The Path of a Star | Page 7

the elegant restraint that other people fixed upon her. It must be admitted that this conviction had reason in establishing itself, and it is perhaps not surprising that, in the security of it, he failed to notice occasions when it would not have held, of which this was plainly one. Alicia reflected, with her cheek against the Afghan wolf-skins on the back of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes that one could usually see things being turned over in them. She would sometimes keep people waiting while she thought. She thought perceptibly about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering eyelids to the floor. Presently she rearranged the rose in its green glass vase, and said, "Then it's impossible not to be interested."
"I thought you would find it so."
Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress sandwich upon a terrier. "Fancy your being so sure," she said, "that you could present her entertainingly!" She looked past him toward the light that came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her regard held him fast by the way.
"Anyone could," he said cheerfully. "She presents herself. One is only the humblest possible medium. And the most passive."
Alicia's eyes were still attracted by the light from the window. It silhouetted a rare fern from Assam which certainly rewarded them.
"I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more."
"Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?"
"Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; "but I'm not a bit satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. Wasn't it a little difficult to make her acquaintance?"
"Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour, and was charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address-- it's obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I explained to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here one was protected by the custom. And she received me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind from Calcutta. The truthful ring of it was pathetic, poor dear."
"That was in--"
"In February."
"In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up her divining-rod again. "One can imagine that she was grateful. People of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean--are rather stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;" and, with the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she added, "The arts conspire to be absent."
"Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine. But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she admitted it."
"What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded quickly. "I should be glad of a new one."
Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch of a finger light, but cold.
"I don't think she has ever told me," he said. "No, I am sure she has not." His reflection was: "It is her garment--how could it fit another woman!"
"But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me your impression."
He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but not without a shade of embarrassment.
"Perhaps. But having perceived, to pass on--it doesn't follow that one can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols."
The faintest look of disappointment, the lightest cloud of submission, appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face.
"Oh, I know!" she said. "You are making me feel dreadfully out of it, but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in connection with an actress."
There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them, and looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. He had the subtlest intimations with women.
"It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. "My continual wonder is that I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, would be embroiled with half his female relations by this time, and taking his third refusal with a haggard eye."
Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She lifted her head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty suddenly revealed.
"Why aren't you?" she said. "I wonder, too."
"I should like it enormously," he laughed. "I've lain awake at nights trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me. I think it must