“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. This is why I wish I were wholly an orphan, and why I ask you, who are more to me than all the world besides, to judge me by what you see of me, and not by the reports you may hear of my behavior towards my own people.”
“Oh, it is frightful. My God! To hate your mother! If you do not love her, how will you love your wife?”
“With all the love my mother rejected, added to what you have yourself inspired. But I am glad you are surprised. You must be very fond of your own mother.”
“That is so different,”said Aurélie with a shrug, “Mother and son is a sacred relation. Mothers and daughters are fond of each other in an ordinary way as a matter of course. You must ask her pardon. Suppose she should curse you.”
“Parental curses are out of fashion in England,” said Adrian, amused, and yet a little vexed. “You will understand us better after a little while. Let us drop the subject of my old grievances. Are you fond of pictures, Aurélie?”
“You are for ever asking me that. Yes, I am very fond of some pictures. I have seen very few.”
But you have been in Dresden, in Munich, in Paris?”
“Yes. But I was playing everywhere — I had not a moment to myself. I intended to go to the gallery in Dresden; but I had to put it off. Are there any good pictures at Munich?”
“Have you not seen them?”
“No. I did not know of them. When I was in Paris, I went one day to the Louvre; but I could only stay half an hour; and I did not see much. I used to be able to draw very well. Is it hard to paint?”
“It is the most difficult art in the world, Aurélie.”
“You are laughing at me. Why, there are not a dozen players — real players — in Europe; and every city is full of painters.”
“Real painters, Aurélie?”
“Ah! perhaps not. I suppose there are secondrate painters, just like secondrate players. Is it not so, Me — Meestare Adrian?”
“You must not call me that, Aurélie. People who like each other never say ‘Mister.’ You say you used to draw?”
“Yes. Soldiers, and horses, and people whom we knew. Shall I draw you?”
By all means. How shall I sit? Profile?”
“You need not sit for me. I am not going to copy you: I am only going to make a little likeness. I can draw dark men as well as fair. You shall see.”
She took a piece of music, and set to work with a pencil on the margin. In a minute she shewed him two scratchy sketches, vilely drawn, but amusingly like Herbert and Jack.
“I can just recognize myself, “ he said, examining them them; “but that one of Jack is capital. Ha! ha!” Then he added sadly, “Professed painter as I am, I could not do that. Portraiture is my weak point. But I would not have left Dresden without seeing the Madonna di San Sisto.”
“Bah! Looking at pictures cannot make me draw well, no more than listening to others could make me play. But indeed I would have gone to the gallery had I foreseen that I should meet you. My God! Do not kiss me so suddenly. It is droll to think how punctilious and funereal you were the other day; and now you have less manners than a Cossack. Are you easily offended, Monsieur Adrian?”
“I hope not,” he replied. taken aback by a change in manner as she asked the question.”If you mean easily offended by you, certainly not. Easily hurt or easily pleased, yes. but not offended, my darling.”
“Mäi — mä—” what is that you said in English?
“Nothing. You can look it up in the dictionary when I am gone. But what am I to be offended at?”
“Only this. I want you to go away.”
“So soon!”
“Yes. I have not said anything to my mother yet. She will question me the moment she sees me in this dress. You must not be here then. Tomorrow you will call on her at four o’clock; and all will be well. Now go. I expect her every moment.”
“May I see you before tomorrow afternoon?”
“Why should you? I go tonight to play at the house of a great dame, Lady Gerald line Porter, who is the daughter of a nobleman and the wife of a baronet. My mother loves to be among such people. She will tell you all about our ancestry tomorrow.”
“Aurélie: I shall meet you there. Lady Geraldine is mother’s cousin and close friend, on which account I have not sought much after her. But she told me once that she would waste no more invitations on me — I never accepted them — but that I was welcome to come when I pleased. I shall please tonight, Aurélie. Hurrah!”
Heaven! you are all fire and flame in a moment. You will remember that at Lady Geraldine’s we are to be as we were before today. You will behave yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Now go, I beg of you. If you delay, you will — what is the matter now?”
“It has just come into my mind that my mother may be at Lady Geraldine’s. If so, would you mind — In short, do not let Madame