Margot opened the door to him. She was quite overwhelmed by the gorgeous person in the fur-lined overcoat who asked for Jean. This was the first of Jean’s friends who had called upon him, except his fellow artists, and Margot had not a high opinion of artists.
Romain looked at her with amused eyes under his heavy eyelids. “So this was the successor of Liane de Brances!” he thought. “Pretty, decidedly, but not worth six flights of stairs.”
Aloud he said he was shocked at having given her so much trouble; he should suppose from the loud sounds over the way that his nephew was practising his new and rather noisy career?
“Yes, I think he is,” said Margot flushing delicately.
Romain gave her a charming confidential smile. “My dear child,” he said,—“you will allow me this familiarity, for I feel that we already know each other through Jean—do not, I beg of you, encourage this career! Oh, yes! You see I know your influence is great. It is delightful for my nephew to be here, and your room—well! one can see you have a taste. But you want to do what is best for him, do you not?”
“Oh, yes, yes!” said Margot, with a quick catch in her breath. “Only indeed you mistake; I have no influence, none at all!”
“Come, come!” said Romain, laughing. “Do you want me to believe my nephew a perfect fool? I grant you this piano-playing is an absurdity, but if that is his only attraction here, I must give him up altogether. I assure you, you under rate his judgment! I could prove to you very speedily, Mademoiselle, that such judgment as that does not run in our family, but I greatly fear I must leave pleasure for duty, and go in to my nephew. I can count on you, though, can I not, to support my plans for him? They don’t exclude, I assure you, his having charming friendships!”
Margot blushed very deeply and her eyes fell before the laughter in Romain’s. She felt as if a clear, hard light had fallen upon a little shining secret of her own, a secret that lived best in the dark, and which she herself had turned her eyes away from, lest they should see that which desired to escape.
Of course she would do whatever Jean’s uncle thought best for Jean; and naturally a future which promised fur-lined overcoats and a motor would be best for Jean, but they couldn’t, poor Margot knew, be reconciled with singing lessons on the sixième étage, so that her heart sank a little as she knocked for admittance on Jean’s door.
Jean had given up expecting his uncle, and he was not particularly pleased to see him. There was something in the contrast between Romain’s air of finished ease and prosperity and Jean’s poor little room and inexpensive appearance which made Jean feel rather ridiculous. One might be superior to Romain and disagree fundamentally with his sense of the values of life, but there was something about his bright, amused incredulity in the presence of a higher standard which was apt to make the higher standard look a trifle flat.