Eleanor | Page 4

with the rose,--one long strip of sharpest, purest green.
Mrs. Burgoyne turned at last from the great spectacle to her companion.
'One has really no adjectives left,' she said. 'But I had used mine up
within a week.'
'It still gives you so much pleasure?' he said, looking at her a little
askance.

Her face changed at once.
'And you?--you are beginning to be tired of it?'
'One gets a sort of indigestion.--Oh! I shall be all right to-morrow.'
Both were silent for a moment. Then he resumed.--
'I met General Fenton in the Borgia rooms this morning.'
She turned, with a quick look of curiosity.
'Well?'
'I hadn't seen him since I met him at Simla three years ago. I always
found him particularly agreeable then. We used to ride together and
talk together,--and he put me in the way of seeing a good many things.
This morning he received me with a change of manner--can't exactly
describe it; but it was not flattering! So I presently left him to his own
devices and went on into another room. Then he followed me, and
seemed to wish to talk. Perhaps he perceived that he had been
unfriendly, and thought he would make amends. But I was rather short
with him. We had been real friends; we hadn't met for three years; and I
thought he might have behaved differently. He asked me a number of
questions, however, about last year, about my resignation, and so forth;
and I answered as little as I could. So presently he looked at me and
laughed--"You remind me," he said, "of what somebody said of
Peel--that he was bad to go up to in the stable!--But what on earth are
you in the stable for?--and not in the running?"'
Mrs. Burgoyne smiled.
'He was evidently bored with the pictures!' she said, dryly.
Manisty gave a shrug. 'Oh! I let him off. I wouldn't be drawn. I told
him I had expressed myself so much in public there was nothing more
to say. "H'm," he said, "they tell me at the Embassy you're writing a
book!" You should have seen the little old fellow's wizened face--and

the scorn of it! So I inquired whether there was any objection to the
writing of books. "Yes!"--he said--"when a man can do a d----d sight
better for himself--as you could! Everyone tells me that last year you
had the ball at your feet." "Well,"--I said--"and I kicked it--and am still
kicking it--in my own way. It mayn't be yours--or anybody else's--but
wait and see." He shook his head. "A man with what were your
prospects can't afford escapades. It's all very well for a Frenchman; it
don't pay in England." So then I maintained that half the political
reputations of the present day were based on escapades. "Whom do you
mean?"--he said--"Randolph Churchill?--But Randolph's escapades
were always just what the man in the street understood. As for your
escapade, the man in the street can't make head or tail of it. That's just
the, difference."'
Mrs. Burgoyne laughed--but rather impatiently.
'I should like to know when General Fenton ever considered the man in
the street!'
'Not at Simla certainly. There you may despise him.--But the old man is
right enough as to the part he plays in England.--I gathered that all my
old Indian friends thought I had done for myself. There was no
sympathy for me anywhere. Oh!--as to the cause I upheld--yes. But
none as to the mode of doing it.'
'Well--there is plenty of sympathy elsewhere! What does it matter what
dried-up officials like General Fenton choose to think about it?'
'Nothing--so long as there are no doubts inside to open the gates to the
General Fentons outside!'
He looked at her oddly--half smiling, half frowning.
'The doubts are traitors. Send them to execution!' He shook his head.
'Do you remember that sentence we came across yesterday in
Chateaubriand's letters "As to my career--I have gone from shipwreck
to shipwreck." What if I am merely bound on the same charming

voyage?'
'I accept the comparison,' she said with vivacity. 'End as he did in
re-creating a church, and regenerating a literature--and see who will
count the shipwrecks!'
Her hand's disdainful gesture completed the sally.
Manisty's face dismissed its shadow.
As she stood beside him, in the rosy light--so proudly
confident--Eleanor Burgoyne was very delightful to see and hear.
Manisty, one of the subtlest and most fastidious of observers, was
abundantly conscious of it. Yet she was not beautiful, except in the
judgment of a few exceptional people, to whom a certain kind of
grace--very rare, and very complex in origin--is of more importance
than other things. The eyes were, indeed, beautiful; so was the forehead,
and the hair of a soft ashy brown folded and piled round