"Aren't you a little hard on them?" I ventured.
"Now, am I?" she retorted. "Don't be a hypocrite. Am I?"
I said nothing.
"You know perfectly well I'm not," she answered for me.
"But I admire you," I said.
"You're different," she replied. "You don't belong to my world. That's
what pleases me in you. You haven't got that silly air of always being
ready to lay down your life for me. You didn't come in this morning
with a bunch of expensive orchids, and beg that I should deign to
accept them." She pointed to various bouquets in the room. "You just
came in and shook hands, and asked me how I was."
"I never thought of bringing any flowers," I said awkwardly.
"Just so. That's the point. That's what I like. If there is one thing
that I can't tolerate, and that I have to tolerate, it's 'attentions,'
especially from people who copy their deportment from Russian
Archdukes."
"There are Archdukes?"
"Why! the air is thick with them. Why do men think that a woman is
flattered by their ridiculous 'attentions?' If they knew how sometimes
I can scarcely keep from laughing! There are moments when I would
give anything to be back again in the days when I knew no one more
distinguished than a concierge. There was more sincerity at my
disposal then."
"But surely all distinguished people are not insincere?"
"They are insincere to opera singers who happen to be young,
beautiful, and rich, which is my sad case. The ways of the people who
flutter round a theatre are not my ways. I was brought up simply, as
you were in your Devonshire home. I hate to spend my life as if it was
one long diplomatic reception. Ugh!"
She clenched her hands, and one of the threads of the necklace gave
way, and the pearls scattered themselves over her lap.
"There! That necklace was given to me by one of my friends!" She
paused.
"Yes?" I said tentatively.
"He is dead now. You have heard--everyone knows--that I was once
engaged to Lord Clarenceux. He was a friend. He loved me--he died--my
friends have a habit of dying. Alresca died."
The conversation halted. I wondered whether I might speak of Lord
Clarenceux, or whether to do so would be an indiscretion. She began
to collect the pearls.
"Yes," she repeated softly, "he was a friend."
I drew a strange satisfaction from the fact that, though she had said
frankly that he loved her, she had not even hinted that she loved him.
"Lord Clarenceux must have been a great man," I said.
"That is exactly what he was," she answered with a vague enthusiasm.
"And a great nobleman too! So different from the others. I wish I
could describe him to you, but I cannot. He was immensely rich--he
looked on me as a pauper. He had the finest houses, the finest
judgment in the world. When he wanted anything he got it, no matter
what the cost. All dealers knew that, and any one who had 'the best'
to sell knew that in Lord Clarenceux he would find a purchaser. He
carried things with a high hand. I never knew another man so
determined, or one who could be more stern or more exquisitely kind.
He knew every sort of society, and yet he had never married. He fell
in love with me, and offered me his hand. I declined--I was afraid of
him. He said he would shoot himself. And he would have done it; so I
accepted. I should have ended by loving him. For he wished me to love
him, and he always had his way. He was a man, and he held the same
view of my world that I myself hold. Mr. Foster, you must think I'm in
a very chattering mood."