Red Pottage | Page 8

brief sojourn in that city of frivolity she had the acumen to discover that London society was hopelessly worldly and mercenary; that people only met to eat and to abuse each other; that the law of cutlet for cutlet was universal; that young men, especially those in the Guards, were garrisoned by a full complement of devils; that London girls lived only for dress and the excitement of husband-hunting. In short, to use her own expression, she "turned London society inside out."
London bore the process with equanimity, and presently Sybell determined to raise the art of dinner-giving from the low estate to which she avowed it had fallen to a higher level. She was young, she was pretty, she was well-born, she was rich. All the social doors were open to her. But one discovery is often only the prelude to another. She soon made the further one that in order to raise the tone of social gatherings it is absolutely necessary to infuse into them a leaven of "clever people." Further light on this interesting subject showed her that most of the really "clever people" did not belong to her set. The discovery which all who love adulation quickly make--namely, that the truly appreciative and sympathetic and gifted are for the greater part to be found in a class below their own--was duly made and registered by Sybell. She avowed that class differences were nothing to her with the enthusiasm of all those who since the world began have preferred to be first in the society which they gather round them.
Fortunately for Sybell she was not troubled by doubts respecting the clearness of her own judgment. Eccentricity was in her eyes originality; a wholesale contradiction of established facts was a new view. She had not the horrid perception of difference between the real and the imitation which spoils the lives of many. She was equally delighted with both, and remained in blissful ignorance of the fact that her "deep" conversation was felt to be exhaustingly superficial if by chance she came across the real artist or thinker instead of his counterfeit.
Consequently to her house came the raté in all his most virulent developments; the "new woman" with stupendous lopsided opinions on difficult Old Testament subjects; the "lady authoress" with a mission to show up the vices of a society which she knew only by hearsay. Hither came, unwittingly, simple-minded Church dignitaries, who, Sybell hoped, might influence for his good the young agnostic poet who had written a sonnet on her muff-chain, a very daring sonnet, which Doll, who did not care for poetry, had not been shown. Hither, by mistake, thinking it was an ordinary dinner-party, came Hugh, whom Sybell said she had discovered, and who was not aware that he was in need of discovery. And hither also on this particular evening came Rachel West, whom Sybell had pronounced to be very intelligent a few days before, and who was serenely unconscious that she was present on her probation, and that if she did not say something striking she would never be asked again.
Doll Loftus, Sybell's husband, was standing by Rachel when Hugh came in. He felt drawn towards her because she was not "clever," as far as her appearance went. At any rate, she had not the touzled, ill-groomed hair which he had learned to associate with female genius.
"This sort of thing is beyond me," he said, mournfully, to Rachel, his eyes travelling over the assembly gathered round his wife, whose remarks were calling forth admiring laughter. "I don't understand half they say, and when I do I sometimes wish I didn't. But I suppose--" tentatively--"You go in for all this sort of thing?"
"I?" said Rachel, astonished. "I don't go in for anything. But what sort of thing do you mean?"
"There is Scarlett," said Doll, with relief, who hated definitions, and felt the conversation was on the slippery verge of becoming deep. "Do you know him? Looks as if he'd seen a ghost, doesn't he?"
Rachel's interest, never a heavy sleeper, was instantly awakened as she saw Sybell piloting Hugh towards her. She recognized him--the man she had seen last night in the hansom and afterwards at the Newhavens. A glance showed her that his trouble, whatever it might be, had pierced beyond the surface feelings of anger and impatience and had reached the quick of his heart. The young man, pallid and heavy-eyed, bore himself well, and Rachel respected him for his quiet demeanor and a certain dignity, which, for the moment, obliterated the slight indecision of his face, and gave his mouth the firmness which it lacked. It seemed to Rachel as if he had but now stood by a death-bed, and had brought with him into the crowded room the shadow of an inexorable fate.
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