The Reverberator (7 page)

If she had not spoken before she had done something still more to the purpose; she had removed any shade of doubt that might have lingered in the young man’s spirit as to her charm of line. He was aware that his Parisian education, acting upon a natural aptitude, had opened him much—rendered him perhaps even morbidly sensitive—to impressions of this order; the society of artists, the talk of studios, the attentive study of beautiful works, the sight of a thousand forms of curious research and experiment, had produced in his mind a new sense, the exercise of which was a conscious enjoyment, and the supreme gratification of which, on several occasions, had given him as many ineffaceable memories. He had once said to his friend Waterlow: “I don’t know whether it’s a confession of a very poor life, but the most important things that
have happened to me in this world have been simply half-a-dozen impressions—impressions of the eye.” “Ah,
malheureux
, you’re lost!” the painter had exclaimed, in answer to this, and without even taking the trouble to explain his ominous speech. Gaston Probert however had not been frightened by it, and he continued to be thankful for the sensitive plate that nature (with culture added), enabled him to carry in his brain. The impression of the eye was doubtless not everything, but it was so much gained, so much saved, in a world in which other treasures were apt to slip through one’s fingers; and above all it had the merit that so many things gave it and that nothing could take it away. He had perceived in a moment that Francie Dosson gave it; and now, seeing her a second time, he felt that she conferred it in a degree which made acquaintance with her one of those “important” facts of which he had spoken to Charles Waterlow. It was in the case of such an accident as this that he felt the value of his Parisian education—his modern sense.

It was therefore not directly the prospect of the circus that induced him to accept Mr. Dosson’s invitation; nor was it even the charm exerted by the girl’s appearing, in the few words she uttered, to appeal to him for herself. It was his feeling that on the edge of the glittering ring her type would form his entertainment and that if he knew it was rare she herself did not. He liked to be conscious, but he liked others not to be. It seemed to him at this moment, after he had told Mr. Dosson he should be delighted to spend the evening with them, that he was indeed trying hard to discover how it would feel to be an American; he had jumped on the ship, he was pitching away to the west. He had led his sister, Mme. de Brécourt, to expect that he
would dine with her (she was having a little party), and if she could see the people to whom, without a scruple, with a quick sense of refreshment and freedom, he now sacrificed her! He knew who was coming to his sister’s, in the Place Beauvau: Mme. d’Outreville and M. de Grosprò, old M. Courageau, Mme. de Brives, Lord and Lady Trantum, Mlle. de Saintonge; but he was fascinated by the idea of the contrast between what he preferred and what he gave up. His life had long been wanting—painfully wanting—in the element of contrast, and here was a chance to bring it in. He seemed to see it come in powerfully with Mr. Flack, after Miss Dosson had proposed that they should walk off without their initiator. Her father did not favour this suggestion; he said, “We want a double good dinner to-day and Mr. Flack has got to order it.” Upon this Delia had asked the visitor if
he
couldn’t order—a Frenchman like him; and Francie had interrupted, before he could answer the question—“Well,
are
you a Frenchman? that’s just the point, isn’t it?” Gaston Probert replied that he had no wish but to be of
her
nationality, and the elder sister asked him if he knew many Americans in Paris. He was obliged to confess that he did not, but he hastened to add that he was eager to go on, now that he had made such a charming beginning.

“Oh, we ain’t anything—if you mean that,” said the young lady. “If you go on you’ll go on beyond us.”

“We ain’t anything here, my dear, but we are a good deal at home,” Mr. Dosson remarked, smiling.

“I think we are very nice anywhere!” Francie exclaimed; upon which Gaston Probert declared that they were as delightful as possible. It was in these amenities that George Flack found them engaged; but there was
none the less a certain eagerness in his greeting of the other guest, as if he had it in mind to ask him how soon he could give him half an hour. I hasten to add that, with the turn the occasion presently took, the correspondent of the
Reverberator
renounced the effort to put Mr. Probert down. They all went out together, and the professional impulse, usually so irresistible in George Flack’s mind, suffered a modification. He wanted to put his fellow-visitor down, but in a more human, a more passionate sense. Probert talked very little to Francie, but though Mr. Flack did not know that on a first occasion he would have thought that violent, even rather gross, he knew it was for Francie, and Francie alone, that the fifth member of the party was there. He said to himself suddenly and in perfect sincerity that it was a mean class any way, the people for whom their own country was not good enough. He did not go so far however, when they were seated at the admirable establishment of M. Durand, in the Place de la Madeleine, as to order a bad dinner to spite his competitor; nor did he, to spoil this gentleman’s amusement, take uncomfortable seats at the pretty circus in the Champs Elysées to which, at half-past eight o’clock, the company was conveyed (it was a drive of but five minutes) in a couple of cabs. The occasion therefore was superficially smooth, and he could see that the sense of being disagreeable to an American newspaper-man was not needed to make his nondescript rival enjoy it. He hated his accent, he hated his laugh, and he hated above all the lamblike way their companions accepted him. Mr. Flack was quite acute enough to make an important observation: he cherished it and promised himself to bring it to the notice of his gullible friends. Gaston Probert professed a great desire to
be of service to the young ladies—to do something which would help them to be happy in Paris; but he gave no hint of an intention to do that which would contribute most to such a result—bring them in contact with the other members, and above all with the female members, of his family. George Flack knew nothing about the matter, but he required for purposes of argument that Mr. Probert’s family should have female members, and it was lucky for him that his assumption was just. He thought he foresaw the effect with which he should impress it upon Francie and Delia (but above all upon Delia, who would then herself impress it upon Francie), that it would be time for their French friend to talk when he had brought his mother round.
But he never would
—they might bet their pile on that! He never did, in the sequel, in fact—having, poor young man, no mother to bring. Moreover he was mum (as Delia phrased it to herself) about Mme. de Brécourt and Mme. de Cliché: such, Miss Dosson learned from Charles Waterlow, were the names of his two sisters who had houses in Paris—gathering at the same time the information that one of these ladies was a
marquise
and the other a
comtesse
. She was less exasperated by their non-appearance than Mr. Flack had hoped, and it did not prevent an excursion to dine at Saint-Germain, a week after the evening spent at the circus, which included both of the new admirers. It also matter of course included Mr. Flack, for though the party had been proposed in the first instance by Charles Waterlow, who wished to multiply opportunities for studying his future sitter, Mr. Dosson had characteristically constituted himself host and administrator, with the young journalist as his deputy. He liked to invite people and to pay for them, and he disliked
to be invited and paid for. He was never inwardly content, on any occasion, unless a great deal of money was spent, and he could be sure enough of the magnitude of the sum only when he himself spent it. He was too simple for conceit or for pride of purse, but he always felt that any arrangements were a little shabby as to which the expenses had not been referred to him. He never told any one how he met them. Moreover Delia had told him that if they should go to Saint-Germain as guests of the artist and his friend Mr. Flack would not be of the company: she was sure those gentlemen would not invite him. In fact she was too acute, for though he liked him little, Charles Waterlow would on this occasion have made a point of expressing by a hospitable attitude his sense of obligation to a man who had brought him such a subject. Delia’s hint however was all-sufficient for her father; he would have thought it a gross breach of friendly loyalty to take part in a festival not graced by Mr. Flack’s presence. His idea of loyalty was that he should scarcely smoke a cigar unless his friend was there to take another, and he felt rather mean if he went round alone to get shaved. As regards Saint-Germain, he took over the project and George Flack telegraphed for a table on the terrace at the Pavillon Henri Quatre. Mr. Dosson had by this time learned to trust the European manager of the
Reverberator
to spend his money almost as he himself would.

DELIA HAD BROKEN OUT THE EVENING THEY took Mr. Probert to the circus; she had apostrophised Francie as they each sat in a red-damask chair after ascending to their apartments. They had bade their companions farewell at the door of the hotel and the two gentlemen had walked off in different directions. But up stairs they had instinctively not separated; they dropped into the first place and sat looking at each other and at the highly-decorated lamps that burned, night after night, in their empty saloon. “Well, I want to know when you’re going to stop,” Delia said to her sister, speaking as if this remark were a continuation, which it was not, of something they had lately been saying.

“Stop what?” asked Francie, reaching forward for a
marron
.

“Stop carrying on the way you do—with Mr. Flack.”

Francie stared, while she consumed her
marron
; then she replied, in her little flat, patient voice, “Why, Delia Dosson, how can you be so foolish?”

“Father, I wish you’d speak to her. Francie, I ain’t foolish.”

“What do you want me to say to her?” Mr. Dosson inquired. “I guess I’ve said about all I know.”

“Well, that’s in fun; I want you to speak to her in earnest.”

“I guess there’s no one in earnest but you,” Francie remarked. “These are not so good as the last.”

“No, and there won’t be if you don’t look out. There’s something you can do if you’ll just keep quiet. If you can’t tell difference of style, well, I can.”

“What’s the difference of style?” asked Mr. Dosson. But before this question could be answered Francie protested against the charge of carrying on. Quiet? Wasn’t she as quiet as a stopped clock? Delia replied that a girl was not quiet so long as she didn’t keep others so; and she wanted to know what her sister proposed to do about Mr. Flack. “Why don’t you take him and let Francie take the other?” Mr. Dosson continued.

“That’s just what I’m after—to make her take the other,” said his elder daughter.

“Take him—how do you mean?” Francie inquired.

“Oh, you know how.”

“Yes, I guess you know how!” Mr. Dosson laughed, with an absence of prejudice which might have been thought deplorable in a parent.

“Do you want to stay in Europe or not? that’s what I want to know,” Delia declared to her sister. “If you want to go bang home you’re taking the right way to do it.”

“What has that got to do with it?” asked Mr. Dosson.

“Should you like so much to reside at that place—where is it?—where his paper is published? That’s where you’ll have to pull up, sooner or later,” Delia pursued.

“Do you want to stay in Europe, father?” Francie said, with her small sweet weariness.

“It depends on what you mean by staying. I want to go home some time.”

“Well, then, you’ve got to go without Mr. Probert,” Delia remarked with decision. “If you think he wants to live over there—”

“Why, Delia, he wants dreadfully to go—he told me so himself,” Francie argued, with passionless pauses.

“Yes, and when he gets there he’ll want to come back. I thought you were so much interested in Paris.”

“My poor child, I
am
interested!” smiled Francie. “Ain’t I interested, father?”

“Well, I don’t know how you could act differently, to show it.”

“Well, I do then,” said Delia. “And if you don’t make Mr. Flack understand I will.”

“Oh, I guess he understands—he’s so bright,” Francie returned.

“Yes, I guess he does—he
is
bright,” said Mr. Dosson. “Good-night, chickens,” he added; and wandered off to a couch of untroubled repose.

His daughters sat up half an hour later, but not by the wish of the younger girl. She was always passive however, always docile when Delia was, as she said, on the warpath, and though she had none of her sister’s insistence she was very courageous in suffering. She thought Delia whipped her up too much, but there was that in her which would have prevented her from ever running away. She could smile and smile for an hour without irritation, making even pacific answers, though all the while her companion’s grossness hurt something delicate that was in her. She knew that Delia loved her—not loving herself meanwhile a bit—as no one else in the world probably
ever would; and there was something droll in such plans for her—plans of ambition which could only involve a loss. The real answer to anything, to everything Delia might say in her moods of prefigurement was—“Oh, if you want to make out that people are thinking of me or that they ever will, you ought to remember that no one can possibly think of me half as much as you do. Therefore if there is to be any comfort for either of us we had both much better just go on as we are.” She did not however on this occasion, meet her sister with this syllogism, because there happened to be a certain fascination in the way Delia set forth the great truth that the star of matrimony, for the American girl, was now shining in the east—in England and France and Italy. They had only to look round anywhere to see it: what did they hear of every day in the week but of the engagement of one of their own compeers to some count or some lord? Delia insisted on the fact that it was in that vast, vague section of the globe to which she never alluded save as “over here” that the American girl was now called upon to play, under providence, her part. When Francie remarked that Mr. Probert was not a count nor a lord her sister rejoined that she didn’t care whether he was or not. To this Francie replied that she herself didn’t care but that Delia ought to, to be consistent.