“I hope,” she said at last, “that these musical people have not brought about this quarrel — or breach, or whatever it is.”
“Who are ‘these musical people’?”
“Mr Jack.”
“He had nothing whatever to do with it. It was Mary who proposed to break the engagement: not I.”
“Mary! Oh! Well, it is your own fault: you should have married her long ago. But why should she object now more than another time? Has Mademoiselle — the pianist — anything to do with it?”
“With Mary’s withdrawing? No. How could it possibly concern Mademoiselle Szczympliça — if it is of her that you are speaking?”
“It is of her that I am speaking. I see she has taught you the balked sneeze with which her name begins. I call her Stchimpleetza, not having had the advantage of her tuition. Where does she live?”
Herbert felt that he was caught, and frowned. “She lives in Fitzroy Square,” he said shortly.
“A-ah! Indeed!” said Mrs. Herbert. Then she added sarcastically, “Do you happen to know that we are within a minute’s walk of Fitzroy Square?”
“I know it perfectly well. I am going there — to see her.”
“Adrian,” said his mother quickly, changing her tone: “you don’t mean anything serious, I hope?”
“You do not hope that I am trifling with her, do you, mother?”
Mrs. Herbert looked at him, startled. “Do you mean to say, Adrian, that you have thrown Mary over because—”
“Because it’s well to off with the old love, before you you are on with the new? You may put that construction on it if you like, although I have told you that it was Mary, and not I, who ended the engagement. I had better tell you the whole truth now, to avoid embittering our next meeting with useless complaints. I am going to ask Mademoiselle Szczympliça to be my wife.
“You foolish boy. She will not accept you. She is making a fortune, and does not wish to marry.”
“She may not need to. She wishes to: that is enough for me. She knows my mind. I am not going to change it.”
“I suppose not. I know of old your obstinacy when you are bent on ruining yourself. I have no doubt that you will marry her, particularly as she is not exactly the sort of person I should choose for a daughter=in-law. Will you expect me to receive her?”
“I shall trouble your house no more when I am married than I have done as a bachelor.”
She shrank for a moment, taken by surprise by this blow; but she did not retort. They presently stopped before the shop she wished to visit and as they stood together near the entry, she made an effort to speak kindly, and even put her hand caressingly on his arm. “Adrian: do not be so headstrong. Wait a little, I do not say ‘give her up.’ But wait a little longer. For my sake.”
Adrian bent his brows and collected all his hardness to resist this appeal. “Mother,” he said: “I never had a cherished project yet that you did not seek to defeat by sarcasms, by threats, and failing those, by cajolery.” Mrs. Herbert quickly took her hand away, and drew back. “And it has always turned out that I was right and that you were wrong. You would not allow that I could ever be a painter; and yet I am now able to marry without your assistance, by my success as a painter. I took one step which gained your approval — my engagement to Mary. Had I married her, I should be this day a wretched man. Now that I have the happiness to be loved by a lady whom all Europe admires, you would have me repudiate her, for no other reason that I can see under Heaven than that you make it your fixed principle to thwart me in everything. I am sorry to have to tell you plainly that I have come to look upon your influence as opposed to my happiness. It has been at the end of my tongue often; and you have forced me to let it slip at last.”
Mrs. Herbert listened attentively during this speech and for some seconds afterwards. Then she roused herself; made a gesture of acquiescence without opening her lips; and went into the shop, leaving him still angry, yet in doubt as to whether he had spoken wisely. But the interview had excited him; and from it and all other goading thoughts he turned to anticipations of his reception by Aurélie. Short though the distance was he drove to her in a hansom.
“Can I see Miss Szczympliça again?” he said to the servant, who now received him with interest, guessing that he came courting.
“She’s in the drawingroom, sir. You may go in.”
He went in and found Aurélie standing near the window in a black silk dress. which she had put on since his visit in the morning.
“Mr Erberts, mum;” said the servant. Lingering at the door to witness their meeting. Aurélie turned; made him a stately bow, and by a gesture, invited him to sit also. He obeyed; but when the door was shut, he got up and approached her.
“Aurélie, she begged me to break off the engagement, although, as you bade me, I offered to fulfill it. I am perfectly free — only for the instant, I hope.” She rose gravely. “Mademoiselle Szczympliç” he added, changing his familiarly eager manner to one of earnest politeness,”will you do me the honor to become my wife?”
“With pleasure, Monsieur Herbert, if my mother approves.”
He was not sure what he ought to do next. After a moment, he stooped and kissed her hand. Catching a roguish look in her face as he looked up, he clasped her in his arms and kissed her repeatedly.
“Enough Monsieur,” she said, laughing and disengaging herself. He then sat down, thinking that she had behaved with admirable grace, and he himself If with becoming audacity. “I thought you would expect me to be very cold and ceremonious,” she said, resuming her seat composedly. “In England one must always be solemn, I said to myself. But indeed you have as little self-command as anyone. Besides, you have not yet spoken to my mother.”
“You do not anticipate any objection from her, I hope.”
“How do I know? And your parents, what of them? I have seen your mother: she is like a great lady. It is only in England that such handsome mothers are to be seen. She is widowed, is she not?”
“Yes. I have no father. I wish to Heaven I had no mother either.”
“Oh, Monsieur Herbert! You are very wrong to say so. And such a gracious lady, too! Fie!”
“Aurélie: I am not jesting. Can you not understand that a mother and son may be so different in their dispositions that neither can sympathize with the other? It is my great misfortune to be such a son. I have found sympathetic friendship, encouragement, respect, faith in my abilities and love—” here he slipped his arm about her waist; and she murmured a remonstrance— “from strangers upon whom I had no claim. In my mother I found none of them: she felt nothing for me but a contemptuous fondness which I did not care to accept. She is a clever woman, impatient of sentiment, and fond of her own way. My father, like myself, was too diffident to push himself arrogantly through the world; and she despised him for it, thinking him a fool. When she saw that I was like him, she concluded that I, too, was a fool, and that she must arrange my life for me in some easy, lucrative, genteel, brainless, conventional way. I hardly ever dared to express the most modest aspiration, or assert the most ordinary claims to respect, for fear of exciting her quiet ridicule. She did not know how much her indifference tortured me, because she had no idea of any keener sensitiveness than her own. Everybody commits follies from youth and want of experience; and I hope most people humor and spare such follies as tenderly as they can. My mother did not even laugh at them. She saw through them and stamped them out with open contempt. She taught me to do without her consideration; and I learned the lesson. My friends will tell you that I am a bad son — never that she is a bad mother, or rather no mother. She has the power of bringing out everything that is hasty and disagreeable in my nature by her presence alone.