CHAPTER XIV
On the heels of this episode was one of another character. Among Mr. Saltus' many charming qualities was an especially endearing one. With persons he loved, the passing of years seemed to leave no trace whatever, and he could see no difference in their personal appearance. In his eyes, until the hour of his death, I remained the fragile and impertinent child to whom he had stretched out his hand on the sands of Narragansett Pier,—a helpless and impractical creature in a world of scheming scoundrels.
In his eyes I had not a fault. It was not that he was in ignorance of my limitations and undesirable qualities; these he saw with clarity, but he believed that every virtue had its negative aspect as well,—the defects of its qualities, as he expressed it,—and to divert or eliminate these was to impair the desirable attributes behind them. In consequence any shortcomings of mine were regarded as indications only of the most superlative virtues, and not to be tampered with. No woman could ask more of a man than to accept her limitations and incapacities as evidences of her extraordinary worth. This hallucination was a pleasing one, but it had its negative side as well. Nothing could convince Mr. Saltus that every male creature was not laying plans to entice me away from him. The fact that for long periods at a time I was not only ill, but looked too frail to attract anything more than sympathy, counted for nothing. The fact that the majority of men could not run fast enough from a woman possessing my defects was unconvincing to him. Over and over he was told that the qualities which attracted him would antagonize the average man from the start. He was still convinced that I was a fragile and unsuspecting child in a world of vultures and demons. It must be said, however, that Mr. Saltus was too much of a philosopher ever to ask me to do or to omit anything. My freedom of action was limitless and his trust absolute, and he never questioned any of my actions except as a joke.
Among our acquaintances was a Turkish diplomat, T—— Bey. Occasionally, as is the custom in England, I had tea with him or he with us, and now and again I went with him for a walk in the Gardens. The fact that he looked enough like Mr. Saltus to be a twin brother had first called him to my attention. He was perhaps ten years younger, but they looked about of an age.
Besides the fat woman and the elemental, there was another joke we had rehearsed for years. It was as follows, and leads directly to the incident concerning T—— Bey.
"If you had not been such a black devil I would not have fancied you," I used to tell him.
"I'm not a black devil. I'm a good little slavey."
"No,—you're a little dark E" (making a pun on his name), "and your complexion is your stock in trade."
"I thought it was my wheedling ways?"
"No, indeed! And if I ever disappear, look about for a man a shade or two darker than yourself and miaw around the neighborhood."