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

Roger looked at him a moment. "My dear fellow, you are a hypocrite."

Hubert colored the least bit, and then took up his hat and began to smooth it with his handkerchief. "Not at all. See how frank I can be. I recommend you to marry the young lady and have done with it. If you wait, it will be at your own risk. I assure you I think she is charming, and if I am not mistaken, this is only a hint of future possibilities. Don't sow for others to reap. If you think the harvest is not ripe, let it ripen in milder sunbeams than these vigorous hand-kisses. Lodge her with some proper person and go to Europe; come home from Paris a year hence with her trousseau in your trunks, and I will perform the ceremony without another fee than the prospect of having an adorable cousin." With these words Hubert left his companion pensive.

His words reverberated in Roger's mind; I may almost say that they rankled. A couple of days later, in the hope of tenderer counsel, he called upon our friend Mrs. Keith. This lady had completely rounded the cape of matrimony, and was now buoyantly at anchor in the placid cove of well-dowered widowhood. You have heard many a young unmarried lady exclaim with a bold sweep of conception, "Ah me! I wish I were a widow!" Mrs. Keith was precisely the widow that young unmarried ladies wish to be. With her diamonds in her dressing-case and her carriage in her stable, and without a feather's weight of encumbrance, she offered a finished example of satisfied ambition. Her wants had been definite; these once gratified, she had not presumed further. She was a very much worthier woman than in those hungry virginal days when Roger had wooed her. Prosperity had agreed equally well with her beauty and her temper. The wrinkles on her brow had stood still, like Joshua's sun, and a host of good intentions and fair promises seemed to illuminate her person. Roger, as he stood before her, not only felt that his passion was incurably defunct, but allowed himself to doubt that this veuve consolée would have made an ideal wife. The lady, mistaking his embarrassment for the fumes of smouldering ardor, determined to transmute his devotion by the subtle chemistry of friendship. This she found easy work; in ten minutes the echoes of the past were hushed in the small-talk of the present. Mrs. Keith was on the point of sailing for Europe, and had much to say of her plans and arrangements,—of the miserable rent she was to get for her house. "Why should n't one turn an honest penny?' she asked. "And now," she went on, when the field had been cleared, "tell me about the young lady." This was precisely what Roger wished; but just as he was about to begin his story there came an irruption of visitors, fatal to the confidential. Mrs. Keith found means to take him aside. "Seeing is better than hearing," she said, "and I am dying to see her. Bring her this evening to dinner, and we shall have her to ourselves."

Mrs. Keith had long been for Nora an object of mystical veneration. Roger had been in the habit of alluding to her, not freely nor frequently, but with a certain implicit consideration which more than once had set Nora wondering. She entered the lady's drawing-room that evening with an oppressive desire to please. The interest manifested by Roger in the question of what she should wear assured her that he had staked a nameless something on the impression she might make. She was not only reassured, however, but altogether captivated, by the lavish cordiality of her hostess. Mrs. Keith kissed her on both cheeks, held her at her two arms' length, gave a twist to the fall of her sash, and made her feel very plainly that she was being inspected and appraised. All this was done, however, with a certain flattering light in the eye and a tender matronly smile which rather increased than diminished the young girl's composure. Mrs. Keith was herself so elegant, so finished, so fragrant of taste and sense, that before an hour was over Nora felt that she had borrowed the hint of a dozen indispensable graces. After dinner her hostess bade her sit down to the piano. Here, feeling sure of her ground, Nora surpassed herself. Mrs. Keith beckoned to Roger to come and sit beside her on the sofa, where, as she nodded time to the music with her head, she softly conversed. Prosperity, as I have intimated, had acted on her moral nature very much as a medicinal tonic—quinine or iron—acts upon the physical. She was in a comfortable glow of charity. She itched gently, she hardly knew where,—was it in heart or brain?—to render some one a service. She had on hand a small capital of sentimental patronage for which she desired a secure investment. Here was her chance. The project which Roger had imparted to her three years before seemed to her, now she had taken Nora's measure, to contain such pretty elements of success that she deemed it a sovereign pity it should not be rounded into symmetry. She determined to lend an artistic hand. "Does she know it, that matter?" she asked in a whisper.

"I have never told her."

"That 's right. I approve your delicacy. Of course you are sure of your case. She is altogether lovely,—she is one in a thousand. I really envy you; upon my word, Mr. Lawrence, I am jealous. She has a style of her own. It is not quite beauty; it is not quite cleverness. It belongs neither altogether to her person, nor yet to her mind. It 's a kind of way she has. It 's a way that may lead her far. She has pretty things, too; one of these days she may take it into her head to be a beauty of beauties. Nature never meant her to hold up her head so well for nothing. Ah, how wrinkled and faded it makes one feel! To be sixteen years old, with that head of hair, with health and good connections, with that amount of good-will at the piano, it 's the very best thing in the world, if they but knew it! But no! they must leave it all behind them; they must pull their hair to pieces; they must get rid of their complexions; they must be twenty; they must have lovers, and go their own gait. Well, since it must come, we must attend to the profits: they will take care of the pleasures. Give Nora to me for a year. She needs a woman, a wise woman, a woman like me. Men, when they undertake to meddle with a young girl's education, are veriest old grandmothers. Let me take her to Europe and bring her out in Rome. Don't be afraid; I will guard your interests. I will bring you back the most charming girl in America. I see her from here!" And describing a great curve in the air with her fan, Mrs. Keith inclined her head to one side in a manner suggestive of a milliner who descries in the bosom of futurity the ideal bonnet. Looking at Roger, she saw that her point was gained; and Nora, having just finished her piece, was accordingly summoned to the sofa and made to sit down at Mrs. Keith's feet. Roger went and stood before the fire. "My dear Nora," said Mrs. Keith, as if she had known her from childhood, "how should you like to go with me to Rome?"

Nora started to her feet, and stood looking open-eyed from one to the other. "Really?" she said. "Does Roger—"

"Roger," said Mrs. Keith, "finds you so hard to manage that he has made you over to me. I forewarn you, I am a terrible woman. But if you are not afraid, I shall scold you and pinch you no harder than I would a daughter of my own."

"I give you up for a year," said Roger. "It is hard, troublesome as you are."

Nora stood wavering for a moment, hesitating where to deposit her excess of joy. Then graciously dropping on her knees before Mrs. Keith, she bent her young head and got rid of it in an ample kiss. "I am not afraid of you," she said simply. Roger turned round and began to poke the fire.

The next day Nora went forth to buy certain articles necessary in travelling. It was raining so heavily that, at Roger's direction, she took a carriage. Coming out of a shop, in the course of her expedition, she encountered Hubert Lawrence tramping along in the wet. He helped her back to her carriage, and stood for a moment talking to her through the window. As they were going in the same direction, she invited him to get in; and on his hesitating, she added that she hoped their interview was not to end there, as she was going to Europe with Mrs. Keith. At this news Hubert jumped in and placed himself on the front seat. The knowledge that she was drifting away gave a sudden value to the present occasion. Add to this that in the light of Roger's revelation after the concert, this passive, predestined figure of hers had acquired for the young man a certain picturesque interest. Nora found herself strangely at ease with her companion. From time to time she strove to check her happy freedom: but Hubert evidently, with his superior urbanity, was not the person to note a little more or less in a school-girl's primness. Her enjoyment of his presence, her elation in the prospect of departure, made her gayety reckless. They went together to half a dozen shops and talked and laughed so distractedly over her purchases, that she made them sadly at haphazard. At last their progress was arrested by a dead-lock of vehicles in front of them, caused by the breaking down of a streetcar. The carriage drew up near the sidewalk in front of a confectioner's. On Nora's regretting the delay, and saying she was ravenous for lunch, Hubert went into the shop, and returned with a bundle of tarts. The rain came down in sheeted torrents, so that they had to close both the windows. Circled about with this watery screen, they feasted on their tarts with peculiar relish. In a short time Hubert made another excursion, and returned with a second course. His diving to and fro in the rain excited them to extravagant mirth. Nora had bought some pocket-handkerchiefs, which were in that cohesive state common to these articles in the shop. It seemed a very pretty joke to spread the piece across their knees as a table-cloth.