She advanced and offered her hand. Mrs Herbert, who had sat calmly looking at her, made the greeting as brief as possible, and turned her attention to Adrian. Nevertheless, Aurélie drew a chair close to hers, and sat down there.
“You are looking very well, mother,” said Adrian. “When did you return?”
“Only yesterday, Adrian.” There was a brief silence. Adrian looked anxiously at Aurélie; and his mother mutely declined to look at her.
“But behold what is absurd!” said Aurélie. “You, madame, who are encore so young — so beautiful — here Mrs. Herbert, who had turned to her with patient attention, could not hide an expression of wonder&mdash”you are already a grandmother. Adrian has what you call a son and heir. It is true.”
“Yes, I am aware of that,” said Mrs. Herbert coolly.
A slight change appeared for an instant in Aurélie’s face; and she glanced for a moment gravely at her husband. He, with disgust only half concealed,said, “You could not broach a subject less interesting to my mother,” and turned away to speak to Mary.
“Adrian,” began Mrs. Herbert, who found herself unexpectedly disturbed by the implied imputation of want of feeling: “I do not think—” Then, as he was not attending to her, she turned to Aurélie and said, “You really must not accept everything that Adrian says seriously. Pray tell me all about your boy — my grandson, I should say.”
“He is like you,” said Aurélie, trying to conceal the chill which had fallen upon her. “Perhaps you will like to see him. If so, I shall bring him to you, if you will permit me.”
“I shall be very glad,” said Mrs. Herbert, rather surprised. “Let me say that I have been expecting you to call on me for some time.”
“You are very good,” said Aurélie. “But think of how I live. I am always voyaging; and you also are seldom in London. Besides, when one is an artist one neglects things. Forget, I pray you, my — my — ach! I do not know how to say it. But I will come to you with Monsieur Jean Sczympliça Herbert. That reminds me: I know not your address.
Mrs Herbert supplied the information; and the conversation then proceeded amicably with occasional help from Hoskyn and Charlie. Mary and Adrian had withdrawn to another part of the room, and were engrossed in a discussion. In the course of it Mary remarked that matters were evidently smooth between the two Mrs Herberts.
“I am glad of it,” said Adrian, not looking glad. “I was disposed to think Aurélie in fault on that point; but I see plainly enough now how the coolness was brought about. I should not have blamed Aurélie at all if she had repaid my mother’s insolence — I do not think that at all too strong a word — in kind. Poor Aurélie! I have been all this time secretly thinking hardly of her for having, I thought, rebuffed my mother. Unjust and stupid that I am not to have known better from my lifelong experience of the one, and my daily observation of the other! Aurélie has conciliated her tonight solely because I begged her to do so as we came upstairs. You cannot deny that my wife can be perfectly kind and selfsacrificing whenever there is occasion for it.”
“I cannot deny it! Adrian: you speak as though I were in the habit of disparaging her. You are quite wrong. No one can admire her more than I. My only fear is that she is too sweet, and may spoil you. How could I resist her? Even your mother, prejudiced as she certainly was against her, has yielded. You can see by her face that she has given up the battle. I think we had better join them. We have a very rude habit of getting into a corner by ourselves. I am sure, in spite of all you say, that Mrs Herbert is too fond of you to like it.”
“Mrs Herbert is a strange being,” said Adrian, rising. “I no longer pretend to understand her likes and dislikes.”
Mary made a mental note that Aurélie had probably had more to say on the subject of what she saw in the studio than Adrian had expected. The general conversation which ensued did not run on personal matters. Aurélie was allowed to lead it, as it was tacitly understood that the interest of the occasion in some manner centred in her. Mrs Herbert laughingly asked her for the secret of managing Adrian; but she adroitly passed on to some other question, and would not discuss him or in any way treat him more familiarly than she did Hoskyn or Charlie.
Later on, Hoskyn proposed that they should go downstairs to a room which communicated with the garden by a large window and a small grassy terrace. As the night was sultry, they readily agreed, and were soon seated below at a light supper, after which Hoskyn strolled out into the garden with Adrian to smoke another cigar and to shew a recently purchased hose and lawn mower, it being his habit to require his visitors to interest themselves in his latest acquisitions, whether of children, furniture or gardening implements. Mrs Herbert, who, despite the glory of the moon, could not overcome her belief that fresh air, to be safely sat in, should tempered by a roof, did not venture beyond the carpet; and and Mary felt bound to remain in the room with her. Aurélie walked out to the edge of the terrace, clasped her hands behind her, and became rapt in contemplation of the cloudless sky, which was like a vast moonlit plain. Her attention was recalled by the voice of Charlie beside her.
“Awfully jolly night, isn’t it, Mrs Herbert?”
“Yes, it is very fine.”
“I suppose you find no end of poetry in all those stars.”
“Poetry! I am not at all poetic, Monsieur Charles.”
“I don’t altogether believe that, you know. You look poetic.”
“It is therefore that people mistake me. They are very arbitrary. They say ‘Madamoiselle Sczympliça has such and such a face and figure. In our minds such a face and figure associate with poetry. Therefore must she be poetic. We will have it so; and if she disappoints us, we will be very angry with her.’ And I do disappoint them. When they talk poetically of music and things I am impatient myself to be at home with mamman, who never talks of such things, and the bambino, who never talks at all. What, think you, do I find in those stars? I am looking for Aurélie and Thekla in what you call Charles’s wain. Aha! I did not think of that before. You are Monsieur Charles, to whom belongs the wain.”
“Yes, I have put my hand to the plough and turned back often enough. What may Aurélie and Thekla be?”
“Aurélie is myself; and Thekla is my doll. In my infancy I named a star after every one whom I liked. Only very particular persons were given a place in Charles’s wain. It was the great chariot of honor; and in the end I found no one worthy of it but my doll and myself. Behold how I am poetic! I was a silly child; for I forgot to give my mother a star — I forgot all my family. When my mother found that out one day, she said I had no heart. And, indeed, I fear I have none.”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Look you, Monsieur Charles,” she said, with a sudden air of shrewdness, unclasping her hands to shake her finger at him: “I am not what you think me to be. I am the very other things of it. I have the soul commercial within me.”
“I am glad of that,” he said eagerly; “for I want to make a business proposal to you. Will you give me lessons?”
‘Give you lesson! Lesson of what?”
“Lessons in playing. I want awfully to become a good pianist, and I have never had any really good teaching since I was a boy.”
“Vraiment? Ah! You think that as you persevered so well in the different professions, you will find it easy to become a player. Is it not so?”
“Not at all. I know that playing requires years of perseverance. But I think I can persevere if you will teach me.”
“Monsieur