The Lesson of the Master | Page 5

years
service abroad.
"And now you remain in England?" the young man asked.
"Oh yes; I've bought a small house in London."
"And I hope you like it," said Overt, looking at Mrs. St. George.
"Well, a little house in Manchester Square - there's a limit to the
enthusiasm THAT inspires."
"Oh I meant being at home again - being back in Piccadilly."
"My daughter likes Piccadilly - that's the main thing. She's very fond of
art and music and literature and all that kind of thing. She missed it in
India and she finds it in London, or she hopes she'll find it. Mr. St.

George has promised to help her - he has been awfully kind to her. She
has gone to church - she's fond of that too - but they'll all be back in a
quarter of an hour. You must let me introduce you to her - she'll be so
glad to know you. I dare say she has read every blest word you've
written."
"I shall be delighted - I haven't written so very many," Overt pleaded,
feeling, and without resentment, that the General at least was vagueness
itself about that. But he wondered a little why, expressing this friendly
disposition, it didn't occur to the doubtless eminent soldier to
pronounce the word that would put him in relation with Mrs. St.
George. If it was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt - apparently
as yet unmarried - was far away, while the wife of his illustrious
confrere was almost between them. This lady struck Paul Overt as
altogether pretty, with a surprising juvenility and a high smartness of
aspect, something that - he could scarcely have said why - served for
mystification. St. George certainly had every right to a charming wife,
but he himself would never have imagined the important little woman
in the aggressively Parisian dress the partner for life, the alter ego, of a
man of letters. That partner in general, he knew, that second self, was
far from presenting herself in a single type: observation had taught him
that she was not inveterately, not necessarily plain. But he had never
before seen her look so much as if her prosperity had deeper
foundations than an ink-spotted study-table littered with proof-sheets.
Mrs. St. George might have been the wife of a gentleman who "kept"
books rather than wrote them, who carried on great affairs in the City
and made better bargains than those that poets mostly make with
publishers. With this she hinted at a success more personal - a success
peculiarly stamping the age in which society, the world of conversation,
is a great drawing-room with the City for its antechamber. Overt
numbered her years at first as some thirty, and then ended by believing
that she might approach her fiftieth. But she somehow in this case
juggled away the excess and the difference - you only saw them in a
rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the conjurer's sleeve. She was
extraordinarily white, and her every element and item was pretty; her
eyes, her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands, her feet - to which her
relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great publicity - and the
numerous ribbons and trinkets with which she was bedecked. She

looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to church and then
had decided they were too good for that and had stayed at home. She
told a story of some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had treated
the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation to a purchase she had
made in Paris - on her way back from Cannes; made for Lady Egbert,
who had never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of a
tendency to figure great people as larger than life, until he noticed the
manner in which she handled Lady Egbert, which was so sharply
mutinous that it reassured him. He felt he should have understood her
better if he might have met her eye; but she scarcely so much as
glanced at him. "Ah here they come - all the good ones!" she said at
last; and Paul Overt admired at his distance the return of the
church-goers - several persons, in couples and threes, advancing in a
flicker of sun and shade at the end of a large green vista formed by the
level grass and the overarching boughs.
"If you mean to imply that WE'RE bad, I protest," said one of the
gentlemen - "after making one's self agreeable all the morning!"
"Ah if they've found you agreeable - !" Mrs. St. George gaily cried.
"But if we're good the others are better."
"They must be angels then," said the amused General.
"Your husband