“And yet I thought,” Will murmured, reflectively, with a quiet little smile, “you considered her a cow-girl, and looked upon her as just fit for gentlemen to play skittles with!”
It took a great deal to abash Florian. He paused for a second, then he answered with warmth, “Now, there, Deverill! that’s just like you. You want me to be consistent! But the philosophic mind, as Herbert Spencer remarks, is always open to modification by circumstances. Consistency is the virtue of the Philistine intellect; it means, inability to march abreast with events, to readjust one’s ideas, one’s sympathies, one’s sentiments, to the ever-changing face of circumambient nature. When we saw Linnet first in the Tyrol, long ago, why, the girl was a cow-girl; a cow-girl she was, and a cow-girl I called her. I frankly recognised the facts of life as I found them—though I saw even then, with a voice like that, there was no perilous pinnacle of name or fame to which fate might not summon her. Now that she reappears in London once more, a flaming meteor of song, the cynosure of neighbouring eyes, a flashing diamond of the purest water, I recognise equally the altered facts. I allow that training, education, travel, the society of cultivated men and women, have practically made a brand-new Linnet of her. It’s that brand-new Linnet I admire and adore—that queen of the stage, not the Tyrolese cow-girl.”
Will turned sharp down Craven Street “And I,” he said, with a Parthian shot, “I admire and adore the real woman herself—the same Linnet still that we knew in the Zillerthal.”
Meanwhile, Andreas Hausberger, lighting a big cigar, had taken his wife down to a cab outside the supper-room.
“O Andreas!” Linnet cried, in German, “you’ve called a hansom. I can’t bear those things, you know. I wanted a four-wheeler.”
Andreas looked at her fixedly. “Get in!” he said, with curt decision. “Don’t stand and talk like that out here in the cold street, opening your throat in this foggy air after those over-heated rooms. It’s simply ridiculous. And mind you don’t knock your dress against that muddy wheel! Pick it up, I say! pick it up! You are so careless!”
“But, Andreas!” Linnet exclaimed, in an imploring tone, “I hate these hansoms so. Whenever I go in one, the horse invariably either kicks or jibs. I wish, just this once, you’d let me have a four-wheeler.”
She spoke almost coaxingly. Andreas turned to her with an angry German oath. “Didn’t I tell you to get in at once?” he cried. “Pull that thing over your shoulder. Don’t stand here chattering and catching cold all night. Jump in when I bid you. A pretty sort of thing, indeed, if you’re going to stop and discuss in a dress like that on an English evening upon these muddy pavements!” He helped her up the step, guarding her skirt with one hand, and jumped after her sulkily. “Avenue Road, St John’s Wood!” he called out through the flap to the attentive cabman. “Half-past twelve! Ach, donner-wetter! How late we’ve stayed! We’ll have to pay double fare! Have you got your purse with you?”
“Yes,” Linnet half sobbed out; “but I’ve hardly any money—not enough for the cab in it. You gave me half-a-sovereign, you know, and I paid for those gloves, and got a new bottle of that mixture at the chemist’s.”
“Only three shillings left!” Andreas exclaimed, opening the purse, and screwing his mouth up curiously. “Only three shillings left, out of a whole half-sovereign! So! London’s the dearest town for everything on earth I ever lived in. Only three shillings left! Well, that’s enough for the cab; it’s a one-and-sixpenny fare, and I rather think they double it at midnight.”