“Yes, she is a marvel—the cleverest woman I know.”
He laid a stress on the superlative. His praise might mean anything—might be a hidden sneer. He might praise as the devil prays—backwards. Mildred had an uncomfortable feeling that he was not in earnest.
“Have you known her long?” she asked.
“Not very long; only this season. I am told that she is fickle, or that other people are fickle, and that she seldom knows any one more than a season. But I do not mean to be fickle; I mean to be a house-friend at Riverdale all my life if she will let me. She is a very clever woman, and thoroughly artistic.”
Mildred had not quite grasped the modern significance of this last word.
“Does Mrs. Hillersdon paint?” she asked.
“No, she does not paint.”
“She plays—or sings, I suppose?”
“No. I am told she once sang Spanish ballads with a guitar accompaniment; but the people who remember her singing tell me that her arms were the chief feature in the performance. Her arms are lovely to this day. No; she neither paints, nor plays, nor sings; but she is supremely artistic. She dresses as few women of five-and-forty know how to dress—dresses so as to make one think five-and-forty the most perfect age for a woman; and she has a marvellous appreciation of art, of painting, of poetry, of acting, of music. She is almost the only woman to whom I have ever played Beethoven who has seemed to me thoroughly simpatica.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mildred, surprised, “you yourself play, then?”