He looked at her meditatively, even rather sadly.
"You are capable of everything in the way of friendship, I believe," he
said. "Even of making the bundle bigger with a husband's consent. A
husband's--I suppose the little Townly's upset? But she always is."
"When you're there. You don't know Evelyn. You never will. She's at her
worst with you because you terrify her. Your talent frightens her, but
your appearance frightens her even more."
"I am as God made me."
"With the help of the barber. It's your beard as much as anything else."
"What does she say of this affair? What do all your innumerable adorers
say?"
"What should they say? Why should anybody be surprised? It's surely the
most natural thing in the world for a woman, even a very plain woman, to
marry. I have always heard that marriage is woman's destiny, and though I
don't altogether believe that, still I see no special reason why I should
never marry if I wish to. And I do wish to."
"That's what will surprise the little Townly and the gaping crowd."
"I shall begin to think I've seemed unwomanly all these years."
"No. You're an extraordinary woman who astonishes because she is going to
do a very important thing that is very ordinary."
"It doesn't seem at all ordinary to me."
Emile Artois began to stroke his beard. He was determined not to feel
jealous. He had never wished to marry Hermione, and did not wish to marry
her now, but he had come over from Paris secretly a man of wrath.
"You needn't tell me that," he said. "Of course it is the great event to
you. Otherwise you would never have thought of doing it."
"Exactly. Are you astonished?"
"I suppose I am. Yes, I am."
"I should have thought you were far too clever to be so."
"Exactly what I should have thought. But what living man is too clever to
be an idiot? I never met the gentleman and never hope to."
"You looked upon me as the eternal spinster?"
"I looked upon you as Hermione Lester, a great creature, an extraordinary
creature, free from the prejudices of your sex and from its pettinesses,
unconventional, big brained, generous hearted, free as the wind in a
world of monkey slaves, careless of all opinion save your own, but humbly
obedient to the truth that is in you, human as very few human beings are,
one who ought to have been an artist but who apparently preferred to be
simply a woman."