The Real Thing | Page 5

time
that I guessed at an underlying sense--their consolation in
adversity--that they HAD their points. They certainly had; but these
advantages struck me as preponderantly social; such for instance as
would help to make a drawing-room look well. However, a
drawing-room was always, or ought to be, a picture.
In consequence of his wife's allusion to their age Major Monarch
observed: "Naturally, it's more for the figure that we thought of going
in. We can still hold ourselves up." On the instant I saw that the figure
was indeed their strong point. His "naturally" didn't sound vain, but it
lighted up the question. "SHE has got the best," he continued, nodding
at his wife, with a pleasant after- dinner absence of circumlocution. I
could only reply, as if we were in fact sitting over our wine, that this
didn't prevent his own from being very good; which led him in turn to
rejoin: "We thought that if you ever have to do people like us, we might
be something like it. SHE, particularly--for a lady in a book, you
know."
I was so amused by them that, to get more of it, I did my best to take
their point of view; and though it was an embarrassment to find myself
appraising physically, as if they were animals on hire or useful blacks,
a pair whom I should have expected to meet only in one of the relations
in which criticism is tacit, I looked at Mrs. Monarch judicially enough
to be able to exclaim, after a moment, with conviction: "Oh yes, a lady
in a book!" She was singularly like a bad illustration.

"We'll stand up, if you like," said the Major; and he raised himself
before me with a really grand air.
I could take his measure at a glance--he was six feet two and a perfect
gentleman. It would have paid any club in process of formation and in
want of a stamp to engage him at a salary to stand in the principal
window. What struck me immediately was that in coming to me they
had rather missed their vocation; they could surely have been turned to
better account for advertising purposes. I couldn't of course see the
thing in detail, but I could see them make someone's fortune--I don't
mean their own. There was something in them for a waistcoat-maker,
an hotel-keeper or a soap-vendor. I could imagine "We always use it"
pinned on their bosoms with the greatest effect; I had a vision of the
promptitude with which they would launch a table d'hote.
Mrs. Monarch sat still, not from pride but from shyness, and presently
her husband said to her: "Get up my dear and show how smart you are."
She obeyed, but she had no need to get up to show it. She walked to the
end of the studio, and then she came back blushing, with her fluttered
eyes on her husband. I was reminded of an incident I had accidentally
had a glimpse of in Paris--being with a friend there, a dramatist about
to produce a play--when an actress came to him to ask to be intrusted
with a part. She went through her paces before him, walked up and
down as Mrs. Monarch was doing. Mrs. Monarch did it quite as well,
but I abstained from applauding. It was very odd to see such people
apply for such poor pay. She looked as if she had ten thousand a year.
Her husband had used the word that described her: she was, in the
London current jargon, essentially and typically "smart." Her figure
was, in the same order of ideas, conspicuously and irreproachably
"good." For a woman of her age her waist was surprisingly small; her
elbow moreover had the orthodox crook. She held her head at the
conventional angle; but why did she come to ME? She ought to have
tried on jackets at a big shop. I feared my visitors were not only
destitute, but "artistic"-- which would be a great complication. When
she sat down again I thanked her, observing that what a draughtsman
most valued in his model was the faculty of keeping quiet.
"Oh, SHE can keep quiet," said Major Monarch. Then he added,
jocosely: "I've always kept her quiet."
"I'm not a nasty fidget, am I?" Mrs. Monarch appealed to her husband.

He addressed his answer to me. "Perhaps it isn't out of place to
mention--because we ought to be quite business-like, oughtn't we?--
that when I married her she was known as the Beautiful Statue."
"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Monarch, ruefully.
"Of course I should want a certain amount of expression," I rejoined.
"Of COURSE!" they both exclaimed.
"And then I suppose you know that you'll get awfully tired."
"Oh, we NEVER get tired!" they