hoodwinked for long. After three months of sight-seeing and pensions both had been glad to leave the tourist class and mingle in the more spectacular life of the great world, and that had meant trousseaux in Paris. There Ida had “gowned” herself for the first time, and her delight in her fashionable wardrobe had been equalled only by her satisfaction in driving a bargain. At present they were resting in Genoa, a favourite city of Ora’s, after a hard ten weeks in Rome.
XXXI
THEY finished their letters and went up to their rooms to rest, for they had “done” several churches and the Campo Santo during the morning.