A Strange, Sad Comedy

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“But, Gladys, we went once to swell balls,” said Ethel, reproachfully.

“Oh, yes,” answered Gladys, “but that was over and done with when I married my husband—and he is well worth the sacrifice. Reggie himself is of good family, as you know, but he is on that account too proud to associate with people upon terms of condescension—so, when we were married, we agreed to be very careful about giving and accepting invitations.”

“The social prejudices of you English are peculiar,” remarked Mr. Romaine. “It is from you that we Virginia people inherit that profound respect for land. I found, early in life, when I first went to England and when Americans were scarce there, that it was more in my favor to be a landholder and a slave-owner than if I had been worth millions. The landed people in all countries are united by a powerful bond, which does not seem to exist with other forms of property. But because agriculture is perhaps the first and the most absorbing and conservative of all industrial callings, the people who own land are naturally bound together and appreciative of each other.”

While Mr. Romaine was giving this little disquisition, he suffered furious pain, but the only indication he gave of it was a furtive wiping of his brow.

“And the hold of the land upon one is peculiar. I could never bring myself to part with an acre of it which I had either bought or inherited. Of course, during my practical expatriation for many years, my landed property here has suffered. I have often wondered at myself for holding on to it, when I could have invested the money in an English estate which really would have been much more profitable—but I could never divest myself of the feeling that the land would yet draw me back to it. However,” he continued, quite gaily, “it is now so depreciated, and the new system is so impossible for the old masters to adopt, that I can’t sell it, and I can’t live on it—so I shall be compelled to buy an estate in England in the country, for a town house, even the Prince’s Gate one, is only endurable for five months in the year.”

Ethel’s eyes glistened—a town house at Prince’s Gate—an estate in the country! Might she not, after all, be Mrs. Romaine? And Mr. Romaine’s position was so much better than that of any other American she knew; the others were all striving for recognition, but Mr. Romaine had had an assured place in English society for a generation. He had not only dandled Lady Gwendolen Beauclerc, who was a duke’s daughter, on his knee, but he had danced, at a court ball, with the Queen herself, when she was a youthful matron, and he was a slim young diplomat. And in a flash of imagination, Ethel saw herself becomingly attired in widow’s weeds and leaving, by the hands of a footman in mourning livery, black-bordered cards, bearing the inscription, “Mrs. Romaine.”

XI

AT last, Mr. Romaine was conquered by pain, and rose to leave the Chessinghams’ rooms about ten o’clock. As he said good-night, some strange impulse made him take Ethel’s soft, white hand in his, which was deathly cold and clammy. He looked at her in her fresh, wholesome beauty. He knew she was just as designing in her own way as Madame de Fonblanque—but the designing was different in the two women, according to their race. Ethel’s was the peculiarly artless and primitive designing, which is as near as the English character can come to deception—for it really deceives nobody. Madame de Fonblanque’s was the consummate designing of the Latin races, which could deceive almost anybody. At that very moment she was completely hoodwinking the people at Corbin Hall, and Letty, who had been disgusted with Ethel’s transparent devices to ensnare Mr. Romaine, never for a moment suspected that the graceful and tactful Madame de Fonblanque’s “business” with Mr. Romaine was an attempt to entrap him of a nature much more desperate and barefaced than Ethel would have dreamed of.

But as Mr. Romaine looked into Ethel’s rosy, fresh face, he saw a great deal of good there. She would not bedevil him as the French woman had done. She was amiable even in her disappointments, and if things had been otherwise, and she could have shared with him the town house, and the country house, and the carriage, would have tended him faithfully and kindly. Some dim idea of rewarding her by making her an offer as soon as he was clear of the French woman dawned upon his mind. Ethel, for her part, read a new look of gentleness in his expressive black eyes—and his hand-clasp was positively tender. But his pain showed in his glance—there was something agonizing in his eyes as Ethel’s met his. And fascinated by them she gazed into them with a strange and pathetic feeling that it was not “good-night” she was saying, but “good-by.” Mr. Romaine himself had something of this feeling—and so for a fall minute they stood hand in hand, and quite silent. Mrs. Chessingham moved away judiciously—and did not return until the door closed behind Mr. Romaine. Ethel stood in the same spot, with a pained face.