Embarrassments | Page 3

from them
again on the reappearance of Hugh Vereker, who after our walk had

been upstairs to change something. "I know you don't in general look at
this kind of thing, but it's an occasion really for doing so. You haven't
seen it? Then you must. The man has actually got at you, at what I
always feel, you know." Lady Jane threw into her eyes a look evidently
intended to give an idea of what she always felt; but she added that she
couldn't have expressed it. The man in the paper expressed it in a
striking manner. "Just see there, and there, where I've dashed it, how
he brings it out." She had literally marked for him the brightest patches
of my prose, and if I was a little amused Vereker himself may well have
been. He showed how much he was when before us all Lady Jane
wanted to read something aloud. I liked at any rate the way he defeated
her purpose by jerking the paper affectionately out of her clutch. He
would take it upstairs with him, would look at it on going to dress. He
did this half an hour later--I saw it in his hand when he repaired to his
room. That was the moment at which, thinking to give her pleasure, I
mentioned to Lady Jane that I was the author of the review. I did give
her pleasure, I judged, but perhaps not quite so much as I had expected.
If the author was "only me" the thing didn't seem quite so remarkable.
Hadn't I had the effect rather of diminishing the lustre of the article
than of adding to my own? Her ladyship was subject to the most
extraordinary drops. It didn't matter; the only effect I cared about was
the one it would have on Vereker up there by his bedroom fire.
At dinner I watched for the signs of this impression, tried to fancy there
was some happier light in his eyes; but to my disappointment Lady
Jane gave me no chance to make sure. I had hoped she would call
triumphantly down the table, publicly demand if she hadn't been right.
The party was large--there were people from outside as well, but I had
never seen a table long enough to deprive Lady Jane of a triumph. I
was just reflecting in truth that this interminable board would deprive
me of one, when the guest next me, dear woman--she was Miss Poyle,
the vicar's sister, a robust, unmodulated person--had the happy
inspiration and the unusual courage to address herself across it to
Vereker, who was opposite, but not directly, so that when he replied
they were both leaning forward. She inquired, artless body, what he
thought of Lady Jane's "panegyric," which she had read--not
connecting it however with her right-hand neighbour; and while I

strained my ear for his reply I heard him, to my stupefaction, call back
gaily, with his mouth full of bread: "Oh, it's all right--it's the usual
twaddle!"
I had caught Vereker's glance as he spoke, but Miss Poyle's surprise
was a fortunate cover for my own. "You mean he doesn't do you
justice?" said the excellent woman.
Vereker laughed out, and I was happy to be able to do the same. "It's a
charming article," he tossed us.
Miss Poyle thrust her chin half across the cloth.
"Oh you're so deep!" she drove home.
"As deep as the ocean! All I pretend is, the author doesn't see--"
A dish was at this point passed over his shoulder, and we had to wait
while he helped himself.
"Doesn't see what?" my neighbour continued.
"Doesn't see anything."
"Dear me--how very stupid!"
"Not a bit," Vereker laughed again. "Nobody does."
The lady on his further side appealed to him, and Miss Poyle sank back
to me. "Nobody sees anything!" she cheerfully announced; to which I
replied that I had often thought so too, but had somehow taken the
thought for a proof on my own part of a tremendous eye. I didn't tell
her the article was mine; and I observed that Lady Jane, occupied at
the end of the table, had not caught Vereker's words.
I rather avoided him after dinner, for I confess he struck me as cruelly
conceited, and the revelation was a pain. "The usual twaddle"--my
acute little study! That one's admiration should have had a reserve or
two could gall him to that point? I had thought him placid, and he was

placid enough; such a surface was the hard, polished glass that
encased the bauble of his vanity. I was really ruffled, the only comfort
was that if nobody saw anything George Corvick was quite as much out
of it as I. This comfort however was not sufficient, after the ladies had