Quisanté | Page 3

nodded again quite gravely, and
turned back to the window. There were two reasonable views of the
matter; either the lady was not what Quisanté declared her, or if she
were she would have nothing to do with Quisanté. But Aunt Maria

reserved her opinion; she was prepared to find neither of these
alternatives correct.
For there was something remarkable about Sandro; the knowledge that
had been hers so long promised fair to become the world's discovery.
Society was travelling towards Aunt Maria's opinion, moved thereto
not so much by a signally successful election fight, nor even by a knack
of distracting attention from others and fixing it on himself, as by the
monstrous hold the young man had obtained and contrived to keep over
Dick Benyon. Dick was not a fool; here ended his likeness to Quisanté;
here surely ought to end his sympathy with that aspiring person? But
there was much more between them; society could see that for itself,
while doubters found no difficulty in overhearing Lady Richard's open
lamentations. "If Dick had known him at school or at Cambridge----"
"If he was somebody very distinguished----" "If he was even a
gentleman----" Eloquent beginnings of unfinished sentences flowed
with expressive freedom from Amy Benyon's pretty lips. "I don't want
to think my husband mad," she observed pathetically to Weston
Marchmont, himself one of the brightest hopes of that party which Dick
Benyon was understood to consider in need of a future leader. Was that
leader to be Quisanté? Manners, not genius, Amy declared to be the
first essential. "And I don't believe he's got genius," she added
hopefully; that he had no manners did not need demonstration to
Marchmont, whose own were so exquisite as to form a ready-make
standard.
And it was not only Dick. Jimmy was as bad. Nobody valued Jimmy's
intellect, but every one had been prepared to repose securely on the
bedrock of his prejudices. He was as infatuated as his brother; Quisanté
had swept away the prejudices. The brethren were united in an effort to
foist their man into every circle and every position where he seemed to
be least wanted; to this end they devoted time, their social reputation,
enthusiasm, and, as old Maria knew, hard money. They were
triple-armed in confidence. Jimmy met remonstrances with a quiet
shrug; Dick had one answer, always the same, given in the same way--a
confident assertion, limited and followed, an instant later, by one
obvious condition, seemingly not necessary to express. "You'll see, if

he lives," he replied invariably when people asked him what there was
after all in Mr. Quisanté. Their friends could only wonder, asking
plaintively what the Duke thought of his brothers' proceedings. The
Duke, however, made no sign; making no sign ranked as a
characteristic of the Duke's.
When Lady Richard discussed this situation with her friends the Gaston
girls, she gained hearty sympathy from Fanny, but from May no more
than a mocking half-sincere curiosity.
"Is it possible for a man to like both me and Mr. Quisanté?" Lady
Richard asked. "And after all Dick does like me very much."
"Likes both his wife and Mr. Quisanté! What a man for paradoxes!"
May murmured.
"Jimmy's worse if anything," the aggrieved wife went on. This remark
was levelled straight at Fanny; Jimmy being understood to like Fanny,
a parallel problem presented itself. Fanny recognized it but, not
choosing to acknowledge Jimmy's devotion, met it by referring to
Marchmont's openly professed inability to tolerate Quisanté.
"I always go by Mr. Marchmont's judgment in a thing like that," she
said. "He's infallible."
"There's no need of infallibility, my dear," observed Lady Richard
irritably. "Ordinary common sense is quite enough." She turned
suddenly on May. "You talked to him for nearly an hour the other
night," she said.
"Yes--how you could!" sighed Fanny.
"I couldn't help it. He talked to me."
"About those great schemes that he's filled poor dear Dick's head with?
Not that I doubt he's got plenty of schemes--of a sort you know."
"He didn't talk schemes," said Lady May. "He was worse than that."

"What did he do?" asked her sister.
"Flirted."
A sort of gasp broke from Lady Richard's lips; she gazed helplessly at
her friends. Fanny began to laugh. May preserved a meditative
seriousness; she seemed to be reviewing Quisanté's efforts in a judicial
spirit.
"Well?" said Lady Richard after the proper pause.
"Oh well, he was atrocious, of course," May admitted; her tone,
however, expressed a reluctant homage to truth rather than any
resentment. "He doesn't know how to do it in the least."
"He doesn't know how to do anything," Lady Richard declared.
"Most men are either elephantine or serpentine," said Fanny. "Which
was he, dear?"
"I don't think either."
"Porcine?" asked Lady Richard.
"No. I haven't got