“Of course, I powder a little, but that doesn’t count; and you know, I never use a puff now—only a leather. You can’t think how we enjoyed ourselves in India, and Paul’s a perfect duck. He’s been quite awfully good to me. I’m simply devoted to him, and I think we shall get a baronetcy at the next Birthday honours.”
“The reward of virtue.”
Mrs. Castillyon coloured and laughed.
“You know, I’m afraid I shall become a most awful prig, but the fact is it’s so comfortable to be good and to have nothing to reproach one’s self with.... Now tell me about everyone. Where did you pass the winter?”
“I went to Italy as usual, and my cousin Algernon with his daughter spent a month with me at Christmas.”
“Was she awfully cut up at the death of her husband?”
There was really a note of genuine sympathy in Mrs. Castillyon’s voice, so that Miss Ley realized how sincere was the change in her.
“She bore it very wonderfully, and I think she’s curiously happy; she tells me that she feels constantly the presence of Herbert.” Miss Ley paused. “Bella has collected her husband’s verses and wishes to publish them, and she’s written a very touching account of his life and death by way of preface.”
“Are they any good?”
“No; that’s just the tragedy of the whole thing. I never knew a man whose nature was so entirely poetical, and yet he never wrote a line which is other than mediocre. If he’d only written his own feelings, his little hopes and disappointments, he might have done something good; but he’s only produced pale imitations of Swinburne and Tennyson and Shelley. I can’t understand how Herbert Field, who was so simple and upright, should never have turned out a single stanza which wasn’t stilted and forced. I think in his heart he felt that he hadn’t the gift of literary expression, which has nothing to do with high ideals, personal sincerity, or the seven deadly virtues, for he was not sorry to die. He only lived to be a great poet, and before the end realized that he would never have become one.”