"Yes, and he doesn"t find out his mistake----"
"Till they"re married?"
"Sometimes, yes," she said, rather as though she were making an unwilling admission. "But sometimes he sees it before--when he meets somebody else."
"Very true," said I, with a grave nod.
"The false can"t stand against the real." pursued Miss Liston; and then she fell into meditative silence. I stole a glance at her face; she was smiling. Was it in the pleasure of literary creation--an artistic ecstasy? I should have liked to answer yes, but I doubted it very much.
Without pretending to Miss Liston"s powers, I have the little subtlety that is needful to show me that more than one kind of smile may be seen on the human face, and that there is one very different from others; and finally, that that one is not evoked, as a rule, merely by the evolution of the troublesome enc.u.mbrance in pretty writing, vulgarly called a "plot."
"If," pursued Miss Liston, "some one comes who can appreciate him and draw out what is best in him----"
"That"s all very well," said I, "but what of the first girl?"
"Oh, she"s--she can be made shallow, you know; and I can put in a man for her. People needn"t be much interested in her."
"Yes, you could manage it that way," said I, thinking how Pamela--I took the liberty of using her name for the shallow girl--would like such treatment.
"She will really be valuable mainly as a foil," observed Miss Liston; and she added generously, "I shall make her nice, you know, but shallow--not worthy of him."
"And what are you going to make the other girl like?" I asked.
Miss Liston started slightly; also she colored very slightly, and she answered, looking away from me across the lawn, "I haven"t quite made up my mind yet, Mr. Wynne."
With the suspicion which this conversation aroused fresh in my mind, it was curious to hear Pamela laugh, as she said to me on the afternoon of the same day, "Aren"t Sir Gilbert and Audrey Liston funny? I tell you what, Mr. Wynne, I believe they"re writing a novel together."
"Perhaps Chillington"s giving her the materials for one," I suggested.
"I shouldn"t think," observed Pamela, in her dispa.s.sionate way, "that anything very interesting had ever happened to him."
"I. thought you liked him," I remarked, humbly.
"So I do. What"s that got to do with it?" asked Pamela.
It was beyond question that Chillington enjoyed Miss Liston"s society; the interest she showed in him was incense to his nostrils. I used to overhear fragments of his ideas about himself, which he was revealing in answer to her tactful inquiries. But neither was it doubtful that he had by no means lost his relish for Pamela"s lighter talk; in fact, he seemed to turn to her with some relief--perhaps it is refreshing to escape from self-a.n.a.lysis, even when the process is conducted in the pleasantest possible manner--and the hours which Miss Liston gave to work were devoted by Chillington to maintaining his cordial relations with the lady whose comfortable and not over-tragical disposal was taxing Miss Liston"s skill. For she had definitely decided all her plot; she told me so a few days later. It was all planned out; nay, the scene in which the truth as to his own feelings bursts on Sir Gilbert (I forget at the moment what name the novel gave him) was, I understood, actually written; the shallow girl was to experience nothing worse than a wound to her vanity, and was to turn with as much alacrity as decency allowed to the subst.i.tute whom Miss Liston had now provided. All this was poured into my sympathetic ear, and I say sympathetic with all sincerity; for, although I may occasionally treat Miss Liston"s literary efforts with less than proper respect, she herself was my friend, and the conviction under which she was now living would, I knew, unless it were justified, bring her into much of that unhappiness in which one generally found her heroine plunged about the end of Volume II. The heroine generally got out all right, and the knowledge that she would enabled the reader to preserve cheerfulness.
But would poor little Miss Liston get out? I was none too sure of it.
Suddenly a change came in the state of affairs. Pamela produced it. It must have struck her that the increasing intimacy of Miss Liston and Chillington might become something other than "funny." To put it briefly and metaphorically, she whistled her dog back to her heels. I am not skilled in understanding or describing the artifices of ladies; but even I saw the transformation in Pamela. She put forth her strength and put on her prettiest gowns; she refused to take her place in the see-saw of society, which Chillington had recently established for his pleasure. If he spent an hour with Miss Liston, Pamela would have nothing of him for a day; she met his attentions with scorn unless they were undivided. Chillington seemed at first puzzled; I believe that he never regarded his talks with Miss Liston in other than a business point of view, but directly he understood that Pamela claimed him, and that she was prepared, in case he did not obey her call, to establish a grievance against him, he lost no time in manifesting his obedience. A whole day pa.s.sed in which, to my certain knowledge, he was not alone a moment with Miss Liston, and did not, save at the family meals, exchange a word with her. As he walked off with Pamela, Miss Liston"s eyes followed him in wistful longing; she stole away upstairs and did not come down till five o"clock. Then finding me strolling about with a cigarette, she joined me.
"Well, how goes the book?" I asked.
"I haven"t done much to it just lately," she answered, in a low voice.
"I--it"s--I don"t quite know what to do with it."
"I thought you"d settled?"
"So I had, but--oh, don"t let"s talk about it, Mr. Wynne!"
But a moment later she went on talking about it.
"I don"t know why I should make it end happily," she said. "I"m sure life isn"t always happy, is it?"
"Certainly not," I answered. "You mean your man might stick to the shallow girl after all?"
"Yes," I just heard her whisper.
"And be miserable afterwards?" I pursued.
"I don"t know," said Miss Liston. "Perhaps he wouldn"t."
"Then you must make him shallow himself."
"I can"t do that," she said quickly. "Oh, how difficult it is!"
She may have meant merely the art of writing--when I cordially agreed with her--but I think she meant also the way of the world, which does not make me withdraw my a.s.sent. I left her walking up and down in front of the drawing-room windows, a rather forlorn little figure, thrown into distinctness by the cold rays of the setting sun.
All was not over yet. That evening Chillington broke away. Led by vanity, or interest, or friendliness, I know not which--tired maybe of paying court (the att.i.tude in which Pamela kept him), and thinking it would be pleasant to play the other part for a while--after dinner he went straight to Miss Liston, talked to her while we had coffee on the terrace, and then walked about with her. Pamela sat by me; she was very silent; she did not appear to be angry, but her handsome mouth wore a resolute expression. Chillington and Miss Liston wandered on into the shrubbery, and did not come into sight again for nearly half an hour.
"I think it"s cold," said Pamela, in her cool, quiet tones. "And it"s also, Mr. Wynne, rather slow. I shall go to bed."
I thought it a little impertinent of Pamela to attribute the "slowness"
(which had undoubtedly existed) to me, so I took my revenge by saying, with, an a.s.sumption of innocence purposely and obviously unreal, "Oh, but won"t you wait and bid Miss Liston and Chillington good-night?"
Pamela looked at me for a moment. I made bold to smile.
Pamela"s face broke slowly into an answering smile.
"I don"t know what you mean, Mr. Wynne," said she.
"No?" said I.
"No," said Pamela, and she turned away. But before she went she looked over her shoulder, and, still smiling, said, "Wish Miss Liston good-night for me, Mr. Wynne. Anything I have to say to Sir Gilbert will wait very well till to-morrow."
She had hardly gone in when the wanderers came out of the shrubbery and rejoined me. Chillington wore his usual pa.s.sive look, but Miss Liston"s face was happy and radiant. Chillington pa.s.sed on into the drawing-room. Miss Liston lingered a moment by me.
"Why, you look," said I, "as if you"d invented the finest scene ever written."
She did not answer me directly, but stood looking up at the stars.
Then she said in a dreamy tone, "I think I shall stick to my old idea in the book."
As she spoke Chillington came out. Even in the dim light I saw a frown on his face.
"I say, Wynne," said he, "where"s Miss Myles?"
"She"s gone to bed," I answered. "She told me to wish you good-night for her, Miss Liston. No message for you, Chillington."
Miss Liston"s eyes were on him. He took no notice of her; he stood frowning for an instant, then, with some muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he strode back into the house. We h.o.a.rd his heavy tread across the drawing-room; we heard the door slammed behind him, and I found myself looking on Miss Liston"s altered face.