He succeeded in advancing the date of the wedding; but during the five weeks which elapsed before it took place his moods caused some perplexity and no small discomfort to his poorer clients, junior partners, and clerks. At moments he indulged in boisterous mirth; but for the most part was abominably bad-tempered, irritable, and morose.
Colonel Haig, however, noted unexpected signs of grace in him, concerning which he spoke to Mr. Woodford one day at the Club.
"Challoner's coming more into line," he said; "he is less noisy and self-assertive—very much less so. A good deal of the improvement in his manner is due to me, I flatter myself. I have been at the trouble of giving him some very strong hints. If you propose to associate with gentlemen you must learn to behave like a gentleman. His election to the Club vexed me at the time. Too much country-attorney sharp practice in the methods he employed, I thought. So I am relieved, greatly relieved, he has taken my friendly admonitions to heart. It would have annoyed me extremely if his membership had lowered the social tone of the Club. Too, it's pleasanter for me personally, as I am bound, I suppose, to see a good deal of him in the future, on my cousin, Margaret Smyrthwaite's, account."
When alone with his fiancée during this period of waiting Challoner's attitude alternated between anxious, almost servile, humility and extravagant making of love. Margaret, however, being a young woman of limited imagination, put down both humility and "demonstrations" to the potent effect of her own charms, thus remaining altogether sensible, self-complacent, outwardly composed, inwardly excited, and, in fine, very well content. While unknown to her, unknown, indeed, to all save the man who so slavishly obeyed and fiercely caressed her, the unsightly Thing, which had once been her playmate and brother, lay out, below the ever-talking trees, among the heath, and sedge-grass, and bracken, the tragedy and unspeakable disgrace of its decomposition not hidden by so much as a pauper's deal coffin-lid.
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN ADRIAN SAVAGE SUCCEEDS IN AWAKENING
LA BELLE AU BOIS DORMANT
In consequence of the bad weather every one returned to Paris early that autumn. Anastasia Beauchamp's first reception—the fourth Thursday in September—proved a crowded and animated function. Each guest expressed rapture at meeting every other guest, and at being back, yes, once again veritably established in our dear, good, brave, inexhaustibly interesting, intelligent and entertaining Paris! How they—the speakers—ever mustered sufficient fortitude to go away, still more to stay away, they could really now form no conception. But it was finished, thank Heaven! the mortally tedious exile; and they were restored to the humanities, the arts, the sciences, in short, to civilization, of which last dear Mademoiselle Beauchamp's hospitality represented so integral and so wholly charming a part. This and much more to this effect. The French mind and French diction rarely fumble; but arrive, with graceful adroitness, squarely on the spot. Lightness of touch and finish of phrase effectually safeguarded these raptures against any suggestion of insincerity or absurdity. They were diverting, captivating, as were the retailers of them. And Anastasia listened, retorted, sympathized, capped a climax with further witty extravagance, heartily pleased and amused.
Nevertheless, to her, this yearly rentrée was not without an element of pathos. In the matter of reminiscence and retrospect Miss Beauchamp was the least self-indulgent of women; her tendency to depress her juniors by exaltation of the past at expense of the present being of the smallest. To hours of solitary communing in her hidden garden she restricted all that. Still this joyous homing, when the members of her acquaintance taking up their residence once again in Paris blossomed into fullness of intellectual and social activity, left her a little wistful, a little sad. Recognition of the perpetual shifting of the human scene, of the instability of human purpose, oppressed her. How few of those who greeted her to-day with such affectionate empressement were precisely the same in thought, circumstance or character as when they bade her farewell at the end of May! She could not but note changes. Those changes might be slight, infinitesimal, but they existed. Not only do things, as a whole, march on; but the individual marches on also—marches on, too often, out completeness of sympathy, completeness of comprehension, or, through the ceaselessly centrifugal, scattering action of the social machine, marches on actually out of hearing and out of sight! And this thinning of the ranks, these changes in those who remained, did cause her sorrow. She could not bring herself to acquiesce in and accept them with entire philosophy.
Arrayed in a dress of clove carnation satin veiled with black ninon de soie, Miss Beauchamp stood near the door opening from the first of the suite of reception-rooms—in which tea had been served—on to the entrance hall. She had taken up her position there when bidding her guests adieu. In the second room two persons were talking, Lewis Byewater's slow, detached, slightly nasal accents making themselves clearly audible.
"Lenty Stacpole feels Madame Vernois is just the loveliest mature French feminine type he has yet encountered. He would be gratified to work up those thumbnail sketches of her he made at Ste. Marie into a finished portrait for exhibition with his other work in New York this winter—"