The Autobiography of a Slander | Page 4

people. Still, one
must draw the line somewhere, and I confess it gave me a very painful
shock to find that he had such violent antipathies to law and order.
When he took Ivy Cottage for the summer I made the General call at
once, and before long we had become very intimate with him; but, my
dear, he's not what I thought him--not at all!"
"Well now, I am delighted to hear you say that," said Lena Houghton,
with some excitement in her manner, "for it exactly fits in with what I
always felt about him. From the first I disliked that man, and the way
he goes on with Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If they are not
engaged they ought to be--that's all I can say."
"Engaged, my dear! I trust not," said Mrs. O'Reilly. "I had always
hoped for something very different for dear Gertrude. Quite between
ourselves, you know, my nephew John Carew is over head and ears in
love with her, and they would make a very good pair; don't you think
so?"
"Well, you see, I like Gertrude to a certain extent," replied Lena
Houghton. "But I never raved about her as so many people do. Still, I

hope she will not be entrapped into marrying Mr. Zaluski; she deserves
a better fate than that."
"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. O'Reilly, with a troubled look. "And
the worst of it is, poor Gertrude is a girl who might very likely take up
foolish revolutionary notions; she needs a strong wise husband to keep
her in order and form her opinions. But is it really true that he flirts
with her? This is the first I have heard of it. I can't think how it has
escaped my notice."
"Nor I, for indeed he is up at the Morleys' pretty nearly every day.
What with tennis, and music, and riding, there is always some excuse
for it. I can't think what Gertrude sees in him, he is not even
good-looking."
"There is a certain surface good-nature about him," said Mrs. O'Reilly.
"It deceived even me at first. But, my dear Lena, mark my words: that
man has a fearful temper; and I pray Heaven that poor Gertrude may
have her eyes opened in time. Besides, to think of that little gentle,
delicate thing marrying a Nihilist! It is too dreadful; really, quite too
dreadful! John would never get over it!"
"The thing I can't understand is why all the world has taken him up so,"
said Lena Houghton. "One meets him everywhere, yet nobody seems to
know anything about him. Just because he has taken Ivy Cottage for
four months, and because he seems to be rich and good- natured, every
one is ready to run after him."
"Well, well," said Mrs. O'Reilly, "we all like to be neighbourly, my
dear, and a week ago I should have been ready to say nothing but good
of him. But now my eyes have been opened. I'll tell you just how it was.
We were sitting here, just as you and I are now, at afternoon tea; the
talk had flagged a little, and for the sake of something to say I made
some remark about Bulgaria--not that I really knew anything about it,
you know, for I'm no politician; still, I knew it was a subject that would
make talk just now. My dear, I assure you I was positively frightened.
All in a minute his face changed, his eyes flashed, he broke into such a
torrent of abuse as I never heard in my life before."

"Do you mean that he abused you?"
"Dear me, no! but Russia and the Czar, and tyranny and despotism, and
many other things I had never heard of. I tried to calm him down and
reason with him, but I might as well have reasoned with the cockatoo in
the window. At last he caught himself up quickly in the middle of a
sentence, strode over to the piano, and began to play as he generally
does, you know, when he comes here. Well, would you believe it, my
dear! instead of improvising or playing operatic airs as usual, he began
to play a stupid little tune which every child was taught years ago, of
course with variations of his own. Then he turned round on the
music-stool with the oddest smile I ever saw, and said, "Do you know
that air, Mrs. O'Reilly?"
"'Yes," I said; "but I forget now what it is.'"
"'It was composed by Pestal, one of the victims of Russian tyranny,"
said he. "The executioner did his work badly, and Pestal had to be
strung up twice. In the interval he was heard to mutter, 'Stupid country,
where they don't even know how