“Yes, it’s always said so.... I should say she has had a high old time. Iverson never tried to control her. Of course, as I say, she’s a bit passée now. She knows it, too, and has taken up with occultism, mysticism, or whatever you call it. ‘I must occupy myself,’ she said to me the other day. ‘I have decided definitely to retire from the stage of Love while I am still desirable. My children bore me. I will seek the occult.’”
“Not an ideal mother for a girl,” said Image.
“Oh! Claudia is all right. Here’s her photo. She promised it to me if I won the Driver case. It only came this morning.” He took it out of a drawer and handed it to Image. In the corner was written in a firm individual hand, “Best congratulations, Claudia.”
“Beautiful,” said Image warmly, who was ever an admirer of all things lovely, especially women. “I think I have met her somewhere. Not at all like I remember the portrait of Circe.”
“Not a scrap like her mother. A good deal of what the French call beauté du diable about Mrs. Iverson. Claudia’s look are quite different.”
Image began to recall various tit-bits of scandal and gossip that had found their way out to India regarding Claudia’s mother. Utterly unmoral, passionately heartless, the fascinations of a siren, Image had heard many tales of her. He recalled vaguely one story, which was particularly scandalous and which questions the paternity of one of the daughters. There had been whisper at that time that she had gone too far, and weak, complaisant Geoff Iverson would be roused to divorce her.
“Miss Iverson is dark, I should say? Yes, I thought so.” Image looked at the girl in the portrait, who looked back at him. She had adopted no coquettish pose, no drooping eyelids or heavenward gaze, but she looked straight out of the frame with her clear, fine eyes. And they seemed to Image to be asking innumerable questions of life. There was a suggestion, too, of eagerness about the mobile lips, as though they would open and presently shape the word “why?”
“Not a bit like her mother.” Gilbert seemed to take a comfort in repeating it. “And although there is all this talk about heredity nowadays, such a woman as Circe is something unusual. Of course, if I thought——”
“My dear boy, can you be in love with her and stop to think it over in this way?” Image was a little impatient with his godson. He liked the girl with the questioning eyes.