“The same evening. I did not know you were leaving Riverdale.”
“O, I only stayed for the concert. I had protracted my visit unconscionably, but Mrs. Hillersdon was good enough not to seem tired of me. I am in nobody’s way, and I contrived to please her with my music. Did you not find her delightfully artistic?”
“I thought her manners charming; and she seems fond of music, if that is what you mean by being artistic.”
“O, I mean worlds more than that. Mrs. Hillersdon is artistic to her fingers’ ends. In everything she does one feels the artist. Her dress, her air, her way of ordering a dinner or arranging a room—her feeling for literature—she seldom reads—her feeling for form and colour—she cannot draw a line—her personality is the very essence of modern art. She is as a woman what Ruskin is as a man. Is Miss Ransome with you?”
“No, I have left her to keep house for me.”
It seemed a futile thing to make believe that all was well at Enderby, to ward off explanations, when before long the world must know that George Greswold and his wife were parted for ever. Some reason would have to be given. That thirst for information about the inner life of one’s neighbours which is the ruling passion of this waning century must be slaked somehow. It was partly on this account, perhaps, that Mildred fancied it would be a good thing for her to enter a Sisterhood. The curious could be satisfied then. It would be said that Mrs. Greswold had given up the world.
“She is a very sweet girl,” said Castellani thoughtfully; “pretty too, a delicious complexion, hair that suggests Sabrina after a visit from the hairdresser, a delightful figure, and very nice manners—but she leaves me as cold as ice. Why is it that only a few women in the world have magnetic power? They are so few, and their influence is so stupendous. Think of the multitude of women of all nations, colours, and languages that go to make up one Cleopatra or one Mary Stuart.”
Miss Fausset came into the room while he was talking, and was surprised at seeing him in such earnest conversation with her niece.
“One would suppose you had known each other for years,” she said, as she shook hands with Castellani, looking from one to the other.
“And so we have,” he answered gaily. “In some lives weeks mean years. I sometimes catch myself wondering what the world was like before I knew Mrs. Greswold.”