Louisa Pallant | Page 2

I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the
girl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda
grown up to charming beauty?
The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is
perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a
while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I
was anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a
great resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there
toward the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as
that Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that
she "cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and
would be likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there.
This supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I

knew there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated.
You will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar
I thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should
have rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and
we had never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance
that--after the first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put
us quite right with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less
ashamed of her heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no
great catch. I had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape
not to have married a girl who had in her to take back her given word
and break a fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise,
as it pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since
then--on the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each
other in the eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the
wickedness of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the
only pure. I knew by that time what she had given out--that I had
driven her off by my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry
Pallant, before she had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and
couldn't be to-day a ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it
that she knew perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to
friendship, I believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for
he knows it mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the
case if--let the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs.
Pallant's fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country,
whereas she led her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after
her husband's death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I
heard of her from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but
on each occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to
country, and if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it
could never occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be
called, would have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman
spoken of as "horribly worldly" I thought immediately of the object of
my early passion. I imagined she had debts, and when I now at last
made up my mind to recall myself to her it was present to me that she
might ask me to lend her money. More than anything else, however, at
this time of day, I was sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate
as a deterrent.

She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as we
stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had
dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she
had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting
down with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a
little, the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before
her. She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't
imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and
extending her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what
a delight!" If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose
her own line she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace.
She was cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she
was very glad to see me. I may as well