Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

"Dear me!" he said, "can this be Nora Lambert?"

She had risen to meet him, and held out her hand with girlish frankness. She was dressed in a light silk dress; she seemed a young woman grown. "I have been growing hard in all these years," she said. "I have had to catch up with those pieds énormes ." The readers will not have forgotten that Hubert had thus qualified her lower members. Ignorant as she was, at the moment, of the French tongue, her memory had instinctively retained the words, and she had taken an early opportunity to look out pied in the dictionary. Énorme , of course, spoke for itself.

"You must have caught up with them now," Hubert said, laughing. "You are an enormous young lady. I should never have known you." He sat down, asked various questions about Roger, and adjured her to tell him, as he said, "all about herself." The invitation was flattering, but it met only a partial compliance. Unconscious as yet of her own charm, Nora was oppressed by a secret admiration of her companion, whose presence seemed to open a brilliant vista. She compared him with her cousin, and wondered that he should be at once so impressive and so different. She blushed a little, privately, for Fenton, and was not ill pleased to think he was absent. In the light of Hubert's good manners, his admission that he was no gentleman acquired an excessive force. By this thrilling intimation of the diversity of the male sex, the mental pinafore of childhood seemed finally dismissed. Hubert was so frank and friendly, so tenderly and gallantly patronizing, that more than once she felt herself beginning to expand; but then, suddenly, something absent in the tone of his assent, a vague fancy that in the gathering dusk, he was looking at her all at his ease, rather than listening to her, converted her bravery into what she knew to be deplorable little-girlishness. On the whole, this interview may have passed for Nora's first lesson in the art, indispensable to a young lady on the threshold of society, of talking for half an hour without saying anything. The lesson was interrupted by the arrival of Roger, who greeted his cousin with almost extravagant warmth, and insisted upon his staying to dinner. Roger was to take Nora after dinner to a concert, for which he felt no great enthusiasm; he proposed to Hubert, who was a musical man, to occupy his place. Hubert demurred awhile; but in the meantime Nora, having gone to prepare herself, reappeared, looking extremely well in the blue crape bonnet before mentioned, with her face bright with anticipated pleasure. For a moment Roger was vexed at having resigned his office; Hubert immediately stepped into it. They came home late, the blue bonnet nothing the worse for wear, and the young girl's face lighted up by her impressions. Her animation was extreme; she treated Roger to a representation of the concert, and made a great show of voice. Her departing childishness, her dawning tact, her freedom with Roger, her half-freedom with Hubert, made a charming mixture, and insured for her auditors the success of the entertainment. When she had retired, amid a mimic storm of applause from the two gentlemen, Roger solemnly addressed his cousin. "Well, what do you think of her? I hope you have no fault to find with her feet."

"I have had no observation of her feet," said Hubert; "but she will have very handsome hands. She is a very nice creature." Roger sat lounging in his chair with his hands in his pockets, his chin on his breast, and a heavy gaze fixed on Hubert. The latter was struck with his deeply preoccupied aspect. "But let us talk of you rather than of Nora," he said. "I have been waiting for a chance to tell you that you look very poorly."

"Nora or I,—it 's all one. She is the only thing in life I care for."

Hubert was startled by the sombre energy of his tone. The old polished, placid Roger was in abeyance. "My dear fellow," he said, "you are altogether wrong. Live for yourself. You may be sure she will do as much. You take it too hard."

"Yes, I take it too hard. It troubles me."

"What 's the matter? Is she a naughty child? Is she more than you bargained for?" Roger sat gazing at him in silence, with the same grave eye. He began to suspect Nora had turned out a losing investment. Has she—a—low tastes?" he went on. "Surely not with that sweet face!"

Roger started to his feet impatiently. "Don't misunderstand me!" he cried. "I have been longing to see some one,—to talk,—to get some advice,—some sympathy. I am fretting myself away."

"Good heavens, man, give her a thousand dollars and send her back to her family. You have educated her."

"Her family! She has no family! She 's the loneliest as well as the sweetest, wisest, best of creatures! If she were only a tenth as good, I should be a happier man. I can't think of parting with her; not for all I possess."

Hubert stared a moment. "Why, you are in love."

"Yes," said Roger blushing. "I am in love."

"Dear me!" murmured Hubert.

"I am not ashamed of it," rejoined Roger, softly.

It was no business of Hubert's, certainly; but he felt the least bit disappointed. "Well," he said coolly, "why don't you marry her?"

"It is not so simple as that!"

"She will not have you?"

Roger frowned impatiently. "Reflect a moment. You pretend to be a man of delicacy."

"You mean she is too young? Nonsense. If you are sure of her, the younger the better."

"For my unutterable misery," said Roger, "I have a conscience. I wish to leave her free and take the risk. I wish to be just and let the matter work itself out. You may think me absurd, but I wish to be loved for myself, as other men are loved."

It was a specialty of Hubert's that in proportion as other people grew hot, he grew cool. To keep cool, morally, in a heated medium was, in fact, for Hubert a peculiar satisfaction. He broke into a long light laugh. "Excuse me," he said, "but there is something ludicrous in your attitude. What business has a lover with a conscience? None at all! That 's why I keep out of it. It seems to me your prerogative to be downright. If you waste any more time in hair-splitting, you will find your young lady has taken things in the lump!"

"Do you really think there is danger?" Roger demanded, pitifully. "Not yet awhile. She 's only a child. Tell me, rather, is she only a child? You have spent the evening beside her: how does she strike a stranger?"

While Hubert's answer lingered on his lips, the door opened and Nora came in. Her errand was to demand the use of Roger's watch-key, her own having mysteriously vanished. She had begun to take out her pins and had muffled herself for this excursion in a merino dressing-gown of sombre blue. Her hair was gathered for the night into a single massive coil, which had been loosened by the rapidity of her flight along the passage. Roger's key proved a complete misfit, so that she had recourse to Hubert's. It hung on the watch-chain which depended from his waistcoat, and some rather intimate fumbling was needed to adjust it to Nora's diminutive timepiece. It worked admirably, and she stood looking at him with a little smile of caution as it creaked on the pivot. "I would not have troubled you," she said, "but that without my watch I should oversleep myself. You know Roger's temper, and what I should suffer if I were late for breakfast!"

Roger was ravished at this humorous sally, and when, on making her escape, she clasped one hand to her head to support her released tresses, and hurried along the corridor with the other confining the skirts of her inflated robe, he kissed his hand after her with more than jocular good-will.

"Ah! it 's as bad as that!" said Hubert, shaking his head.

"I had no idea she had such hair," murmured Roger. "You are right, it is no case for shilly-shallying."

"Take care!" said Hubert. "She is only a child."