Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Oh! and, by the way, the young man has a mother—Frank reminded me. His womenkind don't seem to be his strong point—but as she doesn't earn even four-and-sixpence a week—very sadly the contrary—I won't tell you any more now, or you'll forget. Next time!"

When Marcella Maxwell was at last left alone, she began to pace slowly up and down the large bare room, as it was very much her wont to do.

She was thinking of George Tressady, and of the personality his talk had seemed to reveal.

"His heart is all in power—in what he takes for magnificence." she said to herself. "He talks as if he had no humanity, and did not care a rap for anybody. But it is a pose—I think it is a pose. He is interesting—he will develop. One would like—to show him things."

After another pensive turn or two she stopped beside a photograph that stood upon her writing-table. It was a photograph of her husband—a tall, smoothfaced man, with pleasant eyes, features of no particular emphasis, and the free carriage of the country-bred Englishman. As she looked at it her face relaxed unconsciously, inevitably; under the stimulus of some habitual and secret joy. It was for his sake, for his sake only that she was still thinking of George Tressady, still pondering the young man's character and remarks.

So much at least was true—no other member of Fontenoy's party had as yet given her even the chance of arguing with him. Once or twice in society she had tried to approach Fontenoy himself, to get somehow into touch with him. But she had made no way. Lord Fontenoy had simply turned his square-jawed face and red-rimmed eyes upon her with a stupid irresponsive air, which Marcella knew perfectly well to be a mask, while it protected him none the less effectively for that against both her eloquence and her charm. The other members of the party were young aristocrats, either of the ultra-exclusive or of the sporting type. She had made her attempts here and there among them, but with no more success. And once or twice, when she had pushed her attack to close quarters, she had been suddenly conscious of an underlying insolence in her opponent—a quick glance of bold or sensual eyes which seemed to relegate the mere woman to her place.

But this young Tressady, for all his narrowness and bitterness, was of a different stamp—or she thought so.

She began to pace up and down again, lost in reverie, till after a few minutes she came slowly to a stop before a long Louis Quinze mirror—her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes half consciously studying what she saw.

Her own beauty invariably gave her pleasure—though very seldom for the reasons that would have affected other women. She felt instinctively that it made life easier for her than it could otherwise have been; that it provided her with a natural and profitable "opening" in any game she might wish to play; and that even among the workmen, unionist leaders, and officials of the East End it had helped her again and again to score the points that she wanted to make. She was accustomed to be looked at, to be the centre, to feel things yielding before her; and without thinking it out, she knew perfectly well what it was she gained by this "fair seeming show" of eye and lip and form. Somehow it made nothing seem impossible to her; it gave her a dazzling self-confidence.

The handle of the door turned. She looked round with a smiling start, and waited.