Quisanté | Page 7

final in regard to Quisanté.
Perhaps Dick Benyon would maintain the proud level of his remark
about the genealogy, and remind her that somebody settled Napoleon's
claims by the same verdict. But one did not meet Napoleon at little
dinners, nor think of him with no countervailing achievements to his
name.
Her mind was so full of the man that when she joined her mother at a
party later in the evening, she had an absurd anticipation that
everybody would talk to her about him. Nobody did; that evening an
Arctic explorer and a new fortune-teller divided the attention of the
polite; men came and discussed one or other of these subjects with her
until she was weary. For once then, on Marchmont making an
appearance near her, her legs did not carry her in the opposite direction;
she awaited and even invited his approach; at least he would spare her
the fashionable gossip, and she thought he might tell her something
about Quisanté. In two words he told her, if not anything about

Quisanté, still everything that he himself thought of Quisanté.
"I met Mr. Quisanté at dinner," she said.
"That fellow!" exclaimed Marchmont.
The tone was full of weariness and contempt; it qualified the man as
unspeakable and dismissed him as intolerable. Was Marchmont
infallible, as Fanny had said? At least he represented, in its finest and
most authoritative form, the opinion of her own circle, the unhesitating
judgment against which she must set herself if she became Quisanté's
champion. It would be much easier, and probably much more sensible,
to fall into line and acquiesce in the condemnation; then it would matter
nothing whether the vulgar did or did not elect to admire Dick Benyon's
peculiar friend. Yet a protest stirred within her; only her sense of the
ludicrous prevented her from adopting Dick's word and asking
Marchmont if he had ever seen the fellow in one of his "moments." But
it would be absurd to catch up the phrase like that, and it was by no
means certain that even the moments would appeal to Marchmont.
Looking round, she perceived that a little space in the crowded room
had been left vacant about them; nobody came up to her, no woman, in
passing by, signalled to Marchmont; the constant give-and-take of
companions was suspended in their favour. In fine, people supposed
that they wanted to talk to one another; it would not be guessed that one
of the pair wished Quisanté to be the topic.
"He's got some brains," Marchmont went on, "though of rather a flashy
sort, I think. Dick Benyon's been caught by them. But a more
impossible person I never met. You don't like him?"
"Yes, I do," she answered defiantly. "At least I do every now and then."
"Pray make the occasions as rare as possible," he urged in his low lazy
voice, with his pleasant smile and a confidential look in his handsome
eyes. "And don't let them coincide with my presence."
"Really he won't hurt you; you're too particular."

"No, he won't hurt me, but I should feel rather as though he were
hurting you."
"What do you mean?"
"By being near you, certainly by being anything in the least like a
friend of yours."
"He'd defile me?" she asked, laughing.
"Yes," said he seriously; the next moment he smiled and shrugged his
shoulders; he did not withdraw his seriousness but he apologised for it.
"Oh, I'd better get under a glass-case at once," she exclaimed, laughing
again impatiently.
"Yes, and lock it, and----"
"Give you the key?"
He laughed as he said, "The most artistic emotions have some
selfishness in them, I admit it."
"It would make a little variety if I sent a duplicate to Mr. Quisanté!"
Here he would not follow her in her banter. He grew grave and even
frowned, but all he said was, "Really there are limits, you know." It was
her own verdict, expressed more tersely, more completely, and more
finally. There were limits, and Alexander Quisanté was beyond them;
the barrier they raised could not be surmounted; he could not fly over it
even on the wings of his moments.
"You above everybody oughtn't to know such people," Marchmont
went on.
Now he was thinking of the type she was supposed to represent; that
was the fashion in which it was appropriate to talk to the type.
"I'm not in the very least like that really," she assured him. "If you

knew me better you'd find that out very soon."
"I'm willing to risk it."
Flirtation for flirtation--and this conversation was becoming one--there
could be no comparison between Marchmont's and Quisanté's; the one
was delightful, the other odious; the one combined charm with dignity;
the other was a mixture of cringing and presumption. May put