Love at Second Sight | Page 3

until a house or a hotel should
be found; and Bruce, who detested guests in the house, seconded the
invitation with warmth and enthusiasm. As Bruce was a subconscious
snob, he may have been slightly influenced by the letter from Lady
Conroy, who was the wife of an unprominent Cabinet Minister and, in
a casual way, rather grande dame, if not exactly smart. But this
consideration could not weigh with Edith, and its effect on Bruce must
have long passed away. Madame Frabelle accepted the invitation as a
matter of course, made use of it as a matter of convenience, and had
remained ever since, showing no sign of leaving. Edith was deeply
interested in her.
* * * * *
And Bruce was more genuinely impressed and unconsciously bored by
Madame Frabelle than by any woman he had ever met. Yet she was not

at all extraordinary. She was a tall woman of about fifty, well bred
without being distinguished, who could never have been handsome but
was graceful, dignified, and pleasing. She was neither dark nor fair. She
had a broad, good-natured face, and a pale, clear complexion. She was
inclined to be fat; not locally, in the manner of a pincushion, but with
the generally diffused plumpness described in shops as stock size. She
was not the sort of modern woman of fifty, with a thin figure and a
good deal of rouge, who looks young from the back when dancing or
walking, and talks volubly and confidentially of her young men. She
had, of course, nothing of the middle-aged woman of the past, who at
her age would have been definitely on the shelf, doing wool-work or
collecting recipes there. Nor did she resemble the strong-minded type
in perpetual tailor-made clothes, with short grey hair and eye-glasses,
who belongs to clubs and talks chiefly of the franchise. Madame
Frabelle was soft, womanly, amiable, yet extremely outspoken, very
firm, and inclined to lay down the law. She was certainly charming, as
Bruce and Edith agreed every day (even now, when they were
beginning to wonder when she was going away!). She had an
extraordinary amount of personal magnetism, since she convinced both
the Ottleys, as she had convinced Lady Conroy, that she was
wonderfully clever: in fact, that she knew everything.
A fortnight had passed, and Edith was beginning to grow doubtful. Was
she so clever? Did she know everything? Did she know anything at all?
Long arguments, that grew quite heated and excited at luncheon or
dinner, about the origin of a word, the author of a book, and various
debatable questions of the kind, invariably ended, after reference to a
dictionary or an encyclopaedia, in Madame Frabelle proving herself,
with an air of triumph, to be completely and entirely wrong. She was as
generally positive as she was fatally mistaken. Yet so intense a belief
had she in her intuition as well as in her own inaccurate information
that her hypnotised hosts were growing daily more and more under her
thumb. She took it for granted that everyone would take her for
granted--and everyone did.
Was all this agreeable or otherwise? Edith thought it must be, or how
could they bear it at all? If it had not been extremely pleasant it would

have been simply impossible.
The fair, gentle, pretty Edith, who was more subtle than she appeared
on the surface, while apparently indolent, had a very active brain.
Madame Frabelle caused her to use it more than she had ever done
before. Edith was intensely curious and until she understood her visitor
she could not rest satisfied. She made her a psychological study.
For example, here was a curious little point. Madame Frabelle did not
look young for her age, nor did she seem in the least inclined to wish to
be admired, nor ever to have been a flirt. The word 'fast', for example,
would have been quite grotesque as associated with her, though she
was by no means prudish as to subjects of conversation, nor prim in the
middle-class way. Yet somehow it would not have seemed incongruous
or surprising if one had found out that there was even now some
romance in her life. But, doubtless, the most striking thing about
her--and what made her popular--was her intense interest in other
people. It went so far as to reach the very verge of being interference;
but she was so pleasant that one could scarcely resent it either as
curiosity or intrusion. Since she had stayed with the Ottleys, she
appeared to think of no-one and nothing else in the world. One would
think that no-one else existed for her. And, after all, such extreme
interest is flattering. Bruce, Archie, Edith, even Dilly's nurse, all had, in
her, an audience: interested, absorbed, enchanted.