The Path of a Star | Page 7

her hair, a dainty
elaboration that spoke of the most approved conventions beneath, yet it
was impossible to mistake the freedom of spirit that lay in the lines of
her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran now and then into a
downrightness of movement which suggested the assertion of a
primitive sincerity in a personal world of many effects. Into her making
of tea, for example, she put nothing more sophisticated than sugar, and
she ordered more bread and butter in the worst possible rendering of
her servants' tongue, without a thought except that the bread and butter
should be brought. Lindsay liked to think that with him she was
particularly simple and direct, that he was of those who freed her from

the pretty consciousness, 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