“That’s what they call in Boston being very ‘thoughtful,’” Mrs. Luna said, “giving you the Back Bay (don’t you hate the name?) to look at, and then taking credit for it.”
This, however, was in the future; what Basil Ransom actually perceived was that Miss Chancellor was a signal old maid. That was her quality, her destiny; nothing could be more distinctly written. There are women who are unmarried by accident, and others who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry. She was so essentially a celibate that Ransom found himself thinking of her as old, though when he came to look at her (as he said to himself) it was apparent that her years were fewer than his own. He did not dislike her, she had been so friendly; but, little by little, she gave him an uneasy feeling — the sense that you could never be safe with a person who took things so hard. It came over him that it was because she took things hard she had sought his acquaintance; it had been because she was strenuous, not because she was genial; she had had in her eye — and what an extraordinary eye it was! — not a pleasure, but a duty. She would expect him to be strenuous in return; but he couldn’t — in private life, he couldn’t; privacy for Basil Ransom consisted entirely in what he called “laying off.” She was not so plain on further acquaintance as she had seemed to him at first; even the young Mississippian had culture enough to see that she was refined. Her white skin had a singular look of being drawn tightly across her face; but her features, though sharp and irregular, were delicate in a fashion that suggested good breeding. Their line was perverse, but it was not poor. The curious tint of her eyes was a living colour; when she turned it upon you, you thought vaguely of the glitter of green ice. She had absolutely no figure, and presented a certain appearance of feeling cold. With all this, there was something very modern and highly developed in her aspect; she had the advantages as well as the drawbacks of a nervous organisation. She smiled constantly at her guest, but from the beginning to the end of dinner, though he made several remarks that he thought might prove amusing, she never once laughed. Later, he saw that she was a woman without laughter; exhilaration, if it ever visited her, was dumb. Once only, in the course of his subsequent acquaintance with her, did it find a voice; and then the sound remained in Ransom’s ear as one of the strangest he had heard.
She asked him a great many questions, and made no comment on his answers, which only served to suggest to her fresh inquiries. Her shyness had quite left her, it did not come back; she had confidence enough to wish him to see that she took a great interest in him. Why should she? he wondered, He couldn’t believe he was one of her kind; he was conscious of much Bohemianism — he drank beer, in New York, in cellars, knew no ladies, and was familiar with a “variety” actress. Certainly, as she knew him better, she would disapprove of him, though, of course, he would never mention the actress, nor even, if necessary, the beer. Ransom’s conception of vice was purely as a series of special cases, of explicable accidents. Not that he cared; if it were a part of the Boston character to be inquiring, he would be to the last a courteous Mississippian. He would tell her about Mississippi as much as she liked; he didn’t care how much he told her that the old ideas in the South were played out. She would not understand him any the better for that; she would not know how little his own views could be gathered from such a limited admission. What her sister imparted to him about her mania for “reform” had left in his mouth a kind of unpleasant aftertaste; he felt, at any rate, that if she had the religion of humanity — Basil Ransom had read Comte, he had read everything — she would never understand him. He, too, had a private vision of reform, but the first principle of it was to reform the reformers. As they drew to the close of a meal which, in spite of all latent incompatibilities, had gone off brilliantly, she said to him that she should have to leave him after dinner, unless perhaps he should be inclined to accompany her. She was going to a small gathering at the house of a friend who had asked a few people, “interested in new ideas,” to meet Mrs. Farrinder.
“Oh, thank you,” said Basil Ransom. “Is it a party? I haven’t been to a party since Mississippi seceded.”
“No; Miss Birdseye doesn’t give parties. She’s an ascetic.”
“Oh, well, we have had our dinner,” Ransom rejoined, laughing.
His hostess sat silent a moment, with her eyes on the ground; she looked at such times as if she were hesitating greatly between several things she might say, all so important that it was difficult to choose.
“I think it might interest you,” she remarked presently. “You will hear some discussion, if you are fond of that. Perhaps you wouldn’t agree,” she added, resting her strange eyes on him.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t — I don’t agree with everything,” he said, smiling and stroking his leg.
“Don’t you care for human progress?” Miss Chancellor went on.
“I don’t know — I never saw any. Are you going to show me some?”
“I can show you an earnest effort towards it. That’s the most one can be sure of. But I am not sure you are worthy.”
“Is it something very Bostonian? I should like to see that,” said Basil Ransom.
“There are movements in other cities. Mrs. Farrinder goes everywhere; she may speak tonight.”
“Mrs. Farrinder, the celebrated —— ?”
“Yes, the celebrated; the great apostle of the emancipation of women. She is a great friend of Miss Birdseye.”
“And who is Miss Birdseye?”
“She is one of our celebrities. She is the woman in the world, I suppose, who has laboured most for every wise reform. I think I ought to tell you,” Miss Chancellor went on in a moment, “she was one of the earliest, one of the most passionate, of the old Abolitionists.”
She had thought, indeed, she ought to tell him that, and it threw her into a little tremor of excitement to do so. Yet, if she had been afraid he would show some irritation at this news, she was disappointed at the geniality with which he exclaimed:
“Why, poor old lady — she must be quite mature!”
It was therefore with some severity that she rejoined:
“She will never be old. She is the youngest spirit I know. But if you are not in sympathy, perhaps you had better not come,” she went on.
“In sympathy with what, dear madam?” Basil Ransom asked, failing still, to her perception, to catch the tone of real seriousness. “If, as you say, there is to be a discussion, there will be different sides, and of course one can’t sympathise with both.”
“Yes, but every one will, in his way — or in her way — plead the cause of the new truths. If you don’t care for them, you won’t go with us.”
“I tell you I haven’t the least idea what they are! I have never yet encountered in the world any but old truths — as old as the sun and moon. How can I know? But do take me; it’s such a chance to see Boston.”
“It isn’t Boston — it’s humanity!” Miss Chancellor, as she made this remark, rose from her chair, and her movement seemed to say that she consented. But before she quitted her kinsman to get ready, she observed to him that she was sure he knew what she meant; he was only pretending he didn’t.
“Well, perhaps, after all, I have a general idea,” he confessed; “but don’t you see how this little reunion will give me a chance to fix it?”
She lingered an instant, with her anxious face. “Mrs. Farrinder will fix it!” she said; and she went to prepare herself.
It was in this poor young lady’s nature to be anxious, to have scruple within scruple and to forecast the consequences of things. She returned in ten minutes, in her bonnet, which she had apparently assumed in recognition