These hopes Fetherel"s att.i.tude had already defeated. He read the book with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy to his mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the reviewers. It was perhaps this proof of his general inept.i.tude that made his wife doubly alive to his special defects; so that his inopportune entrance was aggravated by the very sound of his voice and the hopeless aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant, is more indicative of a man"s character and circ.u.mstances than his way of entering a room.
The Bishop of Ossining, for instance, brought with him not only an atmosphere of episcopal authority, but an implied opinion on the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and on the att.i.tude of the church toward divorce; while the appearance of Mrs. Fetherel"s husband produced an immediate impression of domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that there was a well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did not sew on his b.u.t.tons, at least superintended the performance of that task; that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o"clock.
All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with which he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel"s clutch; and knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be silly, she said, with a dry despair, "You"re boring the Bishop horribly."
Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all horribly, doesn"t she, sir?" he exulted.
"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably.
"Read it? Of course not--it"s just this minute come. I say, Bishop, you"re not going--?"
"Not till I"ve heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his chair with an indulgent smile.
His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don"t let John"s nonsense detain you," she entreated.
"Detain him? That"s good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn"t as long as one of his sermons--won"t take me five minutes to read. Here, listen to this, ladies and gentlemen: "In this age of festering pessimism and decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer to open one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the sewer--""
Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his hand.--""Of the sewer,"" her husband resumed; ""but his wonder is proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly inoffensive as Paula Fetherel"s "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure, fresh view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader"s moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its distinctly misleading t.i.tle to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force in character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be described as a distinctly pretty story.""
III
It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into the violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin"s drawing-room.
"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a silk-cushioned bergere, "I"ve read it at last and I"m not so awfully shocked!"
Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid hand, looked up without speaking.
"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you"re ill."
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she said, mournfully.
"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."
Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a b.u.t.tered tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.
"It"s not what I said just now--?" she ventured.
"Just now?"
"About "Fast and Loose"? I came to talk it over."
Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically, "want to hear it mentioned again!"
"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.
Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with a tragic laugh, "There"s nothing left to say."
"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven"t they been nice?"
"They"ve been odious--odious--" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It"s been perfectly intolerable!"
Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of taking no more tea, crossed over to her cousin and laid a sympathizing hand on that lady"s agitated shoulder.
"It _is_ a bore at first," she conceded; "but you"ll be surprised to see how soon one gets used to it."
"I shall--never--get--used to it--" Mrs. Fetherel brokenly declared.
"Have they been so very nasty--all of them?"
"Every one of them!" the novelist sobbed.
"I"m so sorry, dear; it _does_ hurt, I know--but hadn"t you rather expected it?"
"Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up.
Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied from what you said before the book came out--that you rather expected--that you"d rather discounted--"
"Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?"
"Good gracious! Is _that_ what they"ve done?"
Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded.
"Every one of them?"
"Every one--"
"Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle.
"Why, you"ve just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached her.
"Said what?"
"That you weren"t so _awfully_ shocked--"
"I? Oh, well--you see, you"d keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn"t quite as bad as I expected--"
Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at once," she suggested, "that it"s a distinctly pretty story?"
"They haven"t said _that?_"
"They"ve all said it."
"My poor Paula!"
"Even the Bishop--"
"The Bishop called it a pretty story?"