“She’s very handsome—very handsome,” he repeated while he considered her. There was something noble in her head, and she appeared fresh and strong.
Her good father surveyed her with complacency, remarking soon: “She looks too hot—that’s her walk. But she’ll be all right presently. Then I’ll make her come over and speak to you.”
“I should be sorry to give you that trouble. If you were to take me over there—!” the young man murmured.
“My dear sir, do you suppose I put myself out that way? I don’t mean for you, but for Marian,” the General added.
“I would put myself out for her soon enough,” Overt replied; after which he went on: “Will you be so good as to tell me which of those gentlemen is Henry St. George?”
“The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he is making up to her—they’re going off for another walk.”
“Ah is that he—really?” Our friend felt a certain surprise, for the personage before him seemed to trouble a vision which had been vague only while not confronted with the reality. As soon as the reality dawned the mental image, retiring with a sigh, became substantial enough to suffer a slight wrong. Overt, who had spent a considerable part of his short life in foreign lands, made now, but not for the first time, the reflexion that whereas in those countries he had almost always recognised the artist and the man of letters by his personal “type,” the mould of his face, the character of his head, the expression of his figure and even the indications of his dress, so in England this identification was as little as possible a matter of course, thanks to the greater conformity, the habit of sinking the profession instead of advertising it, the general diffusion of the air of the gentleman—the gentleman committed to no particular set of ideas. More than once, on returning to his own country, he had said to himself about people met in society: “One sees them in this place and that, and one even talks with them; but to find out what they do one would really have to be a detective.” In respect to several individuals whose work he was the opposite of “drawn to”—perhaps he was wrong—he found himself adding “No wonder they conceal it—when it’s so bad!” He noted that oftener than in France and in Germany his artist looked like a gentleman—that is like an English one—while, certainly outside a few exceptions, his gentlemen didn’t look like an artist. St. George was not one of the exceptions; that circumstance he definitely apprehended before the great man had turned his back to walk off with Miss Fancourt. He certainly looked better behind than any foreign man of letters—showed for beautifully correct in his tall black hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the same, these very garments—he wouldn’t have minded them so much on a weekday—were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that the head of the profession was not a bit better dressed than himself. He had caught a glimpse of a regular face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache and a pair of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, and he promised himself to study these denotements on the first occasion. His superficial sense was that their owner might have passed for a lucky stockbroker—a gentleman driving eastward every morning from a sanitary suburb in a smart dog-cart. That carried out the impression already derived from his wife. Paul’s glance, after a moment, travelled back to this lady, and he saw how her own had followed her husband as he moved off with Miss Fancourt. Overt permitted himself to wonder a little if she were jealous when another woman took him away. Then he made out that Mrs. St. George wasn’t glaring at the indifferent maiden. Her eyes rested but on her husband, and with unmistakeable serenity. That was the way she wanted him to be—she liked his conventional uniform. Overt longed to hear more about the book she had induced him to destroy.
II
As they all came out from luncheon General Fancourt took hold of him with an “I say, I want you to know my girl!” as if the idea had just occurred to him and he hadn’t spoken of it before. With the other hand he possessed himself all paternally of the young lady. “You know all about him. I’ve seen you with his books. She reads everything—everything!” he went on to Paul. The girl smiled at him and then laughed at her father. The General turned away and his daughter spoke—“Isn’t papa delightful?”
“He is indeed, Miss Fancourt.”