“That’s not a fair comparison”—I answered hotly—“Mademoiselle Derino amused me for a time.”
“And was not your rival in art!” said Lucio with a little malicious smile—“I see! Still,—as far as the question of being ‘unsexed’ goes, I, personally, consider that a woman who shows the power of her intellect is more to be respected than the woman who shows the power of her legs. But men always prefer the legs,—just as they prefer the devil to the Deity. All the same, I think, as we have time to spare, we may as well see this genius.”
[p 222]
“Genius!” I echoed contemptuously.
“Feminine twaddler, then!” he suggested, laughing—“Let us see this feminine twaddler. She will no doubt prove as amusing as Mademoiselle Derino in her way. I shall ring the bell and ask if she is at home.”
He advanced towards the creeper-covered porch,—but I stood back, mortified and sullen, determined not to accompany him inside the house if he were admitted. Suddenly a blithe peal of musical laughter sounded through the air, and a clear voice exclaimed—
“Oh Tricksy! You wicked boy! Take it back directly and apologise!”
Lucio peered through the fence, and then beckoned to me energetically.
“There she is!” he whispered, “There is the dyspeptic, sour, savage old blue-stocking,—there, on the lawn,—by Heaven!—she’s enough to strike terror into the heart of any man—and millionaire!”
I looked where he pointed, and saw nothing but a fair-haired woman in a white gown, sitting in a low basket-chair, with a tiny toy terrier on her lap. The terrier was jealously guarding a large square dog-biscuit nearly as big as himself, and at a little distance off sat a magnificent rough-coated St Bernard, wagging his feathery tail to and fro, with every sign of good-humour and enjoyment. The position was evident at a glance,—the small dog had taken his huge companion’s biscuit from him and had conveyed it to his mistress,—a canine joke which seemed to be appreciated and understood by all the parties concerned. But as I watched the little group, I did not believe that she whom I saw was Mavis Clare. That small head was surely never made for the wearing of deathless laurels, but rather for a garland of roses, (sweet and perishable) twined by a lover’s hand. No such slight feminine creature as the one I now looked upon could ever be capable of the intellectual grasp and power of ‘Differences,’ the book I secretly admired and wondered at, but which I had anonymously striven to ‘quash’ in its successful career. The writer [p 223] of such a work, I imagined, must needs be of a more or less strong physique, with pronounced features and an impressive personality. This butterfly-thing, playing with her dog, was no type of a ‘blue-stocking,’ and I said as much to Lucio.
“That cannot be Miss Clare,” I said—“More likely a visitor,—or perhaps the companion-secretary. The novelist must be very different in appearance to that frivolous young person in white, whose dress is distinctly Parisian, and who seems to have nothing whatever to do but amuse herself.”