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Proofing was by Nina +Hall, Mohua Sen, Bridie, Francine Smith and David. + + + + + +The Chaperon + +by Henry James + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +An old lady, in a high drawing-room, had had her chair moved close to +the fire, where she sat knitting and warming her knees. She was +dressed in deep mourning; her face had a faded nobleness, tempered, +however, by the somewhat illiberal compression assumed by her lips in +obedience to something that was passing in her mind. She was far +from the lamp, but though her eyes were fixed upon her active needles +she was not looking at them. What she really saw was quite another +train of affairs. The room was spacious and dim; the thick London +fog had oozed into it even through its superior defences. It was +full of dusky, massive, valuable things. The old lady sat motionless +save for the regularity of her clicking needles, which seemed as +personal to her and as expressive as prolonged fingers. If she was +thinking something out, she was thinking it thoroughly. + +When she looked up, on the entrance of a girl of twenty, it might +have been guessed that the appearance of this young lady was not an +interruption of her meditation, but rather a contribution to it. The +young lady, who was charming to behold, was also in deep mourning, +which had a freshness, if mourning can be fresh, an air of having +been lately put on. She went straight to the bell beside the +chimney-piece and pulled it, while in her other hand she held a +sealed and directed letter. Her companion glanced in silence at the +letter; then she looked still harder at her work. The girl hovered +near the fireplace, without speaking, and after a due, a dignified +interval the butler appeared in response to the bell. The time had +been sufficient to make the silence between the ladies seem long. +The younger one asked the butler to see that her letter should be +posted; and after he had gone out she moved vaguely about the room, +as if to give her grandmother--for such was the elder personage--a +chance to begin a colloquy of which she herself preferred not to +strike the first note. As equally with herself her companion was on +the face of it capable of holding out, the tension, though it was +already late in the evening, might have lasted long. But the old +lady after a little appeared to recognise, a trifle ungraciously, the +girl's superior resources. + +"Have you written to your mother?" + +"Yes, but only a few lines, to tell her I shall come and see her in +the morning." + +"Is that all you've got to say?" asked the grandmother. + +"I don't quite know what you want me to say." + +"I want you to say that you've made up your mind." + +"Yes, I've done that, granny." + +"You intend to respect your father's wishes?" + +"It depends upon what you mean by respecting them. I do justice to +the feelings by which they were dictated." + +"What do you mean by justice?" the old lady retorted. + +The girl was silent a moment; then she said: "You'll see my idea of +it." + +"I see it already! You'll go and live with her." + +"I shall talk the situation over with her to-morrow and tell her that +I think that will be best." + +"Best for her, no doubt!" + +"What's best for her is best for me." + +"And for your brother and sister?" As the girl made no reply to this +her grandmother went on: "What's best for them is that you should +acknowledge some responsibility in regard to them and, considering +how young they are, try and do something for them." + +"They must do as I've done--they must act for themselves. They have +their means now, and they're free." + +"Free? They're mere children." + +"Let me remind you that Eric is older than I." + +"He doesn't like his mother," said the old lady, as if that were an +answer. + +"I never said he did. And she adores him." + +"Oh, your mother's adorations!" + +"Don't abuse her now," the girl rejoined, after a pause. + +The old lady forbore to abuse her, but she made up for it the next +moment by saying: "It will be dreadful for Edith." + +"What will be dreadful?" + +"Your desertion of her." + +"The desertion's on her side." + +"Her consideration for her father does her honour." + +"Of course I'm a brute, n'en parlons plus," said the girl. "We must +go our respective ways," she added, in a tone of extreme wisdom and +philosophy. + +Her grandmother straightened out her knitting and began to roll it +up. "Be so good as to ring for my maid," she said, after a minute. +The young lady rang, and there was another wait and another conscious +hush. Before the maid came her mistress remarked: "Of course then +you'll not come to ME, you know." + +"What do you mean by 'coming' to you?" + +"I can't receive you on that footing." + +"She'll not come WITH me, if you mean that." + +"I don't mean that," said the old lady, getting up as her maid came +in. This attendant took her work from her, gave her an arm and +helped her out of the room, while Rose Tramore, standing before the +fire and looking into it, faced the idea that her grandmother's door +would now under all circumstances be closed to her. She lost no time +however in brooding over this anomaly: it only added energy to her +determination to act. All she could do to-night was to go to bed, +for she felt utterly weary. She had been living, in imagination, in +a prospective struggle, and it had left her as exhausted as a real +fight. Moreover this was the culmination of a crisis, of weeks of +suspense, of a long, hard strain. Her father had been laid in his +grave five days before, and that morning his will had been read. In +the afternoon she had got Edith off to St. Leonard's with their aunt +Julia, and then she had had a wretched talk with Eric. Lastly, she +had made up her mind to act in opposition to the formidable will, to +a clause which embodied if not exactly a provision, a recommendation +singularly emphatic. She went to bed and slept the sleep of the +just. + +"Oh, my dear, how charming! I must take another house!" It was in +these words that her mother responded to the announcement Rose had +just formally made and with which she had vaguely expected to produce +a certain dignity of effect. In the way of emotion there was +apparently no effect at all, and the girl was wise enough to know +that this was not simply on account of the general line of non- +allusion taken by the extremely pretty woman before her, who looked +like her elder sister. Mrs. Tramore had never manifested, to her +daughter, the slightest consciousness that her position was peculiar; +but the recollection of something more than that fine policy was +required to explain such a failure, to appreciate Rose's sacrifice. +It was simply a fresh reminder that she had never appreciated +anything, that she was nothing but a tinted and stippled surface. +Her situation was peculiar indeed. She had been the heroine of a +scandal which had grown dim only because, in the eyes of the London +world, it paled in the lurid light of the contemporaneous. That +attention had been fixed on it for several days, fifteen years +before; there had been a high relish of the vivid evidence as to his +wife's misconduct with which, in the divorce-court, Charles Tramore +had judged well to regale a cynical public. The case was pronounced +awfully bad, and he obtained his decree. The folly of the wife had +been inconceivable, in spite of other examples: she had quitted her +children, she had followed the "other fellow" abroad. The other +fellow hadn't married her, not having had time: he had lost his life +in the Mediterranean by the capsizing of a boat, before the +prohibitory term had expired. + +Mrs. Tramore had striven to extract from this accident something of +the austerity of widowhood; but her mourning only made her deviation +more public, she was a widow whose husband was awkwardly alive. She +had not prowled about the Continent on the classic lines; she had +come back to London to take her chance. But London would give her no +chance, would have nothing to say to her; as many persons had +remarked, you could never tell how London would behave. It would not +receive Mrs. Tramore again on any terms, and when she was spoken of, +which now was not often, it was inveterately said of her that she +went nowhere. Apparently she had not the qualities for which London +compounds; though in the cases in which it does compound you may +often wonder what these qualities are. She had not at any rate been +successful: her lover was dead, her husband was liked and her +children were pitied, for in payment for a topic London will +parenthetically pity. It was thought interesting and magnanimous +that Charles Tramore had not married again. The disadvantage to his +children of the miserable story was thus left uncorrected, and this, +rather oddly, was counted as HIS sacrifice. His mother, whose +arrangements were elaborate, looked after them a great deal, and they +enjoyed a mixture of laxity and discipline under the roof of their +aunt, Miss Tramore, who was independent, having, for reasons that the +two ladies had exhaustively discussed, determined to lead her own +life. She had set up a home at St. Leonard's, and that contracted +shore had played a considerable part in the upbringing of the little +Tramores. They knew about their mother, as the phrase was, but they +didn't know her; which was naturally deemed more pathetic for them +than for her. She had a house in Chester Square and an income and a +victoria--it served all purposes, as she never went out in the +evening--and flowers on her window-sills, and a remarkable appearance +of youth. The income was supposed to be in part the result of a +bequest from the man for whose sake she had committed the error of +her life, and in the appearance of youth there was a slightly +impertinent implication that it was a sort of afterglow of the same +connection. + +Her children, as they grew older, fortunately showed signs of some +individuality of disposition. Edith, the second girl, clung to her +aunt Julia; Eric, the son, clung frantically to polo; while Rose, the +elder daughter, appeared to cling mainly to herself. Collectively, +of course, they clung to their father, whose attitude in the family +group, however, was casual and intermittent. He was charming and +vague; he was like a clever actor who often didn't come to rehearsal. +Fortune, which but for that one stroke had been generous to him, had +provided him with deputies and trouble-takers, as well as with +whimsical opinions, and a reputation for excellent taste, and whist +at his club, and perpetual cigars on morocco sofas, and a beautiful +absence of purpose. Nature had thrown in a remarkably fine hand, +which he sometimes passed over his children's heads when they were +glossy from the nursery brush. On Rose's eighteenth birthday he said +to her that she might go to see her mother, on condition that her +visits should be limited to an hour each time and to four in the +year. She was to go alone; the other children were not included in +the arrangement. This was the result of a visit that he himself had +paid his repudiated wife at her urgent request, their only encounter +during the fifteen years. The girl knew as much as this from her +aunt Julia, who was full of tell-tale secrecies. She availed herself +eagerly of the license, and in course of the period that elapsed +before her father's death she spent with Mrs. Tramore exactly eight +hours by the watch. Her father, who was as inconsistent and +disappointing as he was amiable, spoke to her of her mother only once +afterwards. This occasion had been the sequel of her first visit, +and he had made no use of it to ask what she thought of the +personality in Chester Square or how she liked it. He had only said +"Did she take you out?" and when Rose answered "Yes, she put me +straight into a carriage and drove me up and down Bond Street," had +rejoined sharply "See that that never occurs again." It never did, +but once was enough, every one they knew having happened to be in +Bond Street at that particular hour. + +After this the periodical interview took place in private, in Mrs. +Tramore's beautiful little wasted drawing-room. Rose knew that, rare +as these occasions were, her mother would not have kept her "all to +herself" had there been anybody she could have shown her to. But in +the poor lady's social void there was no one; she had after all her +own correctness and she consistently preferred isolation to inferior +contacts. So her daughter was subjected only to the maternal; it was +not necessary to be definite in qualifying that. The girl had by +this time a collection of ideas, gathered by impenetrable processes; +she had tasted, in the ostracism of her ambiguous parent, of the +acrid fruit of the tree of knowledge. She not only had an +approximate vision of what every one had done, but she had a private +judgment for each case. She had a particular vision of her father, +which did not interfere with his being dear to her, but which was +directly concerned in her resolution, after his death, to do the +special thing he had expressed the wish she should not do. In the +general estimate her grandmother and her grandmother's money had +their place, and the strong probability that any enjoyment of the +latter commodity would now be withheld from her. It included Edith's +marked inclination to receive the law, and doubtless eventually a +more substantial memento, from Miss Tramore, and opened the question +whether her own course might not contribute to make her sister's +appear heartless. The answer to this question however would depend +on the success that might attend her own, which would very possibly +be small. Eric's attitude was eminently simple; he didn't care to +know people who didn't know HIS people. If his mother should ever +get back into society perhaps he would take her up. Rose Tramore had +decided to do what she could to bring this consummation about; and +strangely enough--so mixed were her superstitions and her heresies--a +large part of her motive lay in the value she attached to such a +consecration. + +Of her mother intrinsically she thought very little now, and if her +eyes were fixed on a special achievement it was much more for the +sake of that achievement and to satisfy a latent energy that was in +her than because her heart was wrung by this sufferer. Her heart had +not been wrung at all, though she had quite held it out for the +experience. Her purpose was a pious game, but it was still +essentially a game. Among the ideas I have mentioned she had her +idea of triumph. She had caught the inevitable note, the pitch, on +her very first visit to Chester Square. She had arrived there in +intense excitement, and her excitement was left on her hands in a +manner that reminded her of a difficult air she had once heard sung +at the opera when no one applauded the performer. That flatness had +made her sick, and so did this, in another way. A part of her +agitation proceeded from the fact that her aunt Julia had told her, +in the manner of a burst of confidence, something she was not to +repeat, that she was in appearance the very image of the lady in +Chester Square. The motive that prompted this declaration was +between aunt Julia and her conscience; but it was a great emotion to +the girl to find her entertainer so beautiful. She was tall and +exquisitely slim; she had hair more exactly to Rose Tramore's taste +than any other she had ever seen, even to every detail in the way it +was dressed, and a complexion and a figure of the kind that are +always spoken of as "lovely." Her eyes were irresistible, and so +were her clothes, though the clothes were perhaps a little more +precisely the right thing than the eyes. Her appearance was marked +to her daughter's sense by the highest distinction; though it may be +mentioned that this had never been the opinion of all the world. It +was a revelation to Rose that she herself might look a little like +that. She knew however that aunt Julia had not seen her deposed +sister-in-law for a long time, and she had a general impression that +Mrs. Tramore was to-day a more complete production--for instance as +regarded her air of youth--than she had ever been. There was no +excitement on her side--that was all her visitor's; there was no +emotion--that was excluded by the plan, to say nothing of conditions +more primal. Rose had from the first a glimpse of her mother's plan. +It was to mention nothing and imply nothing, neither to acknowledge, +to explain nor to extenuate. She would leave everything to her +child; with her child she was secure. She only wanted to get back +into society; she would leave even that to her child, whom she +treated not as a high-strung and heroic daughter, a creature of +exaltation, of devotion, but as a new, charming, clever, useful +friend, a little younger than herself. Already on that first day she +had talked about dressmakers. Of course, poor thing, it was to be +remembered that in her circumstances there were not many things she +COULD talk about. "She wants to go out again; that's the only thing +in the wide world she wants," Rose had promptly, compendiously said +to herself. There had been a sequel to this observation, uttered, in +intense engrossment, in her own room half an hour before she had, on +the important evening, made known her decision to her grandmother: +"Then I'll TAKE her out!" + +"She'll drag you down, she'll drag you down!" Julia Tramore permitted +herself to remark to her niece, the next day, in a tone of feverish +prophecy. + +As the girl's own theory was that all the dragging there might be +would be upward, and moreover administered by herself, she could look +at her aunt with a cold and inscrutable eye. + +"Very well, then, I shall be out of your sight, from the pinnacle you +occupy, and I sha'n't trouble you." + +"Do you reproach me for my disinterested exertions, for the way I've +toiled over you, the way I've lived for you?" Miss Tramore demanded. + +"Don't reproach ME for being kind to my mother and I won't reproach +you for anything." + +"She'll keep you out of everything--she'll make you miss everything," +Miss Tramore continued. + +"Then she'll make me miss a great deal that's odious," said the girl. + +"You're too young for such extravagances," her aunt declared. + +"And yet Edith, who is younger than I, seems to be too old for them: +how do you arrange that? My mother's society will make me older," +Rose replied. + +"Don't speak to me of your mother; you HAVE no mother." + +"Then if I'm an orphan I must settle things for myself." + +"Do you justify her, do you approve of her?" cried Miss Tramore, who +was inferior to her niece in capacity for retort and whose +limitations made the girl appear pert. + +Rose looked at her a moment in silence; then she said, turning away: +"I think she's charming." + +"And do you propose to become charming in the same manner?" + +"Her manner is perfect; it would be an excellent model. But I can't +discuss my mother with you." + +"You'll have to discuss her with some other people!" Miss Tramore +proclaimed, going out of the room. + +Rose wondered whether this were a general or a particular +vaticination. There was something her aunt might have meant by it, +but her aunt rarely meant the best thing she might have meant. Miss +Tramore had come up from St. Leonard's in response to a telegram from +her own parent, for an occasion like the present brought with it, for +a few hours, a certain relaxation of their dissent. "Do what you can +to stop her," the old lady had said; but her daughter found that the +most she could do was not much. They both had a baffled sense that +Rose had thought the question out a good deal further than they; and +this was particularly irritating to Mrs. Tramore, as consciously the +cleverer of the two. A question thought out as far as SHE could +think it had always appeared to her to have performed its human uses; +she had never encountered a ghost emerging from that extinction. +Their great contention was that Rose would cut herself off; and +certainly if she wasn't afraid of that she wasn't afraid of anything. +Julia Tramore could only tell her mother how little the girl was +afraid. She was already prepared to leave the house, taking with her +the possessions, or her share of them, that had accumulated there +during her father's illness. There had been a going and coming of +her maid, a thumping about of boxes, an ordering of four-wheelers; it +appeared to old Mrs. Tramore that something of the objectionableness, +the indecency, of her granddaughter's prospective connection had +already gathered about the place. It was a violation of the decorum +of bereavement which was still fresh there, and from the indignant +gloom of the mistress of the house you might have inferred not so +much that the daughter was about to depart as that the mother was +about to arrive. There had been no conversation on the dreadful +subject at luncheon; for at luncheon at Mrs. Tramore's (her son never +came to it) there were always, even after funerals and other +miseries, stray guests of both sexes whose policy it was to be +cheerful and superficial. Rose had sat down as if nothing had +happened--nothing worse, that is, than her father's death; but no one +had spoken of anything that any one else was thinking of. + +Before she left the house a servant brought her a message from her +grandmother--the old lady desired to see her in the drawing-room. +She had on her bonnet, and she went down as if she were about to step +into her cab. Mrs. Tramore sat there with her eternal knitting, from +which she forebore even to raise her eyes as, after a silence that +seemed to express the fulness of her reprobation, while Rose stood +motionless, she began: "I wonder if you really understand what +you're doing." + +"I think so. I'm not so stupid." + +"I never thought you were; but I don't know what to make of you now. +You're giving up everything." + +The girl was tempted to inquire whether her grandmother called +herself "everything"; but she checked this question, answering +instead that she knew she was giving up much. + +"You're taking a step of which you will feel the effect to the end of +your days," Mrs. Tramore went on. + +"In a good conscience, I heartily hope," said Rose. + +"Your father's conscience was good enough for his mother; it ought to +be good enough for his daughter." + +Rose sat down--she could afford to--as if she wished to be very +attentive and were still accessible to argument. But this +demonstration only ushered in, after a moment, the surprising words +"I don't think papa had any conscience." + +"What in the name of all that's unnatural do you mean?" Mrs. Tramore +cried, over her glasses. "The dearest and best creature that ever +lived!" + +"He was kind, he had charming impulses, he was delightful. But he +never reflected." + +Mrs. Tramore stared, as if at a language she had never heard, a +farrago, a galimatias. Her life was made up of items, but she had +never had to deal, intellectually, with a fine shade. Then while her +needles, which had paused an instant, began to fly again, she +rejoined: "Do you know what you are, my dear? You're a dreadful +little prig. Where do you pick up such talk?" + +"Of course I don't mean to judge between them," Rose pursued. "I can +only judge between my mother and myself. Papa couldn't judge for +me." And with this she got up. + +"One would think you were horrid. I never thought so before." + +"Thank you for that." + +"You're embarking on a struggle with society," continued Mrs. +Tramore, indulging in an unusual flight of oratory. "Society will +put you in your place." + +"Hasn't it too many other things to do?" asked the girl. + +This question had an ingenuity which led her grandmother to meet it +with a merely provisional and somewhat sketchy answer. "Your +ignorance would be melancholy if your behaviour were not so insane." + +"Oh, no; I know perfectly what she'll do!" Rose replied, almost +gaily. "She'll drag me down." + +"She won't even do that," the old lady declared contradictiously. +"She'll keep you forever in the same dull hole." + +"I shall come and see YOU, granny, when I want something more +lively." + +"You may come if you like, but you'll come no further than the door. +If you leave this house now you don't enter it again." + +Rose hesitated a moment. "Do you really mean that?" + +"You may judge whether I choose such a time to joke." + +"Good-bye, then," said the girl. + +"Good-bye." + +Rose quitted the room successfully enough; but on the other side of +the door, on the landing, she sank into a chair and buried her face +in her hands. She had burst into tears, and she sobbed there for a +moment, trying hard to recover herself, so as to go downstairs +without showing any traces of emotion, passing before the servants +and again perhaps before aunt Julia. Mrs. Tramore was too old to +cry; she could only drop her knitting and, for a long time, sit with +her head bowed and her eyes closed. + +Rose had reckoned justly with her aunt Julia; there were no footmen, +but this vigilant virgin was posted at the foot of the stairs. She +offered no challenge however; she only said: "There's some one in +the parlour who wants to see you." The girl demanded a name, but +Miss Tramore only mouthed inaudibly and winked and waved. Rose +instantly reflected that there was only one man in the world her aunt +would look such deep things about. "Captain Jay?" her own eyes +asked, while Miss Tramore's were those of a conspirator: they were, +for a moment, the only embarrassed eyes Rose had encountered that +day. They contributed to make aunt Julia's further response evasive, +after her niece inquired if she had communicated in advance with this +visitor. Miss Tramore merely said that he had been upstairs with her +mother--hadn't she mentioned it?--and had been waiting for her. She +thought herself acute in not putting the question of the girl's +seeing him before her as a favour to him or to herself; she presented +it as a duty, and wound up with the proposition: "It's not fair to +him, it's not kind, not to let him speak to you before you go." + +"What does he want to say?" Rose demanded. + +"Go in and find out." + +She really knew, for she had found out before; but after standing +uncertain an instant she went in. "The parlour" was the name that +had always been borne by a spacious sitting-room downstairs, an +apartment occupied by her father during his frequent phases of +residence in Hill Street--episodes increasingly frequent after his +house in the country had, in consequence, as Rose perfectly knew, of +his spending too much money, been disposed of at a sacrifice which he +always characterised as horrid. He had been left with the place in +Hertfordshire and his mother with the London house, on the general +understanding that they would change about; but during the last years +the community had grown more rigid, mainly at his mother's expense. +The parlour was full of his memory and his habits and his things--his +books and pictures and bibelots, objects that belonged now to Eric. +Rose had sat in it for hours since his death; it was the place in +which she could still be nearest to him. But she felt far from him +as Captain Jay rose erect on her opening the door. This was a very +different presence. He had not liked Captain Jay. She herself had, +but not enough to make a great complication of her father's coldness. +This afternoon however she foresaw complications. At the very outset +for instance she was not pleased with his having arranged such a +surprise for her with her grandmother and her aunt. It was probably +aunt Julia who had sent for him; her grandmother wouldn't have done +it. It placed him immediately on their side, and Rose was almost as +disappointed at this as if she had not known it was quite where he +would naturally be. He had never paid her a special visit, but if +that was what he wished to do why shouldn't he have waited till she +should be under her mother's roof? She knew the reason, but she had +an angry prospect of enjoyment in making him express it. She liked +him enough, after all, if it were measured by the idea of what she +could make him do. + +In Bertram Jay the elements were surprisingly mingled; you would have +gone astray, in reading him, if you had counted on finding the +complements of some of his qualities. He would not however have +struck you in the least as incomplete, for in every case in which you +didn't find the complement you would have found the contradiction. +He was in the Royal Engineers, and was tall, lean and high- +shouldered. He looked every inch a soldier, yet there were people +who considered that he had missed his vocation in not becoming a +parson. He took a public interest in the spiritual life of the army. +Other persons still, on closer observation, would have felt that his +most appropriate field was neither the army nor the church, but +simply the world--the social, successful, worldly world. If he had a +sword in one hand and a Bible in the other he had a Court Guide +concealed somewhere about his person. His profile was hard and +handsome, his eyes were both cold and kind, his dark straight hair +was imperturbably smooth and prematurely streaked with grey. There +was nothing in existence that he didn't take seriously. He had a +first-rate power of work and an ambition as minutely organised as a +German plan of invasion. His only real recreation was to go to +church, but he went to parties when he had time. If he was in love +with Rose Tramore this was distracting to him only in the same sense +as his religion, and it was included in that department of his +extremely sub-divided life. His religion indeed was of an +encroaching, annexing sort. Seen from in front he looked diffident +and blank, but he was capable of exposing himself in a way (to speak +only of the paths of peace) wholly inconsistent with shyness. He had +a passion for instance for open-air speaking, but was not thought on +the whole to excel in it unless he could help himself out with a +hymn. In conversation he kept his eyes on you with a kind of +colourless candour, as if he had not understood what you were saying +and, in a fashion that made many people turn red, waited before +answering. This was only because he was considering their remarks in +more relations than they had intended. He had in his face no +expression whatever save the one just mentioned, and was, in his +profession, already very distinguished. + +He had seen Rose Tramore for the first time on a Sunday of the +previous March, at a house in the country at which she was staying +with her father, and five weeks later he had made her, by letter, an +offer of marriage. She showed her father the letter of course, and +he told her that it would give him great pleasure that she should +send Captain Jay about his business. "My dear child," he said, "we +must really have some one who will be better fun than that." Rose +had declined the honour, very considerately and kindly, but not +simply because her father wished it. She didn't herself wish to +detach this flower from the stem, though when the young man wrote +again, to express the hope that he MIGHT hope--so long was he willing +to wait--and ask if he might not still sometimes see her, she +answered even more indulgently than at first. She had shown her +father her former letter, but she didn't show him this one; she only +told him what it contained, submitting to him also that of her +correspondent. Captain Jay moreover wrote to Mr. Tramore, who +replied sociably, but so vaguely that he almost neglected the subject +under discussion--a communication that made poor Bertram ponder long. +He could never get to the bottom of the superficial, and all the +proprieties and conventions of life were profound to him. +Fortunately for him old Mrs. Tramore liked him, he was satisfactory +to her long-sightedness; so that a relation was established under +cover of which he still occasionally presented himself in Hill +Street--presented himself nominally to the mistress of the house. He +had had scruples about the veracity of his visits, but he had +disposed of them; he had scruples about so many things that he had +had to invent a general way, to dig a central drain. Julia Tramore +happened to meet him when she came up to town, and she took a view of +him more benevolent than her usual estimate of people encouraged by +her mother. The fear of agreeing with that lady was a motive, but +there was a stronger one, in this particular case, in the fear of +agreeing with her niece, who had rejected him. His situation might +be held to have improved when Mr. Tramore was taken so gravely ill +that with regard to his recovery those about him left their eyes to +speak for their lips; and in the light of the poor gentleman's recent +death it was doubtless better than it had ever been. + +He was only a quarter of an hour with the girl, but this gave him +time to take the measure of it. After he had spoken to her about her +bereavement, very much as an especially mild missionary might have +spoken to a beautiful Polynesian, he let her know that he had learned +from her companions the very strong step she was about to take. This +led to their spending together ten minutes which, to her mind, threw +more light on his character than anything that had ever passed +between them. She had always felt with him as if she were standing +on an edge, looking down into something decidedly deep. To-day the +impression of the perpendicular shaft was there, but it was rather an +abyss of confusion and disorder than the large bright space in which +she had figured everything as ranged and pigeon-holed, presenting the +appearance of the labelled shelves and drawers at a chemist's. He +discussed without an invitation to discuss, he appealed without a +right to appeal. He was nothing but a suitor tolerated after +dismissal, but he took strangely for granted a participation in her +affairs. He assumed all sorts of things that made her draw back. He +implied that there was everything now to assist them in arriving at +an agreement, since she had never informed him that he was positively +objectionable; but that this symmetry would be spoiled if she should +not be willing to take a little longer to think of certain +consequences. She was greatly disconcerted when she saw what +consequences he meant and at his reminding her of them. What on +earth was the use of a lover if he was to speak only like one's +grandmother and one's aunt? He struck her as much in love with her +and as particularly careful at the same time as to what he might say. +He never mentioned her mother; he only alluded, indirectly but +earnestly, to the "step." He disapproved of it altogether, took an +unexpectedly prudent, politic view of it. He evidently also believed +that she would be dragged down; in other words that she would not be +asked out. It was his idea that her mother would contaminate her, so +that he should find himself interested in a young person discredited +and virtually unmarriageable. All this was more obvious to him than +the consideration that a daughter should be merciful. Where was his +religion if he understood mercy so little, and where were his talent +and his courage if he were so miserably afraid of trumpery social +penalties? Rose's heart sank when she reflected that a man supposed +to be first-rate hadn't guessed that rather than not do what she +could for her mother she would give up all the Engineers in the +world. She became aware that she probably would have been moved to +place her hand in his on the spot if he had come to her saying "Your +idea is the right one; put it through at every cost." She couldn't +discuss this with him, though he impressed her as having too much at +stake for her to treat him with mere disdain. She sickened at the +revelation that a gentleman could see so much in mere vulgarities of +opinion, and though she uttered as few words as possible, conversing +only in sad smiles and headshakes and in intercepted movements toward +the door, she happened, in some unguarded lapse from her reticence, +to use the expression that she was disappointed in him. He caught at +it and, seeming to drop his field-glass, pressed upon her with +nearer, tenderer eyes. + +"Can I be so happy as to believe, then, that you had thought of me +with some confidence, with some faith?" + +"If you didn't suppose so, what is the sense of this visit?" Rose +asked. + +"One can be faithful without reciprocity," said the young man. "I +regard you in a light which makes me want to protect you even if I +have nothing to gain by it." + +"Yet you speak as if you thought you might keep me for yourself." + +"For YOURSELF. I don't want you to suffer." + +"Nor to suffer yourself by my doing so," said Rose, looking down. + +"Ah, if you would only marry me next month!" he broke out +inconsequently. + +"And give up going to mamma?" Rose waited to see if he would say +"What need that matter? Can't your mother come to us?" But he said +nothing of the sort; he only answered - + +"She surely would be sorry to interfere with the exercise of any +other affection which I might have the bliss of believing that you +are now free, in however small a degree, to entertain." + +Rose knew that her mother wouldn't be sorry at all; but she contented +herself with rejoining, her hand on the door: "Good-bye. I sha'n't +suffer. I'm not afraid." + +"You don't know how terrible, how cruel, the world can be." + +"Yes, I do know. I know everything!" + +The declaration sprang from her lips in a tone which made him look at +her as he had never looked before, as if he saw something new in her +face, as if he had never yet known her. He hadn't displeased her so +much but that she would like to give him that impression, and since +she felt that she was doing so she lingered an instant for the +purpose. It enabled her to see, further, that he turned red; then to +become aware that a carriage had stopped at the door. Captain Jay's +eyes, from where he stood, fell upon this arrival, and the nature of +their glance made Rose step forward to look. Her mother sat there, +brilliant, conspicuous, in the eternal victoria, and the footman was +already sounding the knocker. It had been no part of the arrangement +that she should come to fetch her; it had been out of the question--a +stroke in such bad taste as would have put Rose in the wrong. The +girl had never dreamed of it, but somehow, suddenly, perversely, she +was glad of it now; she even hoped that her grandmother and her aunt +were looking out upstairs. + +"My mother has come for me. Good-bye," she repeated; but this time +her visitor had got between her and the door. + +"Listen to me before you go. I will give you a life's devotion," the +young man pleaded. He really barred the way. + +She wondered whether her grandmother had told him that if her flight +were not prevented she would forfeit money. Then, vividly, it came +over her that this would be what he was occupied with. "I shall +never think of you--let me go!" she cried, with passion. + +Captain Jay opened the door, but Rose didn't see his face, and in a +moment she was out of the house. Aunt Julia, who was sure to have +been hovering, had taken flight before the profanity of the knock. + +"Heavens, dear, where did you get your mourning?" the lady in the +victoria asked of her daughter as they drove away. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +Lady Maresfield had given her boy a push in his plump back and had +said to him, "Go and speak to her now; it's your chance." She had +for a long time wanted this scion to make himself audible to Rose +Tramore, but the opportunity was not easy to come by. The case was +complicated. Lady Maresfield had four daughters, of whom only one +was married. It so happened moreover that this one, Mrs. Vaughan- +Vesey, the only person in the world her mother was afraid of, was the +most to be reckoned with. The Honourable Guy was in appearance all +his mother's child, though he was really a simpler soul. He was +large and pink; large, that is, as to everything but the eyes, which +were diminishing points, and pink as to everything but the hair, +which was comparable, faintly, to the hue of the richer rose. He had +also, it must be conceded, very small neat teeth, which made his +smile look like a young lady's. He had no wish to resemble any such +person, but he was perpetually smiling, and he smiled more than ever +as he approached Rose Tramore, who, looking altogether, to his mind, +as a pretty girl should, and wearing a soft white opera-cloak over a +softer black dress, leaned alone against the wall of the vestibule at +Covent Garden while, a few paces off, an old gentleman engaged her +mother in conversation. Madame Patti had been singing, and they were +all waiting for their carriages. To their ears at present came a +vociferation of names and a rattle of wheels. The air, through +banging doors, entered in damp, warm gusts, heavy with the stale, +slightly sweet taste of the London season when the London season is +overripe and spoiling. + +Guy Mangler had only three minutes to reestablish an interrupted +acquaintance with our young lady. He reminded her that he had danced +with her the year before, and he mentioned that he knew her brother. +His mother had lately been to see old Mrs. Tramore, but this he did +not mention, not being aware of it. That visit had produced, on Lady +Maresfield's part, a private crisis, engendered ideas. One of them +was that the grandmother in Hill Street had really forgiven the +wilful girl much more than she admitted. Another was that there +would still be some money for Rose when the others should come into +theirs. Still another was that the others would come into theirs at +no distant date; the old lady was so visibly going to pieces. There +were several more besides, as for instance that Rose had already +fifteen hundred a year from her father. The figure had been betrayed +in Hill Street; it was part of the proof of Mrs. Tramore's +decrepitude. Then there was an equal amount that her mother had to +dispose of and on which the girl could absolutely count, though of +course it might involve much waiting, as the mother, a person of +gross insensibility, evidently wouldn't die of cold-shouldering. +Equally definite, to do it justice, was the conception that Rose was +in truth remarkably good looking, and that what she had undertaken to +do showed, and would show even should it fail, cleverness of the +right sort. Cleverness of the right sort was exactly the quality +that Lady Maresfield prefigured as indispensable in a young lady to +whom she should marry her second son, over whose own deficiencies she +flung the veil of a maternal theory that HIS cleverness was of a sort +that was wrong. Those who knew him less well were content to wish +that he might not conceal it for such a scruple. This enumeration of +his mother's views does not exhaust the list, and it was in obedience +to one too profound to be uttered even by the historian that, after a +very brief delay, she decided to move across the crowded lobby. Her +daughter Bessie was the only one with her; Maggie was dining with the +Vaughan-Veseys, and Fanny was not of an age. Mrs. Tramore the +younger showed only an admirable back--her face was to her old +gentleman--and Bessie had drifted to some other people; so that it +was comparatively easy for Lady Maresfield to say to Rose, in a +moment: "My dear child, are you never coming to see us?" + +"We shall be delighted to come if you'll ask us," Rose smiled. + +Lady Maresfield had been prepared for the plural number, and she was +a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert. "I'm sure Guy is +longing for another dance with you," she rejoined, with the most +unblinking irrelevance. + +"I'm afraid we're not dancing again quite yet," said Rose, glancing +at her mother's exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were +muffled in crape. + +Lady Maresfield leaned her head on one side and seemed almost +wistful. "Not even at my sister's ball? She's to have something +next week. She'll write to you." + +Rose Tramore, on the spot, looking bright but vague, turned three or +four things over in her mind. She remembered that the sister of her +interlocutress was the proverbially rich Mrs. Bray, a bankeress or a +breweress or a builderess, who had so big a house that she couldn't +fill it unless she opened her doors, or her mouth, very wide. Rose +had learnt more about London society during these lonely months with +her mother than she had ever picked up in Hill Street. The younger +Mrs. Tramore was a mine of commerages, and she had no need to go out +to bring home the latest intelligence. At any rate Mrs. Bray might +serve as the end of a wedge. "Oh, I dare say we might think of +that," Rose said. "It would be very kind of your sister." + +"Guy'll think of it, won't you, Guy?" asked Lady Maresfield. + +"Rather!" Guy responded, with an intonation as fine as if he had +learnt it at a music hall; while at the same moment the name of his +mother's carriage was bawled through the place. Mrs. Tramore had +parted with her old gentleman; she turned again to her daughter. +Nothing occurred but what always occurred, which was exactly this +absence of everything--a universal lapse. She didn't exist, even for +a second, to any recognising eye. The people who looked at her--of +course there were plenty of those--were only the people who didn't +exist for hers. Lady Maresfield surged away on her son's arm. + +It was this noble matron herself who wrote, the next day, inclosing a +card of invitation from Mrs. Bray and expressing the hope that Rose +would come and dine and let her ladyship take her. She should have +only one of her own girls; Gwendolen Vesey was to take the other. +Rose handed both the note and the card in silence to her mother; the +latter exhibited only the name of Miss Tramore. "You had much better +go, dear," her mother said; in answer to which Miss Tramore slowly +tore up the documents, looking with clear, meditative eyes out of the +window. Her mother always said "You had better go"--there had been +other incidents--and Rose had never even once taken account of the +observation. She would make no first advances, only plenty of second +ones, and, condoning no discrimination, would treat no omission as +venial. She would keep all concessions till afterwards; then she +would make them one by one. Fighting society was quite as hard as +her grandmother had said it would be; but there was a tension in it +which made the dreariness vibrate--the dreariness of such a winter as +she had just passed. Her companion had cried at the end of it, and +she had cried all through; only her tears had been private, while her +mother's had fallen once for all, at luncheon on the bleak Easter +Monday--produced by the way a silent survey of the deadly square +brought home to her that every creature but themselves was out of +town and having tremendous fun. Rose felt that it was useless to +attempt to explain simply by her mourning this severity of solitude; +for if people didn't go to parties (at least a few didn't) for six +months after their father died, this was the very time other people +took for coming to see them. It was not too much to say that during +this first winter of Rose's period with her mother she had no +communication whatever with the world. It had the effect of making +her take to reading the new American books: she wanted to see how +girls got on by themselves. She had never read so much before, and +there was a legitimate indifference in it when topics failed with her +mother. They often failed after the first days, and then, while she +bent over instructive volumes, this lady, dressed as if for an +impending function, sat on the sofa and watched her. Rose was not +embarrassed by such an appearance, for she could reflect that, a +little before, her companion had not even a girl who had taken refuge +in queer researches to look at. She was moreover used to her +mother's attitude by this time. She had her own description of it: +it was the attitude of waiting for the carriage. If they didn't go +out it was not that Mrs. Tramore was not ready in time, and Rose had +even an alarmed prevision of their some day always arriving first. +Mrs. Tramore's conversation at such moments was abrupt, inconsequent +and personal. She sat on the edge of sofas and chairs and glanced +occasionally at the fit of her gloves (she was perpetually gloved, +and the fit was a thing it was melancholy to see wasted), as people +do who are expecting guests to dinner. Rose used almost to fancy +herself at times a perfunctory husband on the other side of the fire. + +What she was not yet used to--there was still a charm in it--was her +mother's extraordinary tact. During the years they lived together +they never had a discussion; a circumstance all the more remarkable +since if the girl had a reason for sparing her companion (that of +being sorry for her) Mrs. Tramore had none for sparing her child. +She only showed in doing so a happy instinct--the happiest thing +about her. She took in perfection a course which represented +everything and covered everything; she utterly abjured all authority. +She testified to her abjuration in hourly ingenious, touching ways. +In this manner nothing had to be talked over, which was a mercy all +round. The tears on Easter Monday were merely a nervous gust, to +help show she was not a Christmas doll from the Burlington Arcade; +and there was no lifting up of the repentant Magdalen, no uttered +remorse for the former abandonment of children. Of the way she could +treat her children her demeanour to this one was an example; it was +an uninterrupted appeal to her eldest daughter for direction. She +took the law from Rose in every circumstance, and if you had noticed +these ladies without knowing their history you would have wondered +what tie was fine enough to make maturity so respectful to youth. No +mother was ever so filial as Mrs. Tramore, and there had never been +such a difference of position between sisters. Not that the elder +one fawned, which would have been fearful; she only renounced-- +whatever she had to renounce. If the amount was not much she at any +rate made no scene over it. Her hand was so light that Rose said of +her secretly, in vague glances at the past, "No wonder people liked +her!" She never characterised the old element of interference with +her mother's respectability more definitely than as "people." They +were people, it was true, for whom gentleness must have been +everything and who didn't demand a variety of interests. The desire +to "go out" was the one passion that even a closer acquaintance with +her parent revealed to Rose Tramore. She marvelled at its strength, +in the light of the poor lady's history: there was comedy enough in +this unquenchable flame on the part of a woman who had known such +misery. She had drunk deep of every dishonour, but the bitter cup +had left her with a taste for lighted candles, for squeezing up +staircases and hooking herself to the human elbow. Rose had a vision +of the future years in which this taste would grow with restored +exercise--of her mother, in a long-tailed dress, jogging on and on +and on, jogging further and further from her sins, through a century +of the "Morning Post" and down the fashionable avenue of time. She +herself would then be very old--she herself would be dead. Mrs. +Tramore would cover a span of life for which such an allowance of sin +was small. The girl could laugh indeed now at that theory of her +being dragged down. If one thing were more present to her than +another it was the very desolation of their propriety. As she +glanced at her companion, it sometimes seemed to her that if she had +been a bad woman she would have been worse than that. There were +compensations for being "cut" which Mrs. Tramore too much neglected. + +The lonely old lady in Hill Street--Rose thought of her that way now- +-was the one person to whom she was ready to say that she would come +to her on any terms. She wrote this to her three times over, and she +knocked still oftener at her door. But the old lady answered no +letters; if Rose had remained in Hill Street it would have been her +own function to answer them; and at the door, the butler, whom the +girl had known for ten years, considered her, when he told her his +mistress was not at home, quite as he might have considered a young +person who had come about a place and of whose eligibility he took a +negative view. That was Rose's one pang, that she probably appeared +rather heartless. Her aunt Julia had gone to Florence with Edith for +the winter, on purpose to make her appear more so; for Miss Tramore +was still the person most scandalised by her secession. Edith and +she, doubtless, often talked over in Florence the destitution of the +aged victim in Hill Street. Eric never came to see his sister, +because, being full both of family and of personal feeling, he +thought she really ought to have stayed with his grandmother. If she +had had such an appurtenance all to herself she might have done what +she liked with it; but he couldn't forgive such a want of +consideration for anything of his. There were moments when Rose +would have been ready to take her hand from the plough and insist +upon reintegration, if only the fierce voice of the old house had +allowed people to look her up. But she read, ever so clearly, that +her grandmother had made this a question of loyalty to seventy years +of virtue. Mrs. Tramore's forlornness didn't prevent her drawing- +room from being a very public place, in which Rose could hear certain +words reverberate: "Leave her alone; it's the only way to see how +long she'll hold out." The old woman's visitors were people who +didn't wish to quarrel, and the girl was conscious that if they had +not let her alone--that is if they had come to her from her +grandmother--she might perhaps not have held out. She had no friends +quite of her own; she had not been brought up to have them, and it +would not have been easy in a house which two such persons as her +father and his mother divided between them. Her father disapproved +of crude intimacies, and all the intimacies of youth were crude. He +had married at five-and-twenty and could testify to such a truth. +Rose felt that she shared even Captain Jay with her grandmother; she +had seen what HE was worth. Moreover, she had spoken to him at that +last moment in Hill Street in a way which, taken with her former +refusal, made it impossible that he should come near her again. She +hoped he went to see his protectress: he could be a kind of +substitute and administer comfort. + +It so happened, however, that the day after she threw Lady +Maresfield's invitation into the wastepaper basket she received a +visit from a certain Mrs. Donovan, whom she had occasionally seen in +Hill Street. She vaguely knew this lady for a busybody, but she was +in a situation which even busybodies might alleviate. Mrs. Donovan +was poor, but honest--so scrupulously honest that she was perpetually +returning visits she had never received. She was always clad in +weather-beaten sealskin, and had an odd air of being prepared for the +worst, which was borne out by her denying that she was Irish. She +was of the English Donovans. + +"Dear child, won't you go out with me?" she asked. + +Rose looked at her a moment and then rang the bell. She spoke of +something else, without answering the question, and when the servant +came she said: "Please tell Mrs. Tramore that Mrs. Donovan has come +to see her." + +"Oh, that'll be delightful; only you mustn't tell your grandmother!" +the visitor exclaimed. + +"Tell her what?" + +"That I come to see your mamma." + +"You don't," said Rose. + +"Sure I hoped you'd introduce me!" cried Mrs. Donovan, compromising +herself in her embarrassment. + +"It's not necessary; you knew her once." + +"Indeed and I've known every one once," the visitor confessed. + +Mrs. Tramore, when she came in, was charming and exactly right; she +greeted Mrs. Donovan as if she had met her the week before last, +giving her daughter such a new illustration of her tact that Rose +again had the idea that it was no wonder "people" had liked her. The +girl grudged Mrs. Donovan so fresh a morsel as a description of her +mother at home, rejoicing that she would be inconvenienced by having +to keep the story out of Hill Street. Her mother went away before +Mrs. Donovan departed, and Rose was touched by guessing her reason-- +the thought that since even this circuitous personage had been moved +to come, the two might, if left together, invent some remedy. Rose +waited to see what Mrs. Donovan had in fact invented. + +"You won't come out with me then?" + +"Come out with you?" + +"My daughters are married. You know I'm a lone woman. It would be +an immense pleasure to me to have so charming a creature as yourself +to present to the world." + +"I go out with my mother," said Rose, after a moment. + +"Yes, but sometimes when she's not inclined?" + +"She goes everywhere she wants to go," Rose continued, uttering the +biggest fib of her life and only regretting it should be wasted on +Mrs. Donovan. + +"Ah, but do you go everywhere YOU want?" the lady asked sociably. + +"One goes even to places one hates. Every one does that." + +"Oh, what I go through!" this social martyr cried. Then she laid a +persuasive hand on the girl's arm. "Let me show you at a few places +first, and then we'll see. I'll bring them all here." + +"I don't think I understand you," replied Rose, though in Mrs. +Donovan's words she perfectly saw her own theory of the case +reflected. For a quarter of a minute she asked herself whether she +might not, after all, do so much evil that good might come. Mrs. +Donovan would take her out the next day, and be thankful enough to +annex such an attraction as a pretty girl. Various consequences +would ensue and the long delay would be shortened; her mother's +drawing-room would resound with the clatter of teacups. + +"Mrs. Bray's having some big thing next week; come with me there and +I'll show you what I mane," Mrs. Donovan pleaded. + +"I see what you mane," Rose answered, brushing away her temptation +and getting up. "I'm much obliged to you." + +"You know you're wrong, my dear," said her interlocutress, with angry +little eyes. + +"I'm not going to Mrs. Bray's." + +"I'll get you a kyard; it'll only cost me a penny stamp." + +"I've got one," said the girl, smiling. + +"Do you mean a penny stamp?" Mrs. Donovan, especially at departure, +always observed all the forms of amity. "You can't do it alone, my +darling," she declared. + +"Shall they call you a cab?" Rose asked. + +"I'll pick one up. I choose my horse. You know you require your +start," her visitor went on. + +"Excuse my mother," was Rose's only reply. + +"Don't mention it. Come to me when you need me. You'll find me in +the Red Book." + +"It's awfully kind of you." + +Mrs. Donovan lingered a moment on the threshold. "Who will you HAVE +now, my child?" she appealed. + +"I won't have any one!" Rose turned away, blushing for her. "She +came on speculation," she said afterwards to Mrs. Tramore. + +Her mother looked at her a moment in silence. "You can do it if you +like, you know." + +Rose made no direct answer to this observation; she remarked instead: +"See what our quiet life allows us to escape." + +"We don't escape it. She has been here an hour." + +"Once in twenty years! We might meet her three times a day." + +"Oh, I'd take her with the rest!" sighed Mrs. Tramore; while her +daughter recognised that what her companion wanted to do was just +what Mrs. Donovan was doing. Mrs. Donovan's life was her ideal. + +On a Sunday, ten days later, Rose went to see one of her old +governesses, of whom she had lost sight for some time and who had +written to her that she was in London, unoccupied and ill. This was +just the sort of relation into which she could throw herself now with +inordinate zeal; the idea of it, however, not preventing a foretaste +of the queer expression in the excellent lady's face when she should +mention with whom she was living. While she smiled at this picture +she threw in another joke, asking herself if Miss Hack could be held +in any degree to constitute the nucleus of a circle. She would come +to see her, in any event--come the more the further she was dragged +down. Sunday was always a difficult day with the two ladies--the +afternoons made it so apparent that they were not frequented. Her +mother, it is true, was comprised in the habits of two or three old +gentlemen--she had for a long time avoided male friends of less than +seventy--who disliked each other enough to make the room, when they +were there at once, crack with pressure. Rose sat for a long time +with Miss Hack, doing conscientious justice to the conception that +there could be troubles in the world worse than her own; and when she +came back her mother was alone, but with a story to tell of a long +visit from Mr. Guy Mangler, who had waited and waited for her return. +"He's in love with you; he's coming again on Tuesday," Mrs. Tramore +announced. + +"Did he say so?" + +"That he's coming back on Tuesday?" + +"No, that he's in love with me." + +"He didn't need, when he stayed two hours." + +"With you? It's you he's in love with, mamma!" + +"That will do as well," laughed Mrs. Tramore. "For all the use we +shall make of him!" she added in a moment. + +"We shall make great use of him. His mother sent him." + +"Oh, she'll never come!" + +"Then HE sha'n't," said Rose. Yet he was admitted on the Tuesday, +and after she had given him his tea Mrs. Tramore left the young +people alone. Rose wished she hadn't--she herself had another view. +At any rate she disliked her mother's view, which she had easily +guessed. Mr. Mangler did nothing but say how charming he thought his +hostess of the Sunday, and what a tremendously jolly visit he had +had. He didn't remark in so many words "I had no idea your mother +was such a good sort"; but this was the spirit of his simple +discourse. Rose liked it at first--a little of it gratified her; +then she thought there was too much of it for good taste. She had to +reflect that one does what one can and that Mr. Mangler probably +thought he was delicate. He wished to convey that he desired to make +up to her for the injustice of society. Why shouldn't her mother +receive gracefully, she asked (not audibly) and who had ever said she +didn't? Mr. Mangler had a great deal to say about the disappointment +of his own parent over Miss Tramore's not having come to dine with +them the night of his aunt's ball. + +"Lady Maresfield knows why I didn't come," Rose answered at last. + +"Ah, now, but _I_ don't, you know; can't you tell ME?" asked the +young man. + +"It doesn't matter, if your mother's clear about it." + +"Oh, but why make such an awful mystery of it, when I'm dying to +know?" + +He talked about this, he chaffed her about it for the rest of his +visit: he had at last found a topic after his own heart. If her +mother considered that he might be the emblem of their redemption he +was an engine of the most primitive construction. He stayed and +stayed; he struck Rose as on the point of bringing out something for +which he had not quite, as he would have said, the cheek. Sometimes +she thought he was going to begin: "By the way, my mother told me to +propose to you." At other moments he seemed charged with the +admission: "I say, of course I really know what you're trying to do +for her," nodding at the door: "therefore hadn't we better speak of +it frankly, so that I can help you with my mother, and more +particularly with my sister Gwendolen, who's the difficult one? The +fact is, you see, they won't do anything for nothing. If you'll +accept me they'll call, but they won't call without something +'down.'" Mr. Mangler departed without their speaking frankly, and +Rose Tramore had a hot hour during which she almost entertained, +vindictively, the project of "accepting" the limpid youth until after +she should have got her mother into circulation. The cream of the +vision was that she might break with him later. She could read that +this was what her mother would have liked, but the next time he came +the door was closed to him, and the next and the next. + +In August there was nothing to do but to go abroad, with the sense on +Rose's part that the battle was still all to fight; for a round of +country visits was not in prospect, and English watering-places +constituted one of the few subjects on which the girl had heard her +mother express herself with disgust. Continental autumns had been +indeed for years, one of the various forms of Mrs. Tramore's +atonement, but Rose could only infer that such fruit as they had +borne was bitter. The stony stare of Belgravia could be practised at +Homburg; and somehow it was inveterately only gentlemen who sat next +to her at the table d'hote at Cadenabbia. Gentlemen had never been +of any use to Mrs. Tramore for getting back into society; they had +only helped her effectually to get out of it. She once dropped, to +her daughter, in a moralising mood, the remark that it was +astonishing how many of them one could know without its doing one any +good. Fifty of them--even very clever ones--represented a value +inferior to that of one stupid woman. Rose wondered at the offhand +way in which her mother could talk of fifty clever men; it seemed to +her that the whole world couldn't contain such a number. She had a +sombre sense that mankind must be dull and mean. These cogitations +took place in a cold hotel, in an eternal Swiss rain, and they had a +flat echo in the transalpine valleys, as the lonely ladies went +vaguely down to the Italian lakes and cities. Rose guided their +course, at moments, with a kind of aimless ferocity; she moved +abruptly, feeling vulgar and hating their life, though destitute of +any definite vision of another life that would have been open to her. +She had set herself a task and she clung to it; but she appeared to +herself despicably idle. She had succeeded in not going to Homburg +waters, where London was trying to wash away some of its stains; that +would be too staring an advertisement of their situation. The main +difference in situations to her now was the difference of being more +or less pitied, at the best an intolerable danger; so that the places +she preferred were the unsuspicious ones. She wanted to triumph with +contempt, not with submission. + +One morning in September, coming with her mother out of the marble +church at Milan, she perceived that a gentleman who had just passed +her on his way into the cathedral and whose face she had not noticed, +had quickly raised his hat, with a suppressed ejaculation. She +involuntarily glanced back; the gentleman had paused, again +uncovering, and Captain Jay stood saluting her in the Italian +sunshine. "Oh, good-morning!" she said, and walked on, pursuing her +course; her mother was a little in front. She overtook her in a +moment, with an unreasonable sense, like a gust of cold air, that men +were worse than ever, for Captain Jay had apparently moved into the +church. Her mother turned as they met, and suddenly, as she looked +back, an expression of peculiar sweetness came into this lady's eyes. +It made Rose's take the same direction and rest a second time on +Captain Jay, who was planted just where he had stood a minute before. +He immediately came forward, asking Rose with great gravity if he +might speak to her a moment, while Mrs. Tramore went her way again. +He had the expression of a man who wished to say something very +important; yet his next words were simple enough and consisted of the +remark that he had not seen her for a year. + +"Is it really so much as that?" asked Rose. + +"Very nearly. I would have looked you up, but in the first place I +have been very little in London, and in the second I believed it +wouldn't have done any good." + +"You should have put that first," said the girl. "It wouldn't have +done any good." + +He was silent over this a moment, in his customary deciphering way; +but the view he took of it did not prevent him from inquiring, as she +slowly followed her mother, if he mightn't walk with her now. She +answered with a laugh that it wouldn't do any good but that he might +do as he liked. He replied without the slightest manifestation of +levity that it would do more good than if he didn't, and they +strolled together, with Mrs. Tramore well before them, across the +big, amusing piazza, where the front of the cathedral makes a sort of +builded light. He asked a question or two and he explained his own +presence: having a month's holiday, the first clear time for several +years, he had just popped over the Alps. He inquired if Rose had +recent news of the old lady in Hill Street, and it was the only +tortuous thing she had ever heard him say. + +"I have had no communication of any kind from her since I parted with +you under her roof. Hasn't she mentioned that?" said Rose. + +"I haven't seen her." + +"I thought you were such great friends." + +Bertram Jay hesitated a moment. "Well, not so much now." + +"What has she done to you?" Rose demanded. + +He fidgeted a little, as if he were thinking of something that made +him unconscious of her question; then, with mild violence, he brought +out the inquiry: "Miss Tramore, are you happy?" + +She was startled by the words, for she on her side had been +reflecting--reflecting that he had broken with her grandmother and +that this pointed to a reason. It suggested at least that he +wouldn't now be so much like a mouthpiece for that cold ancestral +tone. She turned off his question--said it never was a fair one, as +you gave yourself away however you answered it. When he repeated +"You give yourself away?" as if he didn't understand, she remembered +that he had not read the funny American books. This brought them to +a silence, for she had enlightened him only by another laugh, and he +was evidently preparing another question, which he wished carefully +to disconnect from the former. Presently, just as they were coming +near Mrs. Tramore, it arrived in the words "Is this lady your +mother?" On Rose's assenting, with the addition that she was +travelling with her, he said: "Will you be so kind as to introduce +me to her?" They were so close to Mrs. Tramore that she probably +heard, but she floated away with a single stroke of her paddle and an +inattentive poise of her head. It was a striking exhibition of the +famous tact, for Rose delayed to answer, which was exactly what might +have made her mother wish to turn; and indeed when at last the girl +spoke she only said to her companion: "Why do you ask me that?" + +"Because I desire the pleasure of making her acquaintance." + +Rose had stopped, and in the middle of the square they stood looking +at each other. "Do you remember what you said to me the last time I +saw you?" + +"Oh, don't speak of that!" + +"It's better to speak of it now than to speak of it later." + +Bertram Jay looked round him, as if to see whether any one would +hear; but the bright foreignness gave him a sense of safety, and he +unexpectedly exclaimed: "Miss Tramore, I love you more than ever!" + +"Then you ought to have come to see us," declared the girl, quickly +walking on. + +"You treated me the last time as if I were positively offensive to +you." + +"So I did, but you know my reason." + +"Because I protested against the course you were taking? I did, I +did!" the young man rang out, as if he still, a little, stuck to +that. + +His tone made Rose say gaily: "Perhaps you do so yet?" + +"I can't tell till I've seen more of your circumstances," he replied +with eminent honesty. + +The girl stared; her light laugh filled the air. "And it's in order +to see more of them and judge that you wish to make my mother's +acquaintance?" + +He coloured at this and he evaded; then he broke out with a confused +"Miss Tramore, let me stay with you a little!" which made her stop +again. + +"Your company will do us great honour, but there must be a rigid +condition attached to our acceptance of it." + +"Kindly mention it," said Captain Jay, staring at the facade of the +cathedral. + +"You don't take us on trial." + +"On trial?" + +"You don't make an observation to me--not a single one, ever, ever!-- +on the matter that, in Hill Street, we had our last words about." + +Captain Jay appeared to be counting the thousand pinnacles of the +church. "I think you really must be right," he remarked at last. + +"There you are!" cried Rose Tramore, and walked rapidly away. + +He caught up with her, he laid his hand upon her arm to stay her. +"If you're going to Venice, let me go to Venice with you!" + +"You don't even understand my condition." + +"I'm sure you're right, then: you must be right about everything." + +"That's not in the least true, and I don't care a fig whether you're +sure or not. Please let me go." + +He had barred her way, he kept her longer. "I'll go and speak to +your mother myself!" + +Even in the midst of another emotion she was amused at the air of +audacity accompanying this declaration. Poor Captain Jay might have +been on the point of marching up to a battery. She looked at him a +moment; then she said: "You'll be disappointed!" + +"Disappointed?" + +"She's much more proper than grandmamma, because she's much more +amiable." + +"Dear Miss Tramore--dear Miss Tramore!" the young man murmured +helplessly. + +"You'll see for yourself. Only there's another condition," Rose went +on. + +"Another?" he cried, with discouragement and alarm. + +"You must understand thoroughly, before you throw in your lot with us +even for a few days, what our position really is." + +"Is it very bad?" asked Bertram Jay artlessly. + +"No one has anything to do with us, no one speaks to us, no one looks +at us." + +"Really?" stared the young man. + +"We've no social existence, we're utterly despised." + +"Oh, Miss Tramore!" Captain Jay interposed. He added quickly, +vaguely, and with a want of presence of mind of which he as quickly +felt ashamed: "Do none of your family--?" The question collapsed; +the brilliant girl was looking at him. + +"We're extraordinarily happy," she threw out. + +"Now that's all I wanted to know!" he exclaimed, with a kind of +exaggerated cheery reproach, walking on with her briskly to overtake +her mother. + +He was not dining at their inn, but he insisted on coming that +evening to their table d'hote. He sat next Mrs. Tramore, and in the +evening he accompanied them gallantly to the opera, at a third-rate +theatre where they were almost the only ladies in the boxes. The +next day they went together by rail to the Charterhouse of Pavia, and +while he strolled with the girl, as they waited for the homeward +train, he said to her candidly: "Your mother's remarkably pretty." +She remembered the words and the feeling they gave her: they were +the first note of new era. The feeling was somewhat that of an +anxious, gratified matron who has "presented" her child and is +thinking of the matrimonial market. Men might be of no use, as Mrs. +Tramore said, yet it was from this moment Rose dated the rosy dawn of +her confidence that her protegee would go off; and when later, in +crowded assemblies, the phrase, or something like it behind a hat or +a fan, fell repeatedly on her anxious ear, "Your mother IS in +beauty!" or "I've never seen her look better!" she had a faint vision +of the yellow sunshine and the afternoon shadows on the dusty Italian +platform. + +Mrs. Tramore's behaviour at this period was a revelation of her +native understanding of delicate situations. She needed no account +of this one from her daughter--it was one of the things for which she +had a scent; and there was a kind of loyalty to the rules of a game +in the silent sweetness with which she smoothed the path of Bertram +Jay. It was clear that she was in her element in fostering the +exercise of the affections, and if she ever spoke without thinking +twice it is probable that she would have exclaimed, with some gaiety, +"Oh, I know all about LOVE!" Rose could see that she thought their +companion would be a help, in spite of his being no dispenser of +patronage. The key to the gates of fashion had not been placed in +his hand, and no one had ever heard of the ladies of his family, who +lived in some vague hollow of the Yorkshire moors; but none the less +he might administer a muscular push. Yes indeed, men in general were +broken reeds, but Captain Jay was peculiarly representative. +Respectability was the woman's maximum, as honour was the man's, but +this distinguished young soldier inspired more than one kind of +confidence. Rose had a great deal of attention for the use to which +his respectability was put; and there mingled with this attention +some amusement and much compassion. She saw that after a couple of +days he decidedly liked her mother, and that he was yet not in the +least aware of it. He took for granted that he believed in her but +little; notwithstanding which he would have trusted her with anything +except Rose herself. His trusting her with Rose would come very +soon. He never spoke to her daughter about her qualities of +character, but two or three of them (and indeed these were all the +poor lady had, and they made the best show) were what he had in mind +in praising her appearance. When he remarked: "What attention Mrs. +Tramore seems to attract everywhere!" he meant: "What a beautifully +simple nature it is!" and when he said: "There's something +extraordinarily harmonious in the colours she wears," it signified: +"Upon my word, I never saw such a sweet temper in my life!" She lost +one of her boxes at Verona, and made the prettiest joke of it to +Captain Jay. When Rose saw this she said to herself, "Next season we +shall have only to choose." Rose knew what was in the box. + +By the time they reached Venice (they had stopped at half a dozen +little old romantic cities in the most frolicsome aesthetic way) she +liked their companion better than she had ever liked him before. She +did him the justice to recognise that if he was not quite honest with +himself he was at least wholly honest with HER. She reckoned up +everything he had been since he joined them, and put upon it all an +interpretation so favourable to his devotion that, catching herself +in the act of glossing over one or two episodes that had not struck +her at the time as disinterested she exclaimed, beneath her breath, +"Look out--you're falling in love!" But if he liked correctness +wasn't he quite right? Could any one possibly like it more than SHE +did? And if he had protested against her throwing in her lot with +her mother, this was not because of the benefit conferred but because +of the injury received. He exaggerated that injury, but this was the +privilege of a lover perfectly willing to be selfish on behalf of his +mistress. He might have wanted her grandmother's money for her, but +if he had given her up on first discovering that she was throwing +away her chance of it (oh, this was HER doing too!) he had given up +her grandmother as much: not keeping well with the old woman, as +some men would have done; not waiting to see how the perverse +experiment would turn out and appeasing her, if it should promise +tolerably, with a view to future operations. He had had a simple- +minded, evangelical, lurid view of what the girl he loved would find +herself in for. She could see this now--she could see it from his +present bewilderment and mystification, and she liked him and pitied +him, with the kindest smile, for the original naivete as well as for +the actual meekness. No wonder he hadn't known what she was in for, +since he now didn't even know what he was in for himself. Were there +not moments when he thought his companions almost unnaturally good, +almost suspiciously safe? He had lost all power to verify that +sketch of their isolation and declassement to which she had treated +him on the great square at Milan. The last thing he noticed was that +they were neglected, and he had never, for himself, had such an +impression of society. + +It could scarcely be enhanced even by the apparition of a large, +fair, hot, red-haired young man, carrying a lady's fan in his hand, +who suddenly stood before their little party as, on the third evening +after their arrival in Venice, it partook of ices at one of the +tables before the celebrated Cafe Florian. The lamplit Venetian dusk +appeared to have revealed them to this gentleman as he sat with other +friends at a neighbouring table, and he had sprung up, with +unsophisticated glee, to shake hands with Mrs. Tramore and her +daughter. Rose recalled him to her mother, who looked at first as +though she didn't remember him but presently bestowed a sufficiently +gracious smile on Mr. Guy Mangler. He gave with youthful candour the +history of his movements and indicated the whereabouts of his family: +he was with his mother and sisters; they had met the Bob Veseys, who +had taken Lord Whiteroy's yacht and were going to Constantinople. +His mother and the girls, poor things, were at the Grand Hotel, but +he was on the yacht with the Veseys, where they had Lord Whiteroy's +cook. Wasn't the food in Venice filthy, and wouldn't they come and +look at the yacht? She wasn't very fast, but she was awfully jolly. +His mother might have come if she would, but she wouldn't at first, +and now, when she wanted to, there were other people, who naturally +wouldn't turn out for her. Mr. Mangler sat down; he alluded with +artless resentment to the way, in July, the door of his friends had +been closed to him. He was going to Constantinople, but he didn't +care--if THEY were going anywhere; meanwhile his mother hoped awfully +they would look her up. + +Lady Maresfield, if she had given her son any such message, which +Rose disbelieved, entertained her hope in a manner compatible with +her sitting for half an hour, surrounded by her little retinue, +without glancing in the direction of Mrs. Tramore. The girl, +however, was aware that this was not a good enough instance of their +humiliation; inasmuch as it was rather she who, on the occasion of +their last contact, had held off from Lady Maresfield. She was a +little ashamed now of not having answered the note in which this +affable personage ignored her mother. She couldn't help perceiving +indeed a dim movement on the part of some of the other members of the +group; she made out an attitude of observation in the high-plumed +head of Mrs. Vaughan-Vesey. Mrs. Vesey, perhaps, might have been +looking at Captain Jay, for as this gentleman walked back to the +hotel with our young lady (they were at the "Britannia," and young +Mangler, who clung to them, went in front with Mrs. Tramore) he +revealed to Rose that he had some acquaintance with Lady Maresfield's +eldest daughter, though he didn't know and didn't particularly want +to know, her ladyship. He expressed himself with more acerbity than +she had ever heard him use (Christian charity so generally governed +his speech) about the young donkey who had been prattling to them. +They separated at the door of the hotel. Mrs. Tramore had got rid of +Mr. Mangler, and Bertram Jay was in other quarters. + +"If you know Mrs. Vesey, why didn't you go and speak to her? I'm +sure she saw you," Rose said. + +Captain Jay replied even more circumspectly than usual. "Because I +didn't want to leave you." + +"Well, you can go now; you're free," Rose rejoined. + +"Thank you. I shall never go again." + +"That won't be civil," said Rose. + +"I don't care to be civil. I don't like her." + +"Why don't you like her?" + +"You ask too many questions." + +"I know I do," the girl acknowledged. + +Captain Jay had already shaken hands with her, but at this he put out +his hand again. "She's too worldly," he murmured, while he held Rose +Tramore's a moment. + +"Ah, you dear!" Rose exclaimed almost audibly as, with her mother, +she turned away. + +The next morning, upon the Grand Canal, the gondola of our three +friends encountered a stately barge which, though it contained +several persons, seemed pervaded mainly by one majestic presence. +During the instant the gondolas were passing each other it was +impossible either for Rose Tramore or for her companions not to +become conscious that this distinguished identity had markedly +inclined itself--a circumstance commemorated the next moment, almost +within earshot of the other boat, by the most spontaneous cry that +had issued for many a day from the lips of Mrs. Tramore. "Fancy, my +dear, Lady Maresfield has bowed to us!" + +"We ought to have returned it," Rose answered; but she looked at +Bertram Jay, who was opposite to her. He blushed, and she blushed, +and during this moment was born a deeper understanding than had yet +existed between these associated spirits. It had something to do +with their going together that afternoon, without her mother, to look +at certain out-of-the-way pictures as to which Ruskin had inspired +her with a desire to see sincerely. Mrs. Tramore expressed the wish +to stay at home, and the motive of this wish--a finer shade than any +that even Ruskin had ever found a phrase for--was not translated into +misrepresenting words by either the mother or the daughter. At San +Giovanni in Bragora the girl and her companion came upon Mrs. +Vaughan-Vesey, who, with one of her sisters, was also endeavouring to +do the earnest thing. She did it to Rose, she did it to Captain Jay, +as well as to Gianbellini; she was a handsome, long-necked, aquiline +person, of a different type from the rest of her family, and she did +it remarkably well. She secured our friends--it was her own +expression--for luncheon, on the morrow, on the yacht, and she made +it public to Rose that she would come that afternoon to invite her +mother. When the girl returned to the hotel, Mrs. Tramore mentioned, +before Captain Jay, who had come up to their sitting-room, that Lady +Maresfield had called. "She stayed a long time--at least it seemed +long!" laughed Mrs. Tramore. + +The poor lady could laugh freely now; yet there was some grimness in +a colloquy that she had with her daughter after Bertram Jay had +departed. Before this happened Mrs. Vesey's card, scrawled over in +pencil and referring to the morrow's luncheon, was brought up to Mrs. +Tramore. + +"They mean it all as a bribe," said the principal recipient of these +civilities. + +"As a bribe?" Rose repeated. + +"She wants to marry you to that boy; they've seen Captain Jay and +they're frightened." + +"Well, dear mamma, I can't take Mr. Mangler for a husband." + +"Of course not. But oughtn't we to go to the luncheon?" + +"Certainly we'll go to the luncheon," Rose said; and when the affair +took place, on the morrow, she could feel for the first time that she +was taking her mother out. This appearance was somehow brought home +to every one else, and it was really the agent of her success. For +it is of the essence of this simple history that, in the first place, +that success dated from Mrs. Vesey's Venetian dejeuner, and in the +second reposed, by a subtle social logic, on the very anomaly that +had made it dubious. There is always a chance in things, and Rose +Tramore's chance was in the fact that Gwendolen Vesey was, as some +one had said, awfully modern, an immense improvement on the exploded +science of her mother, and capable of seeing what a "draw" there +would be in the comedy, if properly brought out, of the reversed +positions of Mrs. Tramore and Mrs. Tramore's diplomatic daughter. +With a first-rate managerial eye she perceived that people would +flock into any room--and all the more into one of hers--to see Rose +bring in her dreadful mother. She treated the cream of English +society to this thrilling spectacle later in the autumn, when she +once more "secured" both the performers for a week at Brimble. It +made a hit on the spot, the very first evening--the girl was felt to +play her part so well. The rumour of the performance spread; every +one wanted to see it. It was an entertainment of which, that winter +in the country, and the next season in town, persons of taste desired +to give their friends the freshness. The thing was to make the +Tramores come late, after every one had arrived. They were engaged +for a fixed hour, like the American imitator and the Patagonian +contralto. Mrs. Vesey had been the first to say the girl was awfully +original, but that became the general view. + +Gwendolen Vesey had with her mother one of the few quarrels in which +Lady Maresfield had really stood up to such an antagonist (the elder +woman had to recognise in general in whose veins it was that the +blood of the Manglers flowed) on account of this very circumstance of +her attaching more importance to Miss Tramore's originality ("Her +originality be hanged!" her ladyship had gone so far as +unintelligently to exclaim) than to the prospects of the unfortunate +Guy. Mrs. Vesey actually lost sight of these pressing problems in +her admiration of the way the mother and the daughter, or rather the +daughter and the mother (it was slightly confusing) "drew." It was +Lady Maresfield's version of the case that the brazen girl (she was +shockingly coarse) had treated poor Guy abominably. At any rate it +was made known, just after Easter, that Miss Tramore was to be +married to Captain Jay. The marriage was not to take place till the +summer; but Rose felt that before this the field would practically be +won. There had been some bad moments, there had been several warm +corners and a certain number of cold shoulders and closed doors and +stony stares; but the breach was effectually made--the rest was only +a question of time. Mrs. Tramore could be trusted to keep what she +had gained, and it was the dowagers, the old dragons with prominent +fangs and glittering scales, whom the trick had already mainly +caught. By this time there were several houses into which the +liberated lady had crept alone. Her daughter had been expected with +her, but they couldn't turn her out because the girl had stayed +behind, and she was fast acquiring a new identity, that of a parental +connection with the heroine of such a romantic story. She was at +least the next best thing to her daughter, and Rose foresaw the day +when she would be valued principally as a memento of one of the +prettiest episodes in the annals of London. At a big official party, +in June, Rose had the joy of introducing Eric to his mother. She was +a little sorry it was an official party--there were some other such +queer people there; but Eric called, observing the shade, the next +day but one. + +No observer, probably, would have been acute enough to fix exactly +the moment at which the girl ceased to take out her mother and began +to be taken out by her. A later phase was more distinguishable--that +at which Rose forbore to inflict on her companion a duality that +might become oppressive. She began to economise her force, she went +only when the particular effect was required. Her marriage was +delayed by the period of mourning consequent upon the death of her +grandmother, who, the younger Mrs. Tramore averred, was killed by the +rumour of her own new birth. She was the only one of the dragons who +had not been tamed. Julia Tramore knew the truth about this--she was +determined such things should not kill HER. She would live to do +something--she hardly knew what. The provisions of her mother's will +were published in the "Illustrated News"; from which it appeared that +everything that was not to go to Eric and to Julia was to go to the +fortunate Edith. Miss Tramore makes no secret of her own intentions +as regards this favourite. + +Edith is not pretty, but Lady Maresfield is waiting for her; she is +determined Gwendolen Vesey shall not get hold of her. Mrs. Vesey +however takes no interest in her at all. She is whimsical, as befits +a woman of her fashion; but there are two persons she is still very +fond of, the delightful Bertram Jays. The fondness of this pair, it +must be added, is not wholly expended in return. They are extremely +united, but their life is more domestic than might have been expected +from the preliminary signs. It owes a portion of its concentration +to the fact that Mrs. Tramore has now so many places to go to that +she has almost no time to come to her daughter's. She is, under her +son-in-law's roof, a brilliant but a rare apparition, and the other +day he remarked upon the circumstance to his wife. + +"If it hadn't been for you," she replied, smiling, "she might have +had her regular place at our fireside." + +"Good heavens, how did I prevent it?" cried Captain Jay, with all the +consciousness of virtue. + +"You ordered it otherwise, you goose!" And she says, in the same +spirit, whenever her husband commends her (which he does, sometimes, +extravagantly) for the way she launched her mother: "Nonsense, my +dear--practically it was YOU!" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Chaperon, by Henry James + |