Джером К. Джером
Paul Kelver
“So sorry I am late. My carriage was unfortunately delayed.”
The excuse, I gathered, was accepted, for with a gracious smile and a vigorous bow, by help of which every hairpin made distinct further advance towards freedom, she turned, and with much dignity and head over the right shoulder took a short walk to the left. At the end of six short steps she stopped and began kicking. For what reason, I, at first, could not comprehend. It dawned upon me after awhile that her object was the adjustment of her train. Finding the manoeuvre too difficult of accomplishment by feet alone, she stooped, and, taking the stuff up in her hands, threw it behind her. Then, facing north, she retraced her steps to the glass, talking to herself, as she walked, in the high-pitched drawl, distinctive, as my stage knowledge told me, of aristocratic society.
“Oh, do you think so – really? Ah, yes; you say that. Certainly not! I shouldn’t think of it.” There followed what I am inclined to believe was intended for a laugh, musical but tantalising. If so, want of practice marred the effort. The performance failed to satisfy even herself. She tried again; it was still only a giggle.
Before the glass she paused, and with a haughty inclination of her head succeeded for the third time in displacing the intoxicated feather.
“Oh, bother the silly thing!” she said in a voice so natural as to be, by contrast with her previous tone, quite startling.
She fixed it again with difficulty, muttering something inarticulate. Then, her left hand resting on an imaginary coat-sleeve, her right holding her skirt sufficiently high to enable her to move, she commenced to majestically gyrate.
Whether, hampered as she was by excess of skirt, handicapped by the natural clumsiness of her age, catastrophe in any case would not sooner or later have overtaken her, I have my doubts. I have since learnt her own view to be that but for catching sight, in turning, of my face, staring at her through the bars of the easel, all would have gone well and gracefully. Avoiding controversy on this point, the facts to be recorded are, that, seeing me, she uttered a sudden exclamation of surprise, dropped her skirt, trod on her train, felt her hair coming down, tried to do two things at once, and sat upon the floor. I ran to her assistance. With flaming face and flashing eyes she sprang to her feet. There was a sound as of the rushing down of avalanches. The blue flounced skirt lay round her on the floor. She stood above its billowy folds, reminiscent of Venus rising from the waves – a gawky, angular Venus in a short serge frock, reaching a little below her knees, black stockings and a pair of prunella boots of a size suggesting she had yet some inches to grow before reaching her full height.
“I hope you haven’t hurt yourself,” I said.
The next moment I didn’t care whether she had or whether she hadn’t. She did not reply to my kindly meant enquiry. Instead, her hand swept through the air in the form of an ample semi-circle. It terminated on my ear. It was not a small hand; it was not a soft hand; it was not that sort of hand. The sound of the contact rang through the room like a pistol shot; I beard it with my other ear. I sprang at her, and catching her before she had recovered her equilibrium, kissed her. I did not kiss her because I wanted to. I kissed her because I could not box her ears back in return, which I should have preferred doing. I kissed her, hoping it would make her mad. It did. If a look could have killed me, such would have been the tragic ending of this story. It did not kill me; it did me good.
“You horrid boy!” she cried. “You horrid, horrid boy!”
There, I admit, she scored. I did not in the least object to her thinking me horrid, but at nineteen one does object to being mistaken for a boy.
“I am not a boy,” I explained.
“Yes, you are,” she retorted; “a beast of a boy!”
“If you do it again,” I warned her – a sudden movement on her part hinting to me the possibility – “I’ll kiss you again! I mean it.”
“Leave the room!” she commanded, pointing with her angular arm towards the door.
I did not wish to remain. I was about to retire with as much dignity as circumstances permitted.
“Boy!” she added.
At that I turned. “Now I won’t go!” I replied. “See if I do.”
We stood glaring at each other.
“What right have you in here?” she demanded.
“I came to see Mr. Deleglise,” I answered. “I suppose you are Miss Deleglise. It doesn’t seem to me that you know how to treat a visitor.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Mr. Horace Moncrieff,” I replied. I was using at the period both my names indiscriminately, but for this occasion Horace Moncrieff I judged the more awe-inspiring.
She snorted. “I know. You’re the house-maid. You sweep all the crumbs under the mats.”
Now this was a subject about which at the time I was feeling somewhat sore. “Needs must when the Devil drives;” but as matters were, Dan and I could well have afforded domestic assistance. It rankled in my mind that to fit in with the foolish fad of old Deleglise, I the future Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot, Kean, Macready and Phelps rolled into one, should be compelled to the performance of menial duties. On this morning of all others, my brilliant literary career just commenced, the anomaly of the thing appeared naturally more glaring.
Besides, how came she to know I swept the crumbs under the mat – that it was my method? Had she and Dan been discussing me, ridiculing me behind my back? What right had Dan to reveal the secrets of our menage to this chit of a school-girl? Had he done so? or had she been prying, poking her tilted nose into matters that did not concern her? Pity it was she had no mother to occasionally spank her, teach her proper behaviour.
“Where I sweep our crumbs is nothing to do with you,” I replied with some spirit. “That I have to sweep them at all is the fault of your father. A sensible girl – ”
“How dare you speak against my father!” she interrupted me with blazing eyes.
“We will not discuss the question further,” I answered, with sense and dignity.
“I think you had better not!” she retorted.
Turning her back on me, she commenced to gather up her hairpins – there must have been about a hundred of them. I assisted her to the extent of picking up about twenty, which I handed to her with a bow: it may have been a little stiff, but that was only to be expected. I wished to show her that her bad example had not affected my own manners.
“I am sorry my presence should have annoyed you,” I said. “It was quite an accident. I entered the room thinking your father was here.”
“When you saw he wasn’t, you might have gone out again,” she replied, “instead of hiding yourself behind a picture.”
“I didn’t hide myself,” I explained. “The easel happened to be in the way.”
“And you stopped there and watched me.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
She looked round and our eyes met. They were frank, grey eyes. An expression of merriment shot into them. I laughed.
Then she laughed: it was a delightful laugh, the laugh one would have expected from her.
“You might at least have coughed,” she suggested.
“It was so amusing,” I pleaded.
“I suppose it was,” she agreed, and held out her hand. “Did I hurt you?” she asked.
“Yes, you did,” I answered, taking it.
“Well, it was enough to annoy me, wasn’t it?” she suggested.
“Evidently,” I agreed.
“I am going to a ball next week,” she explained, “a grown-up ball, and I’ve got to wear a skirt. I wanted to see if I could manage a train.”
“Well, to be candid, you can’t,” I assured her.
“It does seem difficult.”
“Shall I show you?” I asked.
“What do you know about it?”
“Well, I see it done every night.”
“Oh, yes; of course, you’re on the stage. Yes, do.”
We readjusted the torn skirt, accommodating it better to her figure by the help of hairpins. I showed her how to hold the train, and, I humming a tune, we commenced to waltz.
“I shouldn’t count my steps,” I suggested to her. “It takes your mind away from the music.”
“I don’t waltz well,” she admitted meekly. “I know I don’t do anything well – except play hockey.”
“And try not to tread on your partner’s feet. That’s a very bad fault.”
“I do try not to,” she explained.
“It comes with practice,” I assured her.
“I’ll get Tom to give me half an hour every evening,” she said. “He dances beautifully.”
“Who’s Tom?”
“Oh, father.”
“Why do you call your father Tom? It doesn’t sound respectful.”
“Oh, he likes it; and it suits him so much better than father. Besides, he isn’t like a real father. He does everything I want him to.”
“Is that good for you?”
“No; it’s very bad for me – everybody says so. When you come to think of it, of course it isn’t the way to bring up a girl. I tell him, but he merely laughs – says it’s the only way he knows. I do hope I turn out all right. Am I doing it better now?”
“A little. Don’t be too anxious about it. Don’t look at your feet.”
“But if I don’t they go all wrong. It was you who trod on mine that time.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s a little difficult not to.”
“Am I holding my train all right?”
“Well, there’s no need to grip it as if you were afraid it would run away. It will follow all right. Hold it gracefully.”
“I wish I wasn’t a girl.”
“Oh, you’ll get used to it.” We concluded our dance.
“What do I do – say ‘Thank you’?”
“Yes, prettily.”
“What does he do?”
“Oh, he takes you back to your chaperon, or suggests refreshment, or you sit and talk.”
“I hate talking. I never know what to say.”
“Oh, that’s his duty. He’ll try and amuse you, then you must laugh. You have a nice laugh.”
“But I never know when to laugh. If I laugh when I want to it always offends people. What do you do if somebody asks you to dance and you don’t want to dance with them?”
“Oh, you say your programme is full.”
“But if it isn’t?”
“Well, you tell a lie.”
“Couldn’t I say I don’t dance well, and that I’m sure they’d get on better with somebody else?”
“It would be the truth, but they might not believe it.”
“I hope nobody asks me that I don’t want.”
“Well, he won’t a second time, anyhow.”
“You are rude.”
“You are only a school-girl.”
“I look a woman in my new frock, I really do.”
“I should doubt it.”
“You shall see me, then you’ll be polite. It is because you are a boy you are rude. Men are much nicer.”
“Oh, are they?”
“Yes. You will be, when you are a man.”
The sound of voices rose suddenly in the hall.
“Tom!” cried Miss Deleglise; and collecting her skirt in both hands, bolted down the corkscrew staircase leading to the kitchen, leaving me standing in the centre of the studio.
The door opened and old Deleglise entered, accompanied by a small, slight man with red hair and beard and somewhat watery eyes.
Deleglise himself was a handsome old fellow, then a man of about fifty-five. His massive, mobile face, illuminated by bright, restless eyes, was crowned with a lion-like mane of iron-grey hair. Till a few years ago he had been a painter of considerable note. But in questions of art his temper was short. Pre-Raphaelism had gone out of fashion for the time being; the tendency of the new age was towards impressionism, and in disgust old Deleglise had broken his palette across his knee, and swore never to paint again. Artistic work of some sort being necessary to his temperament, he contented himself now with engraving. At the moment he was engaged upon the reproduction of Memlinc’s Shrine of St. Ursula, with photographs of which he had just returned from Bruges.
At sight of me his face lighted with a smile, and he advanced with outstretched hand.
“Ah; my lad, so you have got over your shyness and come to visit the old bear in his den. Good boy. I like young faces.”
He had a clear, musical voice, ever with the suggestion of a laugh behind it. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.
“Why, you are looking as if you had come into a fortune,” he added, “and didn’t know what a piece of bad luck that can be to a young fellow like yourself.”
“How could it be bad luck?” I asked, laughing.
“Takes all the sauce out of life, young man,” answered Deleglise. “What interest is there in running a race with the prize already in your possession, tell me that?”
“It is not that kind of fortune,” I answered, “it is another. I have had my first story accepted. It is in print. Look.”
I handed him the paper. He spread it out upon the engraving board before him.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, “that’s better. Charlie,” he turned to the red-headed man, who had seated himself listlessly in the one easy-chair the room contained, “come here.”
The red-headed man rose and wandered towards us. “Let me introduce you to Mr. Paul Kelver, our new fellow servant. Our lady has accepted him. He has just been elected; his first story is in print.”
The red-haired man stretched out his long thin hand. “I have thirty years of fame,” said the red-haired man – “could I say world-wide?”
He turned for confirmation to old Deleglise, who laughed. “I think you can.”
“If I could give it you would you exchange with me – at this moment?”
“You would be a fool if you did,” he went on. “One’s first success, one’s first victory! It is the lover’s first kiss. Fortune grows old and wrinkled, frowns more often than she smiles. We become indifferent to her, quarrel with her, make it up again. But the joy of her first kiss after the long wooing! Burn it into your memory, my young friend, that it may live with you always!”
He strolled away. Old Deleglise took up the parable.
“Ah, yes; one’s first success, Paul! Laugh, my boy, cry! Shut yourself up in your room, shout, dance! Throw your hat into the air and cry hurrah! Make the most of it, Paul. Hug it to your heart, think of it, dream of it. This is the finest hour of your life, my boy. There will never come another like it – never!”
He crossed the studio, and taking from its nail a small oil painting, brought it over and laid it on the board beside my paper. It was a fascinating little picture, painted with that exquisite minutiae and development of detail that a newer school was then ridiculing: as though Art had but one note to her voice. The dead figure of an old man lay upon a bed. A child had crept into the darkened room, and supporting itself by clutching tightly at the sheet, was gazing with solemn curiosity upon the white, still face.
“That was mine,” said old Deleglise. “It was hung in the Academy thirty-six years ago, and bought for ten guineas by a dentist at Bury St. Edmunds. He went mad a few years later and died in a lunatic asylum. I had never lost sight of it, and the executors were quite agreeable to my having it back again for the same ten guineas. I used to go every morning to the Academy to look at it. I thought it the cleverest bit of work in the whole gallery, and I’m not at all sure that it wasn’t. I saw myself a second Teniers, another Millet. Look how that light coming through the open door is treated; isn’t it good? Somebody will pay a thousand guineas for it before I have been dead a dozen years, and it is worth it. But I wouldn’t sell it myself now for five thousand. One’s first success; it is worth all the rest of life!”
“All?” queried the red-haired man from his easy-chair. We looked round. The lady of the skirt had entered, now her own proper self: a young girl of about fifteen, angular, awkward-looking, but bringing into the room with her that atmosphere of life, of hope, that is the eternal message of youth. She was not beautiful, not then – plain one might almost have called her but for her frank, grey eyes, her mass of dark-brown hair now gathered into a long thick plait. A light came into old Deleglise’s eyes.
“You are right, not all,” he murmured to the red-haired man.
She came forward shyly. I found it difficult to recognise in her the flaming Fury that a few minutes before had sprung at me from the billows of her torn blue skirt. She shook hands with the red-haired man and kissed her father.
“My daughter,” said old Deleglise, introducing me to her. “Mr. Paul Kelver, a literary gent.”
“Mr. Kelver and I have met already,” she explained. “He has been waiting for you here in the studio.”
“And have you been entertaining him?” asked Deleglise. “Oh, yes, I entertained him,” she replied. Her voice was singularly like her father’s, with just the same suggestion of ever a laugh behind it.
“We entertained each other,” I said.
“That’s all right,” said old Deleglise. “Stop and lunch with us. We will make ourselves a curry.”
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE GLORY AND GOODNESS AND THE EVIL THAT GO TO THE MAKING OF LOVE
During my time of struggle I had avoided all communication with old Hasluck. He was not a man to sympathise with feelings he did not understand. With boisterous good humour he would have insisted upon helping me. Why I preferred half starving with Lott and Co. to selling my labour for a fair wage to good-natured old Hasluck, merely because I knew him, I cannot explain. Though the profits may not have been so large, Lott and Co.‘s dealings were not one whit more honest: I do not believe it was that which decided me. Nor do I think it was because he was Barbara’s father. I never connected him, nor that good old soul, his vulgar, homely wife, in any way with Barbara. To me she was a being apart from all the world. Her true Parents! I should have sought them rather amid the sacred groves of vanished lands, within the sky-domed shrines of banished gods. There are instincts in us not easily analysed, not to be explained by reason. I have always preferred the finding – sometimes the losing – of my way according to the map, to the surer and simpler method of vocal enquiry; working out a complicated journey, and running the risk of never arriving at my destination, by aid of a Continental Bradshaw, to putting myself into the hands of courteous officials maintained and paid to assist the perplexed traveller. Possibly a far-off progenitor of mine may have been some morose “rogue” savage with untribal inclinations, living in his cave apart, fashioning his own stone hammer, shaping his own flint arrow-heads, shunning the merry war-dance, preferring to caper by himself.
But now, having gained my own foothold, I could stretch out my hand without fear of the movement being mistaken for appeal. I wrote to old Hasluck; and almost by the next post received from him the friendliest of notes. He told me Barbara had just returned from abroad, took it upon himself to add that she also would be delighted to see me, and, as I knew he would, threw his doors open to me.
Of my boyish passion for Barbara never had I spoken to a living soul, nor do I think, excepting Barbara herself, had any ever guessed it. To my mother, though she was very fond of her, Barbara was only a girl, with charms but also with faults, concerning which my mother would speak freely; hurting me, as one unwittingly might hurt a neophyte by philosophical discussion of his newly embraced religion. Often, choosing by preference late evening or the night, I would wander round and round the huge red-brick house standing in its ancient garden on the top of Stamford Hill; descending again into the noisome streets as one returning to the world from praying at a shrine, purified, filled with peace, all noble endeavour, all unselfish aims seeming within my grasp.
During Barbara’s four years’ absence my adoration had grown and strengthened. Out of my memory of her my desire had evolved its ideal; a being of my imagination, but by reason of that, to me the more real, the more present. I looked forward to seeing her again, but with no impatience, revelling rather in the anticipation than eager for the realisation. As a creature of flesh and blood, the child I had played with, talked with, touched, she had faded further and further into the distance; as the vision of my dreams she stood out clearer day by day. I knew that when next I saw her there would be a gulf between us I had no wish to bridge. To worship her from afar was a sweeter thought to me than would have been the hope of a passionate embrace. To live with her, sit opposite to her while she ate and drank, see her, perhaps, with her hair in curl-papers, know possibly that she had a corn upon her foot, hear her speak maybe of a decayed tooth, or of a chilblain, would have been torture to me. Into such abyss of the commonplace there was no fear of my dragging her, and for this I was glad. In the future she would be yet more removed from me. She was older than I was; she must be now a woman. Instinctively I felt that in spite of years I was not yet a man. She would marry. The thought gave me no pain, my feeling for her was utterly devoid of appetite. No one but myself could close the temple I had built about her, none deny to me the right of entry there. No jealous priest could hide her from my eyes, her altar I had reared too high. Since I have come to know myself better, I perceive that she stood to me not as a living woman, but as a symbol; not a fellow human being to be walked with through life, helping and to be helped, but that impalpable religion of sex to which we raise up idols of poor human clay, alas, not always to our satisfaction, so that foolishly we fall into anger against them, forgetting they were but the work of our own hands; not the body, but the spirit of love.
I allowed a week to elapse after receiving old Hasluck’s letter before presenting myself at Stamford Hill. It was late one afternoon in early summer. Hasluck had not returned from the City, Mrs. Hasluck was out visiting, Miss Hasluck was in the garden. I told the supercilious footman not to trouble, I would seek her there myself. I guessed where she would be; her favourite spot had always been a sunny corner, bright with flowers, surrounded by a thick yew hedge, cut, after the Dutch fashion, into quaint shapes of animals and birds. She was walking there, as I had expected, reading a book. And again, as I saw her, came back to me the feeling that had swept across me as a boy, when first outlined against the dusty books and papers of my father’s office she had flashed upon my eyes: that all the fairy tales had suddenly come true, only now, instead of the Princess, she was the Queen. Taller she was, with a dignity that formerly had been the only charm she lacked. She did not hear my coming, my way being across the soft, short grass, and for a little while I stood there in the shadow of the yews, drinking in the beauty of her clear-cut profile, bent down towards her book, the curving lines of her long neck, the wonder of the exquisite white hand against the lilac of her dress.
I did not speak; rather would I have remained so watching; but turning at the end of the path, she saw me, and as she came towards me held out her hand. I knelt upon the path, and raised it to my lips. The action was spontaneous, till afterwards I was not aware of having done it. Her lips were smiling as I raised my eyes to them, the faintest suggestion of contempt mingling with amusement. Yet she seemed pleased, and her contempt, even if I were not mistaken, would not have wounded me.
“So you are still in love with me? I wondered if you would be.”
“Did you know that I was in love with you?”
“I should have been blind if I had not.”
“But I was only a boy.”
“You were not the usual type of boy. You are not going to be the usual type of man.”
“You do not mind my loving you?”
“I cannot help it, can I? Nor can you.”
She seated herself on a stone bench facing a sun-dial, and leaning hack, her hands clasped behind her head, looked at me and laughed.
“I shall always love you,” I answered, “but it is with a curious sort of love. I do not understand it myself.”
“Tell me,” she commanded, still with a smile about her lips, “describe it to me.”
I was standing over against her, my arm resting upon the dial’s stone column. The sun was sinking, casting long shadows on the velvety grass, illuminating with a golden light her upturned face.
“I would you were some great queen of olden days, and that I might be always near you, serving you, doing your bidding. Your love in return would spoil all; I shall never ask it, never desire it. That I might look upon you, touch now and then at rare intervals with my lips your hand, kiss in secret the glove you had let fall, the shoe you had flung off, know that you knew of my love, that I was yours to do with as you would, to live or die according to your wish. Or that you were priestess in some temple of forgotten gods, where I might steal at daybreak and at dusk to gaze upon your beauty; kneel with clasped hands, watching your sandalled feet coming and going about the altar steps; lie with pressed lips upon the stones your trailing robes had touched.”
She laughed a light mocking laugh. “I should prefer to be the queen. The role of priestess would not suit me. Temples are so cold.” A slight shiver passed through her. She made a movement with her hand, beckoning me to her feet. “That is how you shall love me, Paul,” she said, “adoring me, worshipping me – blindly. I will be your queen and treat you – as it chooses me. All I think, all I do, I will tell you, and you shall tell me it is right. The queen can do no wrong.”
She took my face between her hands, and bending over me, looked long and steadfastly into my eyes. “You understand, Paul, the queen can do no wrong – never, never.” There had crept into her voice a note of vehemence, in her face was a look almost of appeal.
“My queen can do no wrong,” I repeated. And she laughed and let her hands fall back upon her lap.
“Now you may sit beside me. So much honour, Paul, shall you have to-day, but it will have to last you long. And you may tell me all you have been doing, maybe it will amuse me; and afterwards you shall hear what I have done, and shall say that it was right and good of me.”
I obeyed, sketching my story briefly, yet leaving nothing untold, not even the transit of the Lady ‘Ortensia, ashamed of the episode though I was. At that she looked a little grave.
“You must do nothing again, Paul,” she commanded, “to make me feel ashamed of you, or I shall dismiss you from my presence for ever. I must be proud of you, or you shall not serve me. In dishonouring yourself you are dishonouring me. I am angry with you, Paul. Do not let me be angry with you again.”
And so that passed; and although my love for her – as I know well she wished and sought it should – failed to save me at all times from the apish voices whispering ever to the beast within us, I know the desire to be worthy of her, to honour her with all my being, helped my life as only love can. The glory of the morning fades, the magic veil is rent; we see all things with cold, clear eyes. My love was a woman. She lies dead. They have mocked her white sweet limbs with rags and tatters, but they cannot cheat love’s eyes. God knows I loved her in all purity! Only with false love we love the false. Beneath the unclean clinging garments she sleeps fair.
My tale finished, “Now I will tell you mine,” she said. “I am going to be married soon. I shall be a Countess, Paul, the Countess Huescar – I will teach you how to pronounce it – and I shall have a real castle in Spain. You need not look so frightened, Paul; we shall not live there. It is a half-ruined, gloomy place, among the mountains, and he loves it even less than I do. Paris and London will be my courts, so you will see me often. You shall know the great world, Paul, the world I mean to conquer, where I mean to rule.”
“Is he very rich?” I asked.
“As poor,” she laughed, “as poor as a Spanish nobleman. The money I shall have to provide, or, rather, poor dear Dad will. He gives me title, position. Of course I do not love him, handsome though he is. Don’t look so solemn, Paul. We shall get on together well enough. Queens, Paul, do not make love matches, they contract alliances. I have done well, Paul; congratulate me. Do you hear, Paul? Say that I have acted rightly.”
“Does he love you?” I asked.
“He tells me so,” she answered, with a laugh. “How uncourtier-like you are, Paul! Do you suggest that any man could see me and not love me?”
She sprang to her feet. “I do not want his love,” she cried; “it would bore me. Women hate love they cannot return. I don’t mean love like yours, devout little Paul,” she added, with a laugh. “That is sweet incense wafted round us that we like to scent with our noses in the air. Give me that, Paul; I want it, I ask for it. But the love of a hand, the love of a husband that one does not care for – it would be horrible!”
I felt myself growing older. For the moment my goddess became a child needing help.
“But have you thought – ” I commenced.
“Yes, yes,” she interrupted me quickly, “I have thought and thought till I can think no more. There must be some sacrifice; it must be as little as need be, that is all. He does not love me; he is marrying me for my money – I know that, and I am glad of it. You do not know me, Paul. I must have rank, position. What am I? The daughter of rich old Hasluck, who began life as a butcher in the Mile End Road. As the Princess Huescar, society will forget, as Mrs.” – it seemed to me she checked herself abruptly – “Jones or Brown it would remember, however rich I might be. I am vain, Paul, caring for power – ambition. I have my father’s blood in me. All his nights and days he has spent in gaining wealth; he can do no more. We upstarts have our pride of race. He has done his share, I must do mine.”
“But you need not be mere Mrs. anybody commonplace,” I argued. “Why not wait? You will meet someone who can give you position and whom at the same time you can love. Would that not be better?”
“He will never come, the man I could love,” she answered. “Because, my little Paul, he has come already. Hush, Paul, the queen can do no wrong.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “May I not know?”
“Yes, Paul,” she answered, “you shall know; I want you to know, then you shall tell me that I have acted rightly. Do you hear me, Paul? – quite rightly – that you still respect me and honour me. He could not help me. As his wife, I should be less even than I am, a mere rich nobody, giving long dinner-parties to other rich nobodies, living amongst City men, retired trades-people; envied only by their fat, vulgarly dressed wives, courted by seedy Bohemians for the sake of my cook; with perhaps an opera singer or an impecunious nobleman or two out of Dad’s City list for my show-guests. Is that the court, Paul, where you would have your queen reign?”
