There was a small and, as he felt, harmless spark of irony in his question; which, however, she answered very simply, not noticing the insinuation. "Yes, he says England hasn't been touched - not considering all there is," she went on eagerly. "He's so interesting about our country. To listen to him makes one want so to do something.""It would make ME want to," said Paul Overt, feeling strongly, on the instant, the suggestion of what she said and that of the emotion with which she said it, and well aware of what an incentive, on St. George's lips, such a speech might be.
"Oh you - as if you hadn't! I should like so to hear you talk together," she added ardently.
"That's very genial of you; but he'd have it all his own way. I'm prostrate before him."She had an air of earnestness. "Do you think then he's so perfect?""Far from it. Some of his later books seem to me of a queerness -!"
"Yes, yes - he knows that."
Paul Overt stared. "That they seem to me of a queerness - !""Well yes, or at any rate that they're not what they should be. He told me he didn't esteem them. He has told me such wonderful things - he's so interesting."There was a certain shock for Paul Overt in the knowledge that the fine genius they were talking of had been reduced to so explicit a confession and had made it, in his misery, to the first comer; for though Miss Fancourt was charming what was she after all but an immature girl encountered at a country-house? Yet precisely this was part of the sentiment he himself had just expressed: he would make way completely for the poor peccable great man not because he didn't read him clear, but altogether because he did. His consideration was half composed of tenderness for superficialities which he was sure their perpetrator judged privately, judged more ferociously than any one, and which represented some tragic intellectual secret. He would have his reasons for his psychology e fleur de peau, and these reasons could only be cruel ones, such as would make him dearer to those who already were fond of him.
"You excite my envy. I have my reserves, I discriminate - but Ilove him," Paul said in a moment. "And seeing him for the first time this way is a great event for me.""How momentous - how magnificent!" cried the girl. "How delicious to bring you together!""Your doing it - that makes it perfect," our friend returned.
"He's as eager as you," she went on. "But it's so odd you shouldn't have met.""It's not really so odd as it strikes you. I've been out of England so much - made repeated absences all these last years."She took this in with interest. "And yet you write of it as well as if you were always here.""It's just the being away perhaps. At any rate the best bits, Isuspect, are those that were done in dreary places abroad.""And why were they dreary?"
"Because they were health-resorts - where my poor mother was dying.""Your poor mother?" - she was all sweet wonder.
"We went from place to place to help her to get better. But she never did. To the deadly Riviera (I hate it!) to the high Alps, to Algiers, and far away - a hideous journey - to Colorado.""And she isn't better?" Miss Fancourt went on.
"She died a year ago."
"Really? - like mine! Only that's years since. Some day you must tell me about your mother," she added.
He could at first, on this, only gaze at her. "What right things you say! If you say them to St. George I don't wonder he's in bondage."It pulled her up for a moment. "I don't know what you mean. He doesn't make speeches and professions at all - he isn't ridiculous.""I'm afraid you consider then that I am."
"No, I don't" - she spoke it rather shortly. And then she added:
"He understands - understands everything."
The young man was on the point of saying jocosely: "And I don't -is that it?" But these words, in time, changed themselves to others slightly less trivial: "Do you suppose he understands his wife?"Miss Fancourt made no direct answer, but after a moment's hesitation put it: "Isn't she charming?""Not in the least!"
"Here he comes. Now you must know him," she went on. A small group of visitors had gathered at the other end of the gallery and had been there overtaken by Henry St. George, who strolled in from a neighbouring room. He stood near them a moment, not falling into the talk but taking up an old miniature from a table and vaguely regarding it. At the end of a minute he became aware of Miss Fancourt and her companion in the distance; whereupon, laying down his miniature, he approached them with the same procrastinating air, his hands in his pockets and his eyes turned, right and left, to the pictures. The gallery was so long that this transit took some little time, especially as there was a moment when he stopped to admire the fine Gainsborough. "He says Mrs. St. George has been the making of him," the girl continued in a voice slightly lowered.
"Ah he's often obscure!" Paul laughed.
"Obscure?" she repeated as if she heard it for the first time. Her eyes rested on her other friend, and it wasn't lost upon Paul that they appeared to send out great shafts of softness. "He's going to speak to us!" she fondly breathed. There was a sort of rapture in her voice, and our friend was startled. "Bless my soul, does she care for him like THAT? - is she in love with him?" he mentally enquired. "Didn't I tell you he was eager?" she had meanwhile asked of him.
