"Why, we have a cousin who is so anxious to be taken for an Englishman that we can scarcely understand what he says, he swallows his words so."
After which he recommended two books to Grace, one of which she found on the shelves disengaged, and departed with it.
CHAPTER III
The small gathering in Mrs. Courtly's cabin at five o'clock, which looked at first as if it would be what Mordaunt Ballinger called "frosty," ended, by reason of the hostess's tact and charm of manner, in assimilating fairly well. The men were of course the difficult ingredients to "mix;" they always are when not homogeneous. Ballinger felt, and rightly, that he and Ferrars had not much in common; it would require a shipwreck to make them intimate. Ferrars probably did not trouble his head about the young baronet, except as being the brother of the most delightful girl he thought he had ever met. Saul Barham was an unknown quantity to both men. To Ballinger he was "a young Yankee, not bad-looking, but a willowy sort of chap, got up in a reach-me-down, and wants his hair cut awfully." Ferrars regarded his young countryman superciliously, as he did most things at first. And the young Harvard professor showed no keen desire to conciliate either of the men whom he now spoke to for the first time. Mrs. Van Winkle displayed an evident intention of securing Sir Mordaunt Ballinger's undivided attention, by inviting him to share a portmanteau with her, the seats in the cabin being few. But it was not to indulge in têtes-à-têtes that Mrs. Courtly had brought her friends together; they could do that on deck. With the pouring out of the Russian tea, and the diffusion of some wonderful cakes, produced from a tin, she contrived adroitly to break up the duets, for Ferrars was talking art in a low voice to Miss Ballinger, and she herself had been drawing out the young professor. She felt that the conversation ought now to become general.
"You must come and see me when you are back in Cambridge," she had been saying to Barham, as she made tea. "I am quite an easy distance by rail from there, and I want you to look over my books. I am devoted to books ... not that I am a great scholar—far from it. Do you read Italian? Yes! I am so glad. Then, with your knowledge of Latin, you will help me to decipher some old provincial poems which I picked up at Quaritch's the other day, and of which I believe there are very few copies extant. I have some Elzevirs, too, that may interest you, and several first editions. Talking of first editions, dear Mrs. Van Winkle, is it true that the whole of the first edition of your 'Phryne' is sold out? Have you read it, Sir Mordaunt? Of course you have, Quintin!"
The men were spared replying by the fair authoress, a decorative woman, with lively eyes and a very elaborate pink tea-gown.
"The demand for my book has been very great," she said, with a sweet smile, "but I know nothing of the details. I have had applications from all the chief magazines begging me to write for them, and I suppose I must do so. Of course my name has something to do with the success. People know that, as a leader of society, I write of what I understand."
"Then I conclude your book is modern, and has nothing to do with the famous Greek ... beauty?" inquired Ferrars, gravely.
"Only by analogy," replied Mrs. Van Winkle, sipping her tea slowly. "The whole world sits in judgment now upon any woman whose beauty or whose talent makes her conspicuous. If she has a symmetrical form she is always accused of being too decolletée."
"You forget that the judges forgave Phryne."